Autumn Hawk by Gao Jianfu

Ink and color on paper
167.5x78.5cm
Guangzhou Art Museum

GaoJianfu (1879-1951)
Originally called Gao Lun, native of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. He was a disciple of Ju Lian and a graduate of the Tokyo Art School After his return from studies abroad, he devoted himself to art education. He fused Japanese and Western techniques into his painting of landscapes, flowers and birds, animals and figures. He was one of the important pioneers of the modern Lingnan school of painting, with his emphasis on drawing from nature and his southern-China style of color and ink application. The painting features a black hawk perched on a branch, with its back toward the viewer, half raising its wings and looking downward. The lower right comer is occupied by cascading red leaves and the upper right a long, vertical inscription in a flying, twisting and turning cursive script. The representation of the hawk is strongly photographic, with no discernible trace of idiosyncratic brushwork; the existence of the exceedingly pale tree trunk is suggested only by the vine entwined on it and the red foliage. But for the ink strokes on the red leaves and the inscription recalling a traditional Chinese painting, it could pass for a watercolor.