Lingnan Art

CEBU, Philippines - In celebration of Spring Festival 2011, the Confucius Institute at the Ateneo de Manila University spearheaded an exhibit of Chinese paintings and photographs last February 3-9 at the Exhibit Area 1 of the Ayala Center Cebu entitled "Bridging Past and Future".

The exhibit featured Lingnan-style artworks by members of the International Studies for Chinese Arts. The old art of Lingnan style advocates the importance of nature and life with realistic spirit and resonance, and has continued to create great impact on the contemporary development of Chinese paintings in China and other countries of the world.

Here in the Philippines, Master Hau Chiok, who heads the organization, taught for years this style of painting. His coffee table book which embodies 40 years of painting was also made available during the duration of the exhibit.

Master Hau Chiok has served as director, secretary general, consultant and judge at various art museums and art organizations in the Philippines and abroad.

It was learned after the ribbon-cutting ceremony last Feb. 4 that Hau studied painting under Lingnan school master Zhao Shao Ang of Hong Kong and Singapore master finger-painter Wu Zai Yan.

In 1965, he started teaching at the Minjiang Art Studio. Ten years after, he founded the Philippine Chinese Art Center, engaging in various art activities and teaching Chinese painting and calligraphy.

In 1980, he founded the Philippine Contemporary Chinese Art Association and the Lingnan Art Association of the Philippines.

He has then taught thousands of students of over 54 nationalities and has organized 33 group exhibits with his students. Hau is frequently invited to demonstrate and introduce Chinese art on TV, radio stations, newspapers, websites, universities and museums, this was further learned.

A winner of several art competitions, he was given the Jose P. Rizal Award for Excellence on Art and Culture by the Manila Times in 2004, presented by then President Gloria Arroyo. In 2006, he was conferred the title of Chinese Contemporary Master by the World Federation of Oversea Chinese Organizations in Beijing.

Moreover, it was learned from an article penned by Caroline Hau for Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia (August 2008 issue) that in the early twentieth century, as participants in Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolution to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, the three founders of the Lingnan School of Chinese painting --- Gao Jianfu, Gao Qifeng and Chen Shuren --- advocated the development of a "New National Painting" (Xin Guo Hua).

This movement held that artists "should derive inspiration directly from life and nature, experiment with and develop their own individual style, and propagate art education."

These Guangdong-based (hence, the name "Lingnan") artists learned traditional Chinese painting under the tutelage of noted late Qing artists Ju Lian and his mentor-cousin Ju Zhao.

"When the Meiji reforms transformed Japan into a modern, industrialized nation, many Chinese youth and intellectuals, dissatisfied with the ineffectual Qing Government, went to study abroad, especially in Japan, since it was nearer and culturally speaking closer to China," the article read.

"Gao Jianfu studied in Tokyo in 1907, Gao Qifeng studied with Japanese artist Tanaka Raisho, and Chen Shuren entered Kyoto Art Academy in 1906 and in 1913 obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rikkyo University in Tokyo. The three founders' early works were greatly influenced by Japanese painters such as Takeuchi Seiho, Yokohama Taikan, Hashimoto Gaho and others."

The aim of the Lingnan School is "not to uproot itself from Chinese tradition but to infuse new life and energy into an ancient art form that had become overburdened with mannerism and the copying of old masters, and to appropriate western and Japanese concepts through the expansion of subject matter and techniques for personal experimentation and expression." (FREEMAN)