Ancient Chinese Warrior Yue Fei Wall Scroll

Ancient Chinese Warrior Yue Fei Wall Scroll
Ancient Chinese Warrior Yue Fei Wall Scroll
124cm
48¾"
62.5cm
24½"

Typical Gallery Price: $400.00

$178.88

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Approximate Measurements

Artwork Panel: 44cm x 68cm ≈ 17¼" x 26¾"

Silk/Brocade: 53.5cm x 124cm ≈ 21" x 48¾"

Width at Wooden Knobs: 62.5cm ≈ 24½"

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Ancient Chinese Warrior Yue Fei

Yue Fei - Warrior of Ancient China

A close up view of the
ancient Chinese warrior painting
mounted to this silk wall scroll

YueFei

The story behind this Ancient Chinese Warrior painting:

Yue Fei (Pinyin with tone marks: Yue Fei) (1103 - 1142 A.D.)

Yue Fei was a Chinese patriot and nationalist military leader who fought for the Southern Song Dynasty against the Jurchen (a northern tribe which established the Jin Dynasty).

He is one of the best-known generals in Chinese history, and widely credited for the creation of the martial art known as Xingyiquan.

Days after his birth, flooding of the Yellow River destroyed Yue Fei's village. His father drowned in the floods, but not before he had ensured the survival of his wife and son by floating them downstream in a very large clay jar. Yue Fei and his mother settled in Hebei province. Becoming proficient in warfare at an early age, Yue Fei as a young man narrowly escaped execution after killing the Prince of Liang in a martial arts tournament. He did not join the fight against the Jurchen invaders until he was 23.

tattoo

A Famous Tattoo

According to legend, Yue Fei's mother tattooed four characters (jing zhong bao guo) which mean "serve the country loyally" on his back before he left home.

This tattoo became the quest for the remainder of his life.

As a valiant and tactically astute general, Yue Fei led many successful campaigns against the forces of the Jurchen. Taking advantage of the difficulties which his opponents' cavalry experienced in the hilly terrain of Southern China, he was able to score victories although his troops were frequently outnumbered. His forces succeeded in regaining territory south of the Yangtze and Huai Rivers.
The enemies even said, "To push over a mountain is done with great ease, but to push over Yue's army is done with great difficulty".

Yue Fei was also known for his strict discipline of his legions, forbidding them to pillage, even when facing the harshest of conditions. He was a role model for followers of Confucius' ideas and moral values, as well as being an accomplished martial artist and was very poetic.

Sadly, his attempt to recoup the northern lands lost by the Southern Song Dynasty was opposed by officials who believed further warfare would prove too costly. This desire to complete his quest is reflected in his most famous poem (Yue Fei was also a renowned poet) Manjiang Hong (Entirely Red River).

In the middle of a long victorious campaign against the Jurchen, corrupt