Portraits and figure paintings of the revolution
By admin on 2014-12-29

As the Chinese art world begins preparations for a series of exhibitions next year to mark the 100th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911, Canadian-based Chinese artist Huang Shaoqiang is putting the finishing touches on a large-scale protect that will bring a series of portraits and figure paintings of the revolution to the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

As the grandson of Huang Xing, a pioneer of the revolution whose contributions helped overthrow the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Huang Shaoqiang felt it was his mission to capture this piece of history through a unique artistic way and has spent several decades deciding on his project and gathering materials.

Filled with the desire to reflect a number of important people who made significant contributions to the change in Chinese history, Huang is painting more than 100 figures, all of whom were part of the revolution and to a large extent promoted the democratic process of China early last century.

Quite different from traditional ways of creating an oil painting, that often involves using light and various pigments to portray a three-dimensional scene on canvas, Huang is depicting each figure with a single color, with a total of only five colors used in all of his works.

The five colors are red, yellow, blue, white and black, the exact colors of the five-color flag, the Republic of China national flag that was adopted in 1912 after the success in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and was used until 1928.

When Huang's works are arranged in the order of the flag's five colors and hung, the effect is a huge five-color flag when seen from a distance.

"It is hard to imagine the great revival of China without ending the feudal society that had lasted for thousands of years and the revolution of 1911 should be remembered by all Chinese offspring no matter where they live," Huang told the Global Times.

He added that he had been thinking about a project to commemorate the significant event for most of his life as he always wanted to show his respect to those who sacrificed during the revolution like his grandfather Huang Xing.

Huang Xing, one of the founders of the Kuomintang and the Republic of China, was among the most famous figures who devoted himself to overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and creating a republic in China. Together with Sun Yat-sen they are remembered as Sun-Huang due to their friendship and contribution to the revolution.

Once deciding on the exact project, Huang Shaoqiang said it was a daunting task to create the works, as each portrait required profound understanding of both appearance and personality traits.

Huang said that he traveled a lot in recent years for research and visited a number of museums and memorial halls of the revolution both in and out of China to look for related materials.

"I visited most of the museums and libraries in China, America and Canada with recordings of the event," Huang explained. "You can't just paint these figures simply without sound research."

Huang said that when painting the portraits he wanted to depict his subjects as they appeared in 1911, but it was quite hard for him to find reference materials of many of these figures during their youth, when the revolution occurred.

"What I'm doing is reflecting the history in my unique way," Huang told the Global Times. "Therefore, it is very important to get close to the real history as much as I can."

Another unique approach to Huang's work is his impartiality when choosing which figures to paint. Some were founders of the Kuomintang while others belonged to the Communist Party of China.

"No matter how the two parties' political opinions were different from each other, during the revolution they fought together for a new China and this is the real history," he said.

People with dubious reputations, such as Wang Jingwei and Yan Xishan, have also been included by Huang. Huang explained that although Wang betrayed his country during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45) and is generally called hanjian, "traitor to China," Wang was first an active revolutionary and once was jailed by the Qing court for plotting an assassination against the Regent, Prince Zai Feng.

"I'm not including him to say something good for him," Huang explained. "No matter how bad their reputations are, I am simply recording history during that time."