Skipping Flowers by Pang Xunqin (庞薰琹). 1944. Watercolor on Paper.
Born in Changshu Xian in the Jiangsu Province, Pang Xunqin (1906–1985) began his study of Bird-and-flower painting at the age of eleven. After studying at the Académie Julian in Paris, Pang returned to China in 1930 and founded the Storm Society, China’s first modern art association that aimed to “create the world, which is staggered by colours, lines and forms with our crazy enthusiasm and sound reason.” Pang’s earlier works contained elements from Cubist, Art Nouveau and Post-Impressionist movements, the result of his participation and exposure to Parisian art circles. His later efforts, however, concentrated on traditional Chinese decorative and folk arts. In Skipping Flowers, Pang’s meandering rivers speak to the conventions of shan shui painting, but are rendered with a naturalism and three-dimensionality characteristic of Western painting, further reinforced by the vividly clothed figures in the foreground.
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