A Study On The Li Jike's Flower-and-Bird Paintings

Li Jike was fond of drawing when he was child. Later he was enrolled in National Art Academic School, which is now called Chinese Artistic Institute. After graduation, he devoted himself to teaching as his lifelong career. Meanwhile, apart from his teaching job, he was painstakingly engaged in the study and practice of painting, and made great achievement in the painting of the meticulous style. Following Mr. Pan Tianshou, his tutor, he believed that creativeness is of the most important in crafts and arts. He was inspired by the paintings in Tang Dynasty, which was also his model of painting. Mr. Li, however, spent more precious time exploring the vocabulary of paintings of lavish colors. This made him come to understand the core elements of the vocabulary in Jin&Tang paintings, on the basis of which he made great achievement in the turn from "traditional aesthetically" to "modern aesthetically". His paintings of flower-and-bird recover the tradition characterized by colors—"the practical style of painting of meticulous style and lavish color" This reminiscence of the traditional style of painting, in fact, is a result of his lifelong ongoing research of the painting of lavish colors. Such painting is elegant, delicate, and colorful in color, the line being innocent but energetic, the picture being sensational but no lack of natural looking. Combining with these features of such painting with lavish colors, Li's works, which is rich and bright, delicate and elegant, fresh and natural like an ancient beauty, but grand and marvelous, strong and powerful like men, move a step further and to a higher level compared with the traditional painting of the flower-and-bird of the meticulous style.Being a perseverant person, Mr. Li Jike had been working for the best of himself, pursuing perfect all his life. Never did he treat painting as his pastime, or the ornaments of his life, but concentrated himself on the study of painting with an attitude of down-to-earth, trying to express the true, fine, and the beautiful side of human being. Before liberation of China (before 1945), for example, his drawing of running horse without neck rope and parrot without iron string reflected his effort to rebel the dark society. After the found of People's Republic of China (in 1949), he passionately made large paintings, which represent his loving heart and sing of the praises of the promising, and prosperous of his motherland, China.