A Manchu by birth, Gao Qipei was one of the few foreigners in the Qing period
able not only to absorb Chinese culture but to gain a measure of respect
from other Chinese painters for his accomplishments. Gao found the new
expansive, individualistic style that had emerged around the Jiangnan region
in the second half of the seventeenth century especially congenial, and
by exploiting a special technique of painting that employed the fingers
and fingernails in place of the brush, he won widespread recognition for
his highly expressive works of art.
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This painting of a solitary quail, from an album of bird-and-flower studies
after earlier masters, is typical of his finger painting style: in places
the finger dipped in ink is evident, in others the sharper, scratchy lines
of the fingernail are apparent. The subject of a lone, fretful-looking quail
seemingly isolated in a stark environment is one that earlier painters had
explored using the traditional brush technique. Under Gao's fingers, the
subject seems fresh and charged with a new energy. |
