Chinese Art Chinese Painting

Qi Baishi Wikipedia

Image:USSR Stamp QiBaiShi Portrait.jpg|right|thumb|Qi Baishi portrait on a USSR stamp

Q? B?ish? (齊白石, also Ch'i Pai-shih) (January 1, 1864 - September 16, 1957) was a Chinese painter.

Born to a peasant from Xiangtan, Hunan, Qi be became a carpenter at 14, and learned to paint by himself. After he was 40-year-old, he went around China to visit famous sceneries and lived in Beijing after 1917. In his later years, he still made "late-year innovations".

He was the most noted contemporary Chinese painter for the whimsical, often playful style of his watercolor works.

His pseudonyms include Q? Hu?ng (齊璜) and Q? W?iqīng (齐渭清). His paintings included almost everything, such as animals, scenery, figures, toys, vegetables and so on. His theory is "Paintings must be something between likeness and unlikeness, very like to today vulgarians, very unlike to cheat popular people". In his later years many of his works depict mice, shrimp, or birds.

He was also good at seal carving and called himself "the fortune of three hundred stone seals".

In 1953 he was elected to the president of the Association of Chinese Artists. He died in Beijing in 1957.

See also: Chinese painting

Last Modified:   2005-04-13