Ma Lian Wang-Need Some Help

[rpfstoneman]

Front and back landscapes painted by Ma Lian Wang in 2005.  Just received this bottle a week or so ago, and need some help on the translation of the Chinese script.  Any help on the script and/or comments as to the quality of the art work would be appreciated.  The sheer amount of line work in these two paintings is incredible.  Don’t know anything about the artist. 

The two bottom pics show the bottle's true color scheme better.  In the buildings and some of the landscape features, and on the nine people depicted in the scenes, there is a very subtle use of colors in conjunction with the black ink work.







Thanks, Charll

[Lotus Flower]

that's amazing. how tall is it?

[rpfstoneman]

The height is 6.8 cm or 2 3/4 inches without the stopper. 

Charll

[Steven]

What a beauty:)

Signed" xiao wang" or little wang in English. the script can be read" Singing while walking, painted by xiao wang in Xi san art studio in 2005"

Steven

[George]

Beautiful bottle !

[hlbb]

Indeed beautiful paintings.  Except they are not original paintings by "Xiao Wang" or whoever he is.  One side was by Ma Yuan - 馬遠, the landscape master of South Song.  I think the other side is combination of scenes by Jing Hao - 荆浩, one of the old master from the Five Dynasties and Yan Wei Gui - 燕文贵, another master from North Song.

http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/2/1/31/c7436.htm
http://tech2.npm.gov.tw/sung/html/obw/t1_1_b01.htm


You can see the Ma Yuan was a straight copy, even the title was copied.

Call me old fashioned, but I frown at this type of behavior.  It is perfectly ok to copy an old master, but it is very important to attribute the source properly; at the very least not to pretend it is your own original work.  This bottle is indeed beautiful, but I personally would stay away because of the issue just described.

[Pat - 查尚杰]

Walter

Amazing that you found the original painting!  Thanks for the links. 

Sorry but I am a little bit at a loss here... even in the early and middle period, many or most of the paintings were copies.  They all did it, including masters, and yes also ZLY and DEZ, apparently.  How much truly original work is there in IP?  I really wonder. They literally use(d) anything, then as well as now. Whether inspired by, or copied from, the work is very good.   And to put it in a 2 x 1 inch space is nothing less than amazing. However, I do agree that if copied from, the source should be atributed.  Although this is getting less and less the case it seems.

Peter: for your DB: Xiao Wang = Ma Lian Wang  I did not find the artist in my (old) version of your db. Just a heads up.

[Steven]

Thanks Walter for the links, Its great we can have the original painting to compare with.

But Sorry I have to agree with Pat, I can accept it is  as the artist didn't attribute the source , as Pat mentioned most of inside paintings were not originals, and not so many bottles attribute the source properly. I think its a not the artist's intention to pretend it as an original. but If the artist can have an script" copy xxx's style " I sure will appreciate it more...

Steven

[Wattana]

I don't really care who the artist is, or that he copied the classical painters. This is a very fine bottle, that I would be proud to own.

Tom

[hlbb]

It would have perfectly ok if the artist just copied the painting, put his name on and dated the bottle.  It would be even better if he attributes the original in some shape or form, like using the phrase "copy" or "follow the style".

The problem here is he copied the complete painting, no alternation.  And he put a title, similar to the original one (copied the last 3 characters from the poem) and acted like it was his own creation by stating the location with which the bottle was painted.

Again, perhaps I am over sensitive as far as Chinese painting goes.  I know that most people do not care one way or the other.  Just want to give a little perspective for the members of the forum that while admiring the painting (not the technique) on the bottle, do understand it is just a copy of painting from about 1000 years ago. 

[Steven]

Hi Walter,

I totally understand you,  your love and deep understanding  of the Chinese traditional arts.

I guess the inside painting different kind of art form, as we know, the most of the old masters are not really artists, they are craftmans, that is why there are not so many painters can create their own originals, and also the inside paints were not recongzied as art pieces from the begining ,as we noticed that there  are more and more young artists are trying to have their own styles and more oringinals instead of coying the old art pieces and western arts.

Having said that, I really wish the young painters can have more creation on the new bottles, and even if they copy the old paintings, they should have  attributed to the originals, and we will have better understanding the painting too..

Steven

[rpfstoneman]

All,

Although I understand and agree somewhat with Walter's perspective on the copying of old art directly detail for detail, the Chinese have been doing this for centuries.  We often try to acquire these reproductions because there are great pieces of art in of themselves that are not otherwise available.  In the case of paintings and scrolls, and the like, there is only one original.  Yes, maybe there should be a copy right acknowledgment, but I’m not sure this is as big of a concern in China as it is in western culture. The Chinese have always looked back on their great art works and periods, and often made later reproductions in tribute to these, often detail for detail.  This is a common occurrence in the porcelain manufacturing trade throughout Qing period from what I’ve observed.   So why should snuff bottles be any different?  I have quite a few contemporary  IPB’s  with “Auspicious Floral and Trees”, the “Four Seasons”, birds and raptor, etc., designs that I’m sure are direct copies paying tribute to some past work.   

Regardless, I appreciated them for what they are, and the fun is trying to track down the source of inspiration, and in many cases an original work which was directly copied.  Further examples have been presented in past Forum discussions: http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,221.0.html

And.....Water, thank you o-so-much for taking the time to educate me, sharing your opinion, and providing the source of the paint with a reference.  As Peter would say, “pure gold”. 

Thanks all, Charll 

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

  While agreeing with Walter's distaste for the slipshod way the artist took credit, I wouldn't have refused to acquire this bottle. It is magnificent! Congratulations, Charll.
 I too wish it had said, "following the brush spirit" or similar, with proper homage to the original master whose work was being copied, but that's life.
Joey

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi  Charll

Ah...........  so  you   won this  bottle  at the   David  Osborne  auction  !  Well done  

I was  thinking  of bidding myself.  So happy that  it went to a  good  and loving home  

How much  did you  pay, if you don't  mind my asking?

Re  the  "copy old  master"   issue, I beg to  differ.  I can see  very little  resemblance   point  for  point  between  your bottle  and  the old  Master   canvas*  painting Walter     sent.  Sure there's the    strange  rounded  top  mountain  top peaks,      spindly trees  perched  on  the  tops and   hanging off the  sides  of  cliffs, and  a  pagoda  here  and  there.

( *For  "canvas"  , read  Chinese  art  paper )

But that's as  far  as   the likeness   goes.  

I have  a  dozen  bottles  all with  very   similar  characteristics   that one  could   equally  say are  a  "copy"  of  Ma Yuan  and/or  Jing Hao / Yan Wei Gui  .

The  most  one can say  is that   your  Ma Lian Wang  bottle  is  "inspired  by"  or  " in the  same  style as" these  classic  artists ,  as  indeed    are   dozens  of   MIPBs  these  days.

Many MIPB  artists  these  days have  actually have gone through    real   canvas    art school and  learned the  classic  painting styles, so of course they  tend to   draw  on  those  styles to  produce better and better  bottles ( and this  one  is  REALLY  good !)  

Very  few   MIPB artists  can  truly copy   1 -to-1  from   canvas  paintings :  Li  Shouxun is  one  such  artist

I have  commissioned  a  series   from  Li Shouxun  of  true  copies   of    abstract   landscapes  by a  very talented   canvas artist  :  Zhang Yumao  张 玉 茂  （you  can google  /  images   examples  of his  work) .  The  work  is  exceedingly   difficult and  it  took  LXS  a  couple  of  attempts  to  get  it  right , and each bottle  took him over   a month  ( a  younger  artist   also  tried    at least  twice  , but  failed   dismally  : I have  both   his  bottles  as  evidence )   .

I pay  LXS  US$2,000  per bottle  for  these  commissions , and they are  worth  every  cent .But these are  true  1 -to-1  copies.

Charll, in my opinion   you have a  real beauty,  and  don't  be  put off  that  it happens to  be  similar to  a   classical canvas   painting.   If anything, it  shows the   true  class of  Ma  Lian Wang  that   drew  on  these   classical  artists  for  inspiration

Cheers

Peter

[hlbb]

Eh, not trying to beat the dead horse; but the Ma Yuan is a straight copy.  No but or if.

In the history of Chinese painting, there were traditionally 2 schools, the Southern and the Northern.  The Southern school was theorized to be created by the great poet/painter Wang Wei 王維 of the Tang Dynasty.  The Northern school was created by Ma Yuan and Xia Gui of Song Dynasty.  Ma and Xia were both court painters, not scholar like Wang.  

Both schools had been influential for a long time.  Northern school in particular, was extremely popular in Japan, and basically all famous Japanese landscape painters on or after Muromachi period (e.g. Seeshu the great monk painter) belonged to/greatly influenced by the Northern school.

The northern school is signified by the heavy brush strokes on painting of the rocks and mountains; aka "Big Axe Strike Crackling" technique.  The shape of the mountains is steep with a lot of sharp angles, normally there are not a lot of grass or trees on them.  And the compositions are clean with very clear and dry atmosphere.  As you can imagine, the subjects of this school are generally the landscape of Northern part of China, with its dry weather and sharp and steep mountains.  With this characteristics, it can be quite easily determined if a painting is a copy or not (the shapes of the mountains are distinctive; there are not a lot of trees, so everyone stands out and the strokes are easily identified because they are thick and dark)

And that is how I judge that the IP (at least on one side) is a straight copy because practically each stroke of the original was replicated.

To complete the story: during Ming Dynasty an influential scholar started to put down the Northern school and raised the Southern school, saying that the Northern school is not scholarly enough and the landscape was too dry.  If this critique sounded stupid, it was.  Unfortunately because of this idiot, the Northern school lost all its popularity and all respectable painters subsequently only did Southern school.  Chinese landscape painting became stale and dull, up until the 20th Century when painters start incorporating Western techniques and ideas.

This is not intented to be a lecture.  I just think in order to properly appreciate an IP snuff bottle, you need to know at least a little bit of the tradition and history.  I actually find the knowledge helpful to authentiate a bottle, it is also useful to judge the artistic merit of a particular piece.

Again, I have no problem painters copy masterpieces from the past.  This has been a long Chinese tradition and add depth to the art form.  Simply put, I do not discount a bottle just because it copies other painter's work.  Afterall, I got a Zhang Tieshan solely because it was such a beautiful copy of Feng Dazhong's (my favorite modern Chinese painter) work.

http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,446.0.html

 

[Steven]

Thank you Walter for sharing your such valuable expertise, I sure learned a lot from your post, and better understand the traditional arts!

Steven

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Walter,
  Don't you dare stop! I'm learning so much, since I didn't learn about traditional Chinese painting, and originally saw the inside painted examples as curios, not in the context of Chinese Painting.
 Seriously, I'm learning so much, please continue. For example, I thought North and South referred to Northern Song painting, and Southern Song painting, etc.
Joey

[Wattana]

Walter,

Thank you for your wonderful summary. Do write more - I really enjoyed reading this kind of thing. I much admire Chinese classical landscape painting, from a purely Western viewpoint. Your insight into the Eastern aesthetic is very educational, and adds a totally new dimension.

I have never actively collected inside painted snuff bottles, because I always viewed it as a hugely complex topic, and felt I had enough on my plate with the other categories of bottle. I now see that it was a wise decision!

Tom

[Pat - 查尚杰]

Yes, we really need this additional perspective.  Thanks for beating a not-so-dead horse, Walter, lol...   

Your input here is much appreciated, and would love to see any other links you have to this kind of stuff, especially the landscapes.  There are so many bottle topics/themes to identify, as the artists  rarely gave an atribution or a dedication.

Thanks!

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Yes, I agree with you Pat.
  Walter obviously has a Chinese Scholar's education in Chinese Art; something we (other than Steven) lack.
For me, Walter's postings are a real education.
Joey