Qi Baishi's work "I know fish best" depicts small fish chasing bait, which Qi Baishi often did when he was young, so he can understand fish; When Qi Baishi was 77 years old, he painted "Ink Pig Going through Customs" because Qi Baishi had a heart of "herding you for 70 years". Qi Baishi painted those black dragonflies and red beetles because he remembered that the villagers called the black dragonflies "black women" and the little beetles "red lady", which were the grass bugs in the eyes of farmers and their aesthetic interests. The catfish painted by Qi Baishi is "more than a year", pomegranate symbolizes many children and many blessings, and peach symbolizes a long life, which is also a symbolic feature of folk art.
Qi Baishi's works, such as Zhong Kui, the birthday boy and the immortal Buddha, are also the objects that farmers talk about. This kind of works is the natural expression of Qi Baishi's homesickness complex and childlike interest, the desire to "pass on farm tools to my descendants", and the conscious confession of farmers' consciousness different from "passing on the family with poetry and passing on the family with books". When Qi Baishi painted "Cabbage Pepper", he was not only impressed by the contrast between red and black, but also indignant that "peony is the king of flowers, litchi is the first fruit, and cabbage is the king of vegetables". In the sentence of painting Chinese cabbage, Qi Baishi said, "It's not just the delicious roots, it's always the farmers." "It's not only Lao Ping who knows the taste, but all three generations of ancestors bite its roots." This is the confession of the old farmers in Farming Map. It is also Qi Baishi's undisguised self-affirmation of his true colors and essence.
Qi Baishi never wanted to be an official, was lazy in socializing, didn't mind his own business, and stood aloof from the world. He is always immersed in his artistic experience and hometown with a pure heart. Qi Baishi's rural heart, childlike innocence, peasant heart and local flavor in art are rooted in his working life. Qi Baishi is also cornered in art, which is the inevitable fate of humbly following the feelings of "Eight Mountain People". In essence, it is the result of the disharmony between Qi Baishi's mentality and the literati in the past. When Qi Baishi identified himself as a farmer, the natural information stored in previous years reached the bottom of the wrist, the tip of the tongue and the blade, and became new artistic information, abandoning the ancient artistic means of expressing emotions and creating artistic language and artistic forms to express Qi Baishi's unique feelings. The sincere expression of Qi Baishi's hometown heart, childlike innocence and peasant heart is the sincere and essential artistic expression of Qi Baishi. Qi Baishi's artistic expression of essence, self, reform, change of heart and essence is the profound connotation of Qi Baishi's "reform in his twilight years". Every plastic artist has his own aesthetic standards. When Qi Baishi painted morning glory, the leaves were all viewed from the front, the flowers were viewed from the side, and the buds were as straight as red candles. This is the unity of local consistency and overall momentum, which is the characteristic of modeling. The rich peony flowers, the soaring interest of palm trees, the mud toy style of tumblers, the roundness of cattle and its back, the long and narrow shape of shrimp and its side, the eyes and bearing structure of owls are all related to the shape of objects and the way artists feel. Qi Baishi's ability to describe fine grass insects is due to the fact that folk craftsmen show off their skills. The appearance of those thick brush branches and leaves in the same frame embodies the beauty of contrast, which is determined by the complexity of Qi Baishi's dual personality as a farmer and scholar.
Qi Baishi's famous painting language about modeling-"Where is the beauty of painting?" It is not only Qi Baishi's modeling view, but also his aesthetic interest in communicating secularism and literati in the whole artistic style. It is neither kitsch nor crazy choice to cheat the world and steal fame. Like Qi Baishi's fair view, the interesting modeling between likeness and absurdity is the middle point of the modeling scale and aesthetics chosen by this artful and minimalist artist, who works at two extremes respectively, but finally refuses to stick to either extreme. In his later years, Qi Baishi's increasingly simplified painting style strengthened the shape of "likeness" and the dominant position of "spirit", and reached the realm of simpler brushwork and more complete spirit. Qi Baishi's "confusion" in the last year of his life is also a rare confusion in art, a breakthrough in regular script brushwork and the highest realm for artists to dominate artistic images. Shanghai-style artists have made a breakthrough by strengthening color expression and comparing black with other colors. On the basis of Qi Baishi's Shanghai School, he boldly introduced the aesthetic characteristics of folk art to make the color tone more pure. Qi Baishi kept the feature that Chinese painting is dominated by ink and wash, and established the backbone of images. However, he often used bright and saturated colors on flowers, fruits, birds and insects, and combined literati freehand flower-and-bird paintings with folk clay toys to form a new artistic complex. The ink leaves, red flowers and green feathers in Qi Baishi's work "Lotus Pond Kingfisher", the burnt ink leaves and deep red flowers in "Lotus Pond Yuanyang", the synthetic color feathers of black, yellow and green, and the ink leaves, yellow gourd and red ladybug in "Good Job" are all typical colors of Qi Baishi. It belongs to both form and content, because it is a refinement of the color of the pastoral scenery itself and a warm expression of homesickness. When Qi Baishi painted shrimps, he not only skillfully showed the structure and texture of shrimps with ink color and pen marks, but also described shrimps whiskers and long-arm pliers with stone-like brushstrokes, which made the structure of pure ink color rich in meaning and wonderful skills.
