'Small-scale' Ink Painting

Wu Qiang depicts deep valleys and distant mountains on pieces of paper with dimensions similar to a ruler. In this way he continues the landscape art tradition of the Song-Yuan period, in which scroll paintings presented vast landscapes in a small portable form. These paintings should not be mistaken as ‘xiao pin’ (a typical genre of Chinese ink painting, small-size paintings in a very sketchy style). In fact, Wu Qiang paints in the spirit of Dong Qichang, the famous Ming artist and theorist, who exemplified the idea of “see the large in the small” in his remarkable painting album in which he faithfully reproduced the original masterpieces in reduced size. Though Wu Qiang’s paintings are small in size, their richness contains immensity.

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中国水墨画家の呉強（ウー・チャン）は、定規ほどの大きさの画面のなかで、宋元画にみる伝統的絵画観と、文人画家の董其昌（とうきしょう）が唱えた「小中見大」のエッセンスを受け継ぐ丘壑（山や谷）の景を描いています。ごくわずかな方寸のなかに万事を留めることで、最も格式と密度の高い水墨画を軽やかに一新しています。