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Lot Essay
“On a plateau with slender grass more verdant than the sky, the raven horse, descendant of dragons, stands still.”
- Pu Ru
“Although Daqian, who excelled in all thirteen categories of paintings, did not create many equestrian portraits, his unparalleled depictions of horses capture their spirits perfectly.”
- Wang Zhuangwei
Known for his mastery of diverse subject matters over an illustrious career, Zhang Daqian only depicted horses during a relatively short but transformative period following his return from Dunhuang at the end of 1943 until the early 1950s. For the artist, spirited horses in an archaistic style became a vehicle to experiment with colour and form, of which Black Horse After Liu Yongnian is exemplary. Painted in the summer of 1945 in Chengdu, the present painting focuses on a raven black steed grazing at the water’s edge, its foreshortened t orso elegantly bent and eyes gently gazing up at the viewer, the composition devoid of human presence. ‘The most revered horse paintings date to the Tang,’ Zhang Daqian contends, ‘for they capture not only the physiognomy, the movements, but also their psychology.’ While the horse’s prototype by the Northern Song nobleman-artist Liu Yongnian, named by the artist in his inscription, is likely lost, the stallion’s meticulously painted musculature recalls the venerated horse portraits by Han Gan (active in the 8th century), Li Gonglin (1041-1106) and Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322). The sensitivity with which he depicted the horse’s movement also reveals the artist’s intimate knowledge of the animal, having relied on them for transportation in northwestern China along the Silk Road.
A fine-brush masterpiece created at the peak of the artist’s early career, Black Horse After Liu Yongnian is the triumphant display of Zhang Daqian’s virtuosity and innovation. The Buddhist cave murals that he painstakingly studied and copied inspired him to revive the magnificent equine imageries of the Northern Wei and Tang dynasties, notably, in his Horse After Northern Wei Style dated 1946. Compared to compositions where the background is deliberately left blank, the steed in Black Horse After Liu Yongnian emerges from washes of unmodulated, malachite green, a mineral pigment expertly prepared and applied with precision and clarity. The jewel-like pasture is punctured only by the red leaves in the foreground and the earth fissures close to the horizon, and further complemented by the light azurite washes of the smaller rock forms. Such stunning treatment can be found in two other equestrian images by the artist: Black Steed, painted in the autumn months of the same year in the Chongqing Three Gorges Museum; and Horse and Groom, dated early 1946. The 1961 painting manual the artist compiled also contains a sketch of a horse in an almost identical pose.
- Pu Ru
“Although Daqian, who excelled in all thirteen categories of paintings, did not create many equestrian portraits, his unparalleled depictions of horses capture their spirits perfectly.”
- Wang Zhuangwei
Known for his mastery of diverse subject matters over an illustrious career, Zhang Daqian only depicted horses during a relatively short but transformative period following his return from Dunhuang at the end of 1943 until the early 1950s. For the artist, spirited horses in an archaistic style became a vehicle to experiment with colour and form, of which Black Horse After Liu Yongnian is exemplary. Painted in the summer of 1945 in Chengdu, the present painting focuses on a raven black steed grazing at the water’s edge, its foreshortened t orso elegantly bent and eyes gently gazing up at the viewer, the composition devoid of human presence. ‘The most revered horse paintings date to the Tang,’ Zhang Daqian contends, ‘for they capture not only the physiognomy, the movements, but also their psychology.’ While the horse’s prototype by the Northern Song nobleman-artist Liu Yongnian, named by the artist in his inscription, is likely lost, the stallion’s meticulously painted musculature recalls the venerated horse portraits by Han Gan (active in the 8th century), Li Gonglin (1041-1106) and Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322). The sensitivity with which he depicted the horse’s movement also reveals the artist’s intimate knowledge of the animal, having relied on them for transportation in northwestern China along the Silk Road.
A fine-brush masterpiece created at the peak of the artist’s early career, Black Horse After Liu Yongnian is the triumphant display of Zhang Daqian’s virtuosity and innovation. The Buddhist cave murals that he painstakingly studied and copied inspired him to revive the magnificent equine imageries of the Northern Wei and Tang dynasties, notably, in his Horse After Northern Wei Style dated 1946. Compared to compositions where the background is deliberately left blank, the steed in Black Horse After Liu Yongnian emerges from washes of unmodulated, malachite green, a mineral pigment expertly prepared and applied with precision and clarity. The jewel-like pasture is punctured only by the red leaves in the foreground and the earth fissures close to the horizon, and further complemented by the light azurite washes of the smaller rock forms. Such stunning treatment can be found in two other equestrian images by the artist: Black Steed, painted in the autumn months of the same year in the Chongqing Three Gorges Museum; and Horse and Groom, dated early 1946. The 1961 painting manual the artist compiled also contains a sketch of a horse in an almost identical pose.