Countryside Pleasures

This set of six Qi Baishi works covers grapes and bees, loquat and cicada, red polygonum and cricket, chicks, crabs, and ink shrimp—all typical subjects. According to the inscriptions, they should be painted in the mid-1940s. The grapes are rendered in pale ink with the boneless technique, vines entwined and bees hovering among them; the loquat is washed in gamboge with branches and leaves swept in dense ink, a cicada perched on a branch; the red polygonum is painted with rouge for stems and tassels, the cricket outlined in fine brushwork, combining fine and freehand methods. The chicks, crabs, and ink shrimp are each executed in a single burst of dense and pale ink, concise in brush yet complete in form and spirit, fully expressing the old master’s artistic creed that “wonder lies between likeness and unlikeness.” Viewed together, the six leaves display varied subjects, seasoned brushwork, and a union of pastoral charm and literati refinement—a fine work of his later years.