Qi Baishi attaches great importance to the composition of points, lines and surfaces, so there are many wonderful laws and rhythms of life. When Qi Baishi copied the ducks of Badashanren, he changed the picture album into a four-foot banner, with three feet carved vertically on it, revealing Qi Baishi's whimsy in composition. In the painting "Chickens", the lower fifth painted only three chickens, the left fifth was poor, and the three points echoed in a line, turning that vast blank into living space; In the Lotus Dragonfly, the intersection of a four-foot-long vertical line and a one-foot-long diagonal line completes the rhythm of Qiu Si, which is very simple. This is Qi Baishi's fantastic structure. In the picture of fish and shrimp, the movement rhythm produced by the arrangement of a line also reflects Qi Baishi's composition thought. The centripetal rhythm in the work Little Fish Comes, and the combination of two circles (lotus leaves) and a set of diagonal lines (swimming fish) in Lotus as Fish are the traces of Qi Baishi's inner life rhythm. In Song Ying, Wisteria, Petunia and other works, Qi Baishi is good at using complex linear changes to create complex melodies. The poem titled "Song" reflects the snake, and the song dry Long Zaitian; The inscriptions "Don't solve the problem if it's chaotic" and "Old vines fly every year" all express the aesthetic feeling of unique images. Comparing tender lotus, summer lotus and residual lotus, it is obvious that Qi Baishi is good at using pen and ink, and also makes good use of the rhythm and combination of lines to express different atmospheres. This wonderful composition has Qi Baishi's skill, and this unique skill is related to Qi Baishi's unique pursuit of inner beauty. The big lines and seven short lines that make up the seal script in the works of firewood rake are provided by the image of firewood rake, the embodiment of Qi Baishi's "peasant" nature of painting with firewood rake, and the product inspired by the desire of "passing on farm tools to my descendants". Appreciating Qi Baishi's paintings of shrimp, mountains, vegetation, chickens, ducks, fish and insects will be treated as people with life and emotion. The two chicks in Qi Baishi's Daily Talk are two children who quarrel today and make up tomorrow. The mouse in the work "Claim" is a child who likes to weigh himself in life! It was Qi Baishi's early practical joke to tie the frog's leg with grass and watch it cry and struggle. Qi Baishi's way of thinking in painting is the same as that in poetry. In his poems, Qi Baishi regards the pear blossoms in the spring rain as other people's tears. If you are sentimental, you should remember to plant trees together. "Poetry, is also the same idea. It is not only personification, but also a personification with emotion, and it is also the spiritual sustenance of Qi Baishi. Especially in chickens, frogs, tadpoles, sparrows, mice and other small animals, Qi Baishi's childlike innocence, his nostalgia for children's life, his innocence and cuteness are the most obvious. In this kind of works, we can see that the folk art atmosphere maintained by Qi Baishi from the root is not only anthropomorphic, but also full of artistic humor. Qi Baishi realized the mystery.
When Qi Baishi painted a picture of making a fortune, he chose abacus as an image opportunity. The sinister intention of "asking for money and not letting danger go" contained in "Benevolence" is more subtle and meaningful than the god of wealth, clothes and hats, and knives and guns. Qi Baishi felt the corruption of officialdom and took the tumbler as a symbolic image. The irony produced by homonym and humor is more interesting and profound than directly depicting the image of a corrupt official. Qi Baishi compared the rampant invaders to the rampant crabs; Drawing a cold bird contains the belief that the spirit is not cold, which, like "Tumbler", is a wonderful comic thinking. This is Qi Baishi's artistic humor, and it is also a kind of vigilance shown by Qi Baishi in the era environment where he can't directly resist, like the two generations of Uygur wisdom stars.