Exhibition of Chinese Paintings & Calligraphies Wu Style Classical Drawing

Exhibition of Chinese Paintings and Calligraphies by Artists of Three Generations of the Wu’s Family: As a Chinese painter, his innovation to Chinese painting skills was based on his inheritance of traditional Chinese painting skills and was quite different with innovations, which did not follow any tradition, and which innovate directly and blindly. In this article, you may also learn Wu style Chinese Calligraphy Art.

Chinese Painting Exhibition in China

I got to know Brother Wu Zuguang and Sister Xin Fengxia in the 1950s. The first time I visited them, I went with Brother Zhang Guangyu and Ye Jianyu; it seemed something happened yesterday when I recall it now. The couple were frequently wronged and their good and hard lucks in life make all friends jealous, sympathetic and sad. They were the real golden boy and girl or scholar and beauty of the last century in the circle of culture; they were a pair of kind and honest husband and wife; their achievements in arts were universally accepted; Brother Wu Zuguang’s superb talents and uprightness together with Sister Xin Fengxia’s unequalled beauty and smartness stroke a magnificent brush in the history of contemporary Chinese art and culture.

Xin Fengxia was a tender-hearted and gentle Ping Opera performer and she was persecuted to paralysis of half her body at the age of 47 and she died of illness at the age of 73 in 1998. Wu Zuguang, who was dauntless indomitable for almost all his life, became collapsed in spirits because his beloved wife passed away, and was seized with apoplexy twice within a year. Fengxi passed away gracefully and Zuguang was heroic in illness. Their feeling in death and life has distilled into a realm of absolute “beauty”.

Looking back at the past century, my old friends have mostly passed away; those who are still living are as scarce as morning stars. Since I have been Zuguang and Fengxia’s friend for half a century, when their son, Wu Huan, asked me to write an introduction for the exhibition of paintings and calligraphies by the artists of the three generations in the Wu’s family, I wrote the above because I felt I must do this. Now let me come back to our real story.

The Wu’s family is one of the few famous families of scholars that still has successors up to the present. The Grandfather of the family, Mr. Wu Jingzhou, graduated from Hubei Fangyan School run by the famous minister, Zhang Zhidong, of the late Qing Dynasty; he majored in English language and he was good at writing articles and poems, as well as paintings and calligraphies. At the age of 27, he participated in the establishment of “the Palace Museum” and he was a standing member. He worked as a specialized member of the Cultural Relics Assessment Committee and the editor of the Palace Museum Weekly and the Collections of Paintings and Calligraphies in the Palace Museum. He rendered his services to the establishment of the largest cultural gathering place of China. His landscape works absorbed the skills in Western painting and he was one of the earliest reformers in Chinese paintings. However, his innovation to Chinese painting skills was based on his inheritance of traditional Chinese painting skills and was quite different with innovations, which did not follow any tradition, and which innovate directly and blindly.

Wu Zuguang’s calligraphies have their origins in Shen Yimai. I learnt from Mr. Brother Huang Miaozi that when Zuguang was a boy, he once urinated on Mr. Shen Yimo, who was a good friend of his father; and thus he became Mr. Shen’s successor afterwards. He was commonly known as a “quiz kid”. He was smart and quick-witted when he was young. He is of uncommon brilliance and he is a real scholar of a calligrapher. This is also different with those calligraphers that have no literary taste at all.

Xin Fengxia was a beauty who was kind-hearted and especially smart. The first time I met her I had the feeling to have seen a fairy maiden. She was the stepdaughter of Qi Baishi, who was a gifted master of arts. Her paintings were of the orthodox Qi’s school, which were elegant and poised, just like her personality.

Wu Huan is the son of Wu Zuguang and Xin Fengxia. He was naughty, lovely, and talented when he was a boy. He was a troublemaker and HE often made his Mum feel helpless. Therefore, his father took him to me and let me teach him. Now he has made great achievements. I am happy that the Wu’s family has now a qualified successor. I also hope his Dad and my old friend, Wu Zuguang, take good care of his health.

Upon the approval of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Palace Museum decided to hold such an exhibition. This is a great event in the cultural circle and I wish the exhibition a complete success.