The first feeling you have when looking at this painting is a strong sense of comfort and a natural and tranquil enjoyment. At this moment, you forget everything else, focusing all of your attention on the painting. Why? It is not the allure of a typical painting of pandas. Rather, it is the embodiment of the highest accomplishment in the art of painting-riveting charm and elegance together with a pure and extraordinary resonance. This painting of five pandas is a rare and precious work of art. Its layout harmoniously integrates emptiness and form, fully expressing a pure and fascinating appeal. The method applied by the artist combined the scattered perspective technique used in Chinese paintings with the logical three-dimensional spatial perspective used in Western paintings. The pandas were painted in fine brushwork, reflecting meticulous attention to detail and realistically capturing the vividness of their fur. In addition, the style of freehand brushwork was used to paint the surrounding trees and scene. The splash-ink technique applied to depict the surrounding scene provides a charming air of liveliness. This vivid combination of the surreal and the real makes this a painting of wondrous brushwork. With the two techniques of fine and freehand brushwork cohesively fused, this piece is totally free of mundane artistry commonly found in the surrounding scenery of panda paintings. This painting exhibits a scholarly style befitting a master of art. A sense of stiffness or rigidity typical of works by common artists is completely absent. We often see that paintings of pandas in fine brushwork inevitably contain some degree of mediocrity and unoriginality. Moreover, the fur of the pandas often conveys a sense of uncleanliness. Such brushwork does not express an air of freshness and purity that transcends the mundane. Why? The problem lies with the inability of such artists to depart from mediocrity in their techniques and frame of mind. That is because they do not possess scholarly knowledge and have not studied the four forms of Chinese poetry, the Chinese classics, history, and the commentaries. Thus, the surrounding scenes that they paint tend to reveal a mundane quality. Conversely, the surrounding scenes of this panda painting are truly unique. The artist portrays the vividly charming artistic essence of dual styles and three-dimensional space. The pandas are more beautiful than real ones and even better-looking and more lifelike than photographs of pandas. They exemplify utter beauty, elegance, purity and cleanliness, as if they had just bathed in pristine water. This composition is in the style of “Kuangxi.”
The “Kuangxi” Style Such paintings fuse rough and precise artistry. The roughest, most rigid, most vigorous brush strokes of the large-scale freehand style are masterfully combined with the fine, delicate brush strokes of the realistic style, resulting in elegance amid roughness. 獷細派——即是粗獷結合細微兩種不同技法,以最粗獷剛硬蒼勁的大寫結合微細工筆於一體,得之出神入化,曠中顯秀。