China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Dancing across canvas
Artworks reveal late artist’s skill in depicting people moved by music
Ye Qianyu (1907-95) stands out among the pantheon of modern Chinese artists. He didn’t train at a formal art school, yet carved out a niche with his talent, insight and diligence.
His classical Chinese-style work, A Great Unity of the Nation, is monumental. The piece created in 1953 depicts Mao Zedong and premier Zhou Enlai making a toast to the country’s future and being surrounded by dancing and singing people from different ethnic groups.
The painting, which is considered a classic of Chinese socialist realism, is now in the collection of the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.
Ye was good-looking and enjoyed a rich social life. His decadelong marriage to prominent dancer and choreographer Dai Ailian was another source of admiration for many.
Particularly popular are his sketches and paintings of dancers and local opera performers.
Visitors to the Ceaseless Self-Improvement exhibition at the China National Academy of Painting’s gallery in Beijing through Aug 31 can explore his legacy.
Dozens of sketches and colored-ink paintings review how he viewed life and captured the nuances of people, especially when they sing and dance.
The works are from the collection of the China National Academy of Painting, where he was a deputy director in the 1980s.
Ye started his career as an illustrator at advertisement agencies in Shanghai and strove to become a leading painter in the 1940s. He headed the Chinese painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in the early ’50s and stayed until 1983. He was also vice-chairman of the China Artists Association for years.
Ye began to paint dancers and Chinese opera performers in the 1930s, when he frequented theaters.
He once said: “I like people. Most of the time, I study people’s movements, moods, environments and relationships. I work hard to depict their bodies in motion.”
He gradually exerted more energy on painting figures.
His intensive journeys across the country to regions inhabited by ethnic groups, mostly in the 1950s, further broadened his outlook.
Ye once said: “I don’t deny the influence of traditional art, such as the dancers depicted in the murals of the Dunhuang grottoes. But, above all, it’s my strong interest in (dancing) that draws me to paint.”
His works reveal his studies of traditional art and folk cultures that he depicted with neat composition and vivid palettes. His paintings are hailed as colorful and animated.
He also employed sketching techniques and the bright, cheery styles of caricatures to give his paintings a modern touch and a sense of straightforwardness, which appealed to more audiences.
Ye is known for vigor and perseverance. It’s estimated he created over 25,000 sketches. He donated more than 420 sketchbooks to the National Art Museum of China.
His former assistant, artist Hu Wei, says Ye was “self-disciplined and committed to what he was doing”. He had diverse interests and believed it’s never too late to learn and continue self-improvement, Hu says.
Hu took care of Ye when he had cancer in his late life.
Hu recalls that Ye normally got up around 5 am and drank a cup of tea left over from the previous night. They’d then walk for nearly an hour, during which Ye talked about his past. Hu says that after Ye returned home, he wrote diaries that he’d kept for years and sketched.
People who knew Ye often mention that he always carried a sketchbook. He began to draw in the 1930s and sketched whenever and wherever he could.
The medium allowed him to quickly capture dancers’ flowing motions and changing emotions, and he often translated these sketches into paintings.
“I don’t like when people pose or sit up straight for me to paint,” he once said.
“They look nervous and unnatural. Their true emotions and thoughts are hidden, which appears really dull.
“Life and sketching are inseparable in my practice. The sketchbooks are my database of people’s forms and my diaries of the various images of life.”