Shrimps

Qi Baishi (1864-1957, born in Xiangtan, Hunan) was most adept at capturing natural features of ordinary biological beings. Grass, insects, fish and shrimps are vivid and lifelike in his paintings. In this painting, the painter used water blush to depict shrimps’ moist and elastic bodies, one section in one brushstroke, and also create shrimps’ leaping or straight swimming vivid dynamic state. In the painting, the shrimps are well arrayed, some in two or three, some in a cluster swimming downstream; shrimps on the right edge of the picture are not fully painted, indicating that a large number of shrimps are about to flood into the picture and swim along the stream. The painter used Jin-Shi brushworks (Jin-Shi brushwork is a brush style likes the brushes carved on ancient bronze and stone) to depict shrimps’ long clamps, which are powerful and alert, presenting these shrimps trying to swim pass one another. There is no water in this painting, but it makes people feel like it is full of water, thanks to the painter’ s depicting texture and dynamic state of shrimps group and composition of "a picture beyond". Though the picture elements are simple, it is enough to leave people with endless interest.