Five horses

添加图片说明

Five horses

Keywords:

The northern song

Paper

26.9 cm long 205 cm wide

Collected by private before 2 world war,

Lost after the 2 world war

The collotype is collected in the Palace Museum

The art work splits into 5 parts, the first 4 parts have the writing of Huang tingjian who lived in the northern song, and the last one has the postscript written by him. The art work also have the postscript of other artists such as Zengyu in the northern Song. There are two places have postscripts written by empire Qianlong. And have 20 seals in the art work, one of them is “Leshoutang collected”
This piece of art work is kind of duty tribute. Each part with a man and a horse presented on the picture. According the postscript of Mr Huang, these five horses are named by the shape and color, they are phoenix head horse, flower arm horse, good head red horse, white lighten night horse , flowery back horse. They are all male which are tributes of the West Region are.
The first 3 men holding horses are looked like minority and also dressed in costume of minority of the West Region. They are in different posture and different with each other. The amazing thing is they have tiny different in minds. One is weather-beaten man being timid and over cautious; one is young holding halter with big strides; one is dressed in official costume overbearing. The horses are different in the size, height, color, but they are all meek which showed they are trained before. It is natural for the horses to be such manner and posture in this kind of art about tribute. Such as the words written in the Xuanhe art book, it says “when the artist Gonglin draws the painting, he always puts the mood at first, and puts the dress and other decorative thing on the second”. He wanted to express the characteristics of the horses and people. At first, the creativity of the artist is shown on the skilled technique in line drawing. He improved the technique of Bai-hua which was popular used in Wudaozi period in Tang Dynasty into other kind of technique named line drawing. Line drawing is a drawing skill which has more plentiful expressive ability. This piece of art work is a mark of establish this kind of drawing skill. The painting is black and white, but the viewer can sense the different texture and weight of the elastic skin, soft fur, strait dress, massive cotton wadded robe from the change of the line with different hardness, thickness, gradation, length and speed.
The artist drew the art work with light ink in the foundation of line drawing. The use of light ink helped the expressive force and it made the art effect being more complete. And it also shows the aesthetics of the painter which is understated, gentle and indifferent. Since then, almost all the line drawing about people and horses are all come from Ligonglin’s technique.
五马图

    【名称】：五马图
    【类别】书画
【作者】：李公麟（宋）
【年代】：宋
【文物现藏】：二战以前藏于私家，战后失踪，珂罗版藏于故宫博物院图书馆
【简介】


纸本，白描，纵：26.9cm，横：204.5cm
本幅无作者名款，共分5段，前 4段均有北宋黄庭坚的笺记，后纸有黄氏跋语，另有北宋、南宋初的曾纡跋，言及黄庭坚题于元祐五年（1090年）。幅上两处有乾隆帝的题文，钤有清“乐寿堂鉴藏宝”等印20方。
该卷系职贡类题材，作一人一马状。
据 黄氏题跋，5马依次为凤头骢、锦膊骢、好头赤、照夜白、满川花，皆为雄马，均是西域的贡品，分属宋廷的左骐骥院和左天驷监。前3位控马者为西域少数 民族的形象和装束，姿态各异，无一雷同，妙在其精神气质亦微异，有饱经风霜、谨小慎微者；有年轻气盛、执缰阔步者；有身穿官服、气度骄横者。马的造型因品 种而异，大小、肥瘦、高低、毛色各别，但性情都温顺平和，以示已被调教驯服。大凡画贡马的题材，马的神态和步态都是如此。如《宣和画谱》卷七所云：“大抵 公麟以立意为先，布置缘饰为次”，意在生动的表现人、马的性情。画家在艺术上的独创首先体现在纯熟的白描技法上，他把盛行于唐代吴道子时代的“白画”发展 为具有丰富表现力的画种--白描，本幅就是确立这一画种的标志。虽不着彩色，仍可使观者从刚柔、粗细、浓淡、长短、快慢的线条变化中感受到富有弹性的肌 肤、松软的皮毛、笔挺的衣衫、粗厚的棉袍等各不相同的质感和量感。
画家在白描的基础上微施淡墨渲染，辅佐了线描的表现力，使艺术效果更为完善，体现了文人画注重简约、儒雅和淡泊的审美观。自此之后，几乎所有的白描人马画无不源出于李公麟的白描艺术。