Oil on canvas

160 × 160.5 cm. 63 × 63 1/4 in.

Signed in pinyin and dated on bottom right; signed in Chinese and dated on the reverse

LITERATURE
2014, Qin Qi, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, p.86
EXHIBITED
8 Nov – 30 Dec 2014, Qin Qi Solo Exhibition, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing
16 May – 25 Jul 2015, Revision——5th Year Anniversary Exhibition of Mind Set Art Center, Mind Set Art Center, Taipei
16 May – 23 Jul 2017, Qin Qi Solo Exhibition, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing

PROVENANCE
Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing
Important Private Collection, Asia

The Grant Epic Poem, The Writing of the Past and Present
The Masterpiece by Qin Qi, the Pioneer of Chinese New Paintings

“Qin is a post-modernist. In his work, all boundaries or rules are ignored, while all styles and schools are adopted. Strolling along his work, I feel like taking a journey in the Masterpiece of Eugène Delacroix, with the characters played by modern actors.”
--Cancan Cui, Curator

Born in a family of modern artists in the middle 70s, Qin Qi performs his art with significant characteristics. As well as preserving the systematic style of modeling and performing acquired during his education in Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, he achieves a unique avant-garde style that is led by his brush strokes. Arising from his personal experience, his visual expression is set up as a combination of both reality and hallucination.

Starting from 1994, when Qin graduated from Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, through studying towards a graduate degree in the Department of Oil Painting in Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art, all the way up to 2002 when he was recruited as faculty after his graduation, Qin accumulated steady foundation of painting skills as well as fine arts history. This background enables him to vividly transition between skills in order to adapt to various themes. The theme of his art remains ever-changing, according to which his painting style adjusts. The grand personal exhibition of Qin that was held by Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, in 2010 awarded him the fame that he had long deserved. Becoming the pioneer of Chinese New Paintings, he gets his works collected by Minsheng Art Museum and Long Museum, Shanghai.

An Important Start of New Historical Landscape Paintings

Beginning in 2010, Qin changed his focus from still life to figure paintings, and blended the background into different time and spaces, launching his “New Historical Landscape Paintings” series, which became a landmark of his career. “Man Playing Violin”, created in 2013, is a significant milestone of this series. This work of art represents the artist's breakthrough on the skill of figure paintings, as well as the adoption and reevaluation of both Chinese and Western art history.

In “Man Playing Violin”, Qin uses rough strokes to depict the shapes of both the character and the musical instrument. Unlike the blurred outline that was usually adopted in his previous work, in this painting, the outline of the main character is clearly depicted. His body, leaning towards the left side, together with the violin bow in his hand that is reaching up, constitutes a whole extension of vertical movements, which respond to the surging waves of the ocean beneath him. At the same time, the artist puts thoughts into the arrangements of a lower skyline, giving the painting an atmosphere of the landscape being ever-

The Grant Epic Poem, The Writing of the Past and Present
The Masterpiece by Qin Qi, the Pioneer of Chinese New Paintings

“Qin is a post-modernist. In his work, all boundaries or rules are ignored, while all styles and schools are adopted. Strolling along his work, I feel like taking a journey in the Masterpiece of Eugène Delacroix, with the characters played by modern actors.”
--Cancan Cui, Curator

Born in a family of modern artists in the middle 70s, Qin Qi performs his art with significant characteristics. As well as preserving the systematic style of modeling and performing acquired during his education in Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, he achieves a unique avant-garde style that is led by his brush strokes. Arising from his personal experience, his visual expression is set up as a combination of both reality and hallucination.

Starting from 1994, when Qin graduated from Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, through studying towards a graduate degree in the Department of Oil Painting in Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art, all the way up to 2002 when he was recruited as faculty after his graduation, Qin accumulated steady foundation of painting skills as well as fine arts history. This background enables him to vividly transition between skills in order to adapt to various themes. The theme of his art remains ever-changing, according to which his painting style adjusts. The grand personal exhibition of Qin that was held by Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, in 2010 awarded him the fame that he had long deserved. Becoming the pioneer of Chinese New Paintings, he gets his works collected by Minsheng Art Museum and Long Museum, Shanghai.

An Important Start of New Historical Landscape Paintings

Beginning in 2010, Qin changed his focus from still life to figure paintings, and blended the background into different time and spaces, launching his “New Historical Landscape Paintings” series, which became a landmark of his career. “Man Playing Violin”, created in 2013, is a significant milestone of this series. This work of art represents the artist's breakthrough on the skill of figure paintings, as well as the adoption and reevaluation of both Chinese and Western art history.

In “Man Playing Violin”, Qin uses rough strokes to depict the shapes of both the character and the musical instrument. Unlike the blurred outline that was usually adopted in his previous work, in this painting, the outline of the main character is clearly depicted. His body, leaning towards the left side, together with the violin bow in his hand that is reaching up, constitutes a whole extension of vertical movements, which respond to the surging waves of the ocean beneath him. At the same time, the artist puts thoughts into the arrangements of a lower skyline, giving the painting an atmosphere of the landscape being ever-growing and the character being pushed forwards, delivering a powerful existentialist feeling to the main character.

Throughout the composition of the painting, Qin deliberately arranges pairs of items displaying complementary colours and forms. These delicate arrangements include: the musician's slim fingers and the long and gentle strings; the white tone on both his shirt and on the layers of ocean spray; the warm colours on both his wooden violin and his orange-reddish vest; as well as the creamy-gray trousers and the clouds with sunset glow on them. All these features project a delicate harmony, just like arrangements made by sonatas played by the violin, reaching a climax of a passionate melody.

The Epic of History, the Composition of Modernity

In “Man Playing Violin”, the creation of both the background and the figure incorporates classic works of art by famous artists in both Chinese and Western art history. For example, the scenery in Qin's work reminds the audience of “Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan”, a classic work of revolutionist art. It uses the narrative of borrowed scenarios to lead us into the utopia within the imaginary world of the artist. With the entangling of reality and fantasy, a voyage sets off towards a new world. The waves are violent yet ordered, followed by the music of the violin, performing an artistic dance within Qin's freestyled strokes. The musician in the front, with his clothes and hair flying, stares directly into the audience's eyes, resembling the soul of “The Desperate Man” by Gustave Courbet. The long and lean fingers on the strings mimic the hands that are made to stand out by a combination of light and shadow in “The Cellist, Self-Portrait” of Gustave Courbet. At the same time, the way that the knuckles are depicted resembles the sketches of Albrecht Dürer. Qin deeply understands and absorbs the delicate painting skills of Western masters, and combines them with national characteristics as well as local cultures, pouring Asian aesthetics and personal imagination into his art, and giving the main character a heroic feature filled with historical responsibility. The rough and active strokes, as well as the passionate waves in his painting, capture the ambition of helmsman, composing a powerful epic that makes the soul tremble. And thus, a historical masterpiece is created by Qin.

Price estimate:
HKD: 450,000 – 650,000
USD: 58,000 – 83,800

Auction Result:
HKD: 684,400