.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This painting was executed at the apex of Qi Baishi's career, dated to 1948 in the last decade of his life. Qi has used bold variation in ink and colour washes to convey the volume of the chicks' plumage. Their fluffy bodies are arranged in three discrete groups across the painting surface. Each group is positioned above the other, repeatedly redefining the viewer's perception of pictorial space.
While these colourful young birds appear wholly unthreatening to the painting's human viewers, their attention is unilaterally focused on an earthworm in the lower register, rendered in a terse calligraphic line of pinkish brown pigment. This invertebrate is surrounded by a group of hungry chicks, whose sharp beaks all point toward their prospective prey. Through the subtle insertion of this single feature, Qi transforms these innocuous avian infants into towering predators, subverting the viewer's perception once again.
This lot comes from the same collection as a group of paintings sold at Christie's King Street, 7 November 2017 (lots 350-354).
While these colourful young birds appear wholly unthreatening to the painting's human viewers, their attention is unilaterally focused on an earthworm in the lower register, rendered in a terse calligraphic line of pinkish brown pigment. This invertebrate is surrounded by a group of hungry chicks, whose sharp beaks all point toward their prospective prey. Through the subtle insertion of this single feature, Qi transforms these innocuous avian infants into towering predators, subverting the viewer's perception once again.
This lot comes from the same collection as a group of paintings sold at Christie's King Street, 7 November 2017 (lots 350-354).