Outlining And Light Crimson Coloring

Li Gonglin’s Five Horses has been elusive since it left the imperial palace of the Qing Dynasty,with only Collotype black-and-white images to support relevant studies.In January 2019,the Tokyo National Museum in Japan exhibited the original Five Horses for the first time.Its painting style of "outlining with ink lines and light crimson coloring" is quite different from the traditional line-drawing styles,which has attracted great attention from the academic community.This painting style has a long history of development,from the "Zhu and Xuan Colors" in the pre-Qin period,the "simple and light" painting style in the Wei and Jin Dynasties,"simple and light coloring" stressed by Wu Tao-tzu in the Sui and Tang Dynasties,to "plain coloring" for paintings which said by Su Shi.By inheriting this painting style,Li Gonglin’s Five Horses is a masterpiece regarding techniques and cultural character.This paper firstly describes the development path of "outlining with ink lines and light crimson coloring".It then analyzes how Li Gonglin inherited and integrated "coloring" and "outlining","mural painting" and "scroll painting" to realize the pioneering transformation of his personal style,from the aspects of brushwork,modeling,materials,and forms.This paper aims to provide a new perspective on traditional painting appreciation by exploring the painting style of Five Horses.