Guan Guangzhi

Background

Guan Guangzhi was born in 1896 Jilin, China to a common family.

Education

At an early age, Guan Guangzhi graduated from Shenyang Art School.

In 1931, Guan Guangzhi went to England for further study, and he was the first Chinese student to study at the Royal Academy of Arts. The watercolor painting and copperplate etching were what he specialized in. During his study abroad, Guan also observed and studied artworks of France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Soviet Union, Spain, and Greece, absorbing the essence of European plastic arts in a comprehensive way. He was then deeply influenced by western fine arts in Renaissance and later periods, especially arts of Modernism, Radical Romanticism, and Impressionism from the 18th to 19th century. On the one hand, Guan Guangping assimilated the unique style of British watercolor paintings carefully where he mainly focused upon the British master Turner’s artistic form of expression that was realistic and romantic, apparent and weighty. On the other, he also learned from Watercolor King of French Vignal’s style of solemnity and harmony and Impressionist art’s color, charm and shadow effects. In other words, Guan Guangzhi’s watercolor paintings to a large degree caught the essence and soul of traditional European watercolor, especially British watercolor.

Later he learned printmaking from Lekam Ausbin.

Career

The architectural paintings of Guan Guangzhi have already been well-renowned since the early 20th century, attracting a large number of audiences and overseas collectors. As a professional Chinese watercolor painter of the first generation, Guan Guangzhi made the indispensable watercolor master of the 20th century in Chinese art history. He was one of the pioneers who explored architectural art education at an early time in China, and hence was сo-called “South Li, North Guan” with the watercolor master Li Jianchen.

Guan Guangzhi taught in Yenching University, Beiping Art School, Jinghua Art School, Fu Jen Catholic University, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Tsinghua University (he was a professor in the Architecture Department of Tsinghua University) and other famous colleges and universities, fostering numerous students and gaining waves of compliments as well. In January 1958, Guan Guangping died of illness at the age of 62 in Peking Union Medical College Hospital. It was the prime time for Guan Guangping when his experiences got resourceful, skills daily polished and art achievement spilled over painting circles. Nevertheless, life is fated, no more, no less. Everything stopped in a sudden, putting people in a mood of gloom. Touched by time, the past was buried in oblivion. However, Guan Guangzhi’s glow of art is still radiating its hard-to-hide charm and grace.

Achievements

• Guan Guangzhi was a pioneer of using water powder painting to present architecture sceneries and one of the pioneers of European style water painting in China. As an educator, he prepared a number of prominent Chinese masters of the following generation.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Bridge

    1953

  • Wall

    1950

  • Still life

    1948

  • Huxin Pavilion

    1953

  • Landscape

    1944

  • Landscape

    1946

  • Pagoda

    1948

  • Old temple door

    1952

  • Landscape

    1951

  • Zhongshan Park

    1955

  • Old Beijing

  • Temple of Heaven

    1956

  • Bridge

  • Bridge

  • Untitled

  • Untitled

Views

Guan Guangzhi is an artist with sensitive insight. He is an often thinker and practitioner, possessing a potent national pride in his own mind. In the mid-1930s ever since his return from abroad, Guan Guangzhi had been unremittingly exploring the mixture of watercolor and gouache for a long time. Entirely different from common gouache in which silty pigment is used on white water paper, he created gouache paintings in his own way. More accurately, his watercolor works are opaque, because he used watercolor paper or linen and took watercolors as the basic pigment, merely containing gouache’s trait of opaqueness.

Guan Guangzhi has been fond of painting since his childhood, during which he copied Master Seed Garden, Chen Laolian’s Shuihu Leaves, and also made a good deal of line drawings, thus laying the foundation for traditional Chinese paintings. While teaching in Yenching University, he often discussed art painting theories with traditional Chinese painters Fu Xuezhai, Chen Bandin, Chen Yuandu, Ma Jin and so on in Beijing, and therefore became painting friends with them, sharing their ideas frequently. The literati painter Chen Shi thought highly of Guan Guangzhi’s works. Chen has ever made the copper ink box on which emerald bamboos were painted, and entitled it Early Rain in Xin Huang as a gift for Guan in person. As a memory, Guan Guangzhi treasured it up all the time. The painter he revered most was Xu Wei, whose painting Peony and Bamboo earned Guan’s appreciation and compliment. Besides, Guan Guangzhi appreciated Hua Xinluo and Zheng Banqiao as well. According to Guan Naiping, the eldest son of Guan Guangzhi, Guan Guangzhi often sat still and concentratedly refreshed both his body and mind in front of his favorite calligraphic couplet written by Huang Yi in Qing Dynasty - “Observe the water and stone in the leisure time; feel the wind and tweedle to the peaceful mind”. Particularly impressively, inside the living room Guan Guangzhi liked appreciating painting works and discussing books and truth with his friends over tea time here, stood a shelf on the wall full of traditional classic books including Twenty-Four History, Thirteen Confucius Classics, and he usually stood here with books on his hands. Although as an artist learning western paintings during his overseas study, Guan Guangzhi had been greatly influenced by the extensive and profound traditional Chinese culture and glamouring Chinese paintings that deeply rooted in his heart at a very early age, and his cause of art exploring was much enlightened and fed by it as well.

Learning from Chinese freehand brushwork, Guan Guangzhi’s every stroke in his watercolor is not only free and easy, but also solemn and powerful. Inspired by Chinese Gongbi, in his draft he would spend several days painting the nature, drawing lines in the place of abundant natural things so as to finish line drawing as in Chinese Gongbi, and then he would color it up. Enlightened by Chinese heavy-color paintings, in coloring he would adopt British transparent watercolor as the basic pigment, and also add some mineral pigments of Chinese paintings like azurite, mineral green, cinnabar and so on if necessary. Guan Guangzhi’s technique of painting watercolor - “leaving space for color fulfillment” - earns him the most reputation. In this technique, many black lines appear on two sides after the besieged part in light color is colored, which was inspired by Austrian painter Schiller’s works. But actually, it should derive from the earlier origin - “double strokes for coloring” of Chinese Gongbi. The dense Chinese flavor, Chinese power, and Chinese aesthetic insight are apparently shown in Guan Guangzhi’s watercolors, including opaque watercolor paintings. With hardness and softness mingled in strokes, his paintings are filled with colors and flavored mellowness, giving people a sense of freshness and tranquility. Moreover, combing the savor and technique of British watercolor with the charm and drawing style of Chinese paintings, his watercolor harbors a strong sense of eastern aesthetics in the mixture of East and West, thus developing its uniqueness in the world.

Interests

• Artists

  Xu Wei

Connections

Guan Guangzhi was married and had a son Guan Guangzhi who would later become a prominent artist himself.

Son:

Guan Naiping

teacher:

Lekam Ausbin

References

• Wrote poetry world This book is the album of the artistic works by Guan Guangzhi and his son Guan Naiping.
  2014