31 Chen Hengque (1876-1923)
Album of Miscellaneous Paintings in an Elongated Format
1922
album of twelve leaves, ink and color on paper
each leaf 35.9 x 9.8 cm
Shanghai Museum
Chen Hengque, a native of Yining, Jiangxi,
was born into a scholarly family, where he learned poetry, calligraphy,
painting, and seal carving. He believed that although Western art was generally
characterized by excessive interest in formal likeness, the subjectivity
of post-impressionism had the potential of bringing European art closer
to the ideals of Chinese literati painting. This album, painted the year
before his premature death, is characteristic of the simplicity he sought
in his art.
Part of an early generation of students to be educated in the industrial
arts, Chen Hengque entered the South China
Technical School in Nanjing in 1898, where he was a classmate of the influential
writer Lu Xun. He attended teacher's college in Japan between 1902 and 1909,
where he studied Western painting and became close to the influential art
educator Li Shutong.
After his return to China, he held various posts in education, and became
Wu Changshi's disciple in painting. In spite of his mastery of Western painting,
he was a strong advocate of the need to preserve the practice of Chinese
painting.