FU BAOSHI (1904-1965)

FU BAOSHI (1904-1965) Scholars Scroll, mounted and framed, ink and colour on paper 88 x 58 cm. (34 5/8 x 22 7/8 in.) Entitled, inscribed and signed, with one seal of the artist Dated yiyou year (1945) Further inscribed by Wang Shangyi (1904-1972), dedicated to Jingxi, in the spring of the thirty-eighth year (of the Republic, 1949) Fu Baoshi was a man of high standards and was a poet as well as a painter. Looking at Fu's inscription 'Throughout times, winning and losing is naught but a smile', one cannot but think upon Su Shi's words 'though it is a delight to win, one feels contented losing too'. The two scholars playing chess against each other possess the ease of just playing the game regardless of its outcome. Having looked beyond the mere outcome of the game, winning and losing is just a process and not what produces delight. Fu was inspired to write such words in 1945, at a time when Japan surrendered, ending the Second World War, and belongs in the collection of paintings he created in the 40's when he was living in Chongqing's Jin Gangpo. Fu's smooth ink lines and areas of flat colour used to execute the robes of his figures imparts a lightness and transparency which is unique in style and charged with a contemporary flavour. This painting was a gift from Fu Baoshi to then Central Communications Head of Department Wang Shangyi in 1945. Later when Yong Ping joined the company in 1949 Wang gifted the painting to him as a sign of their close bond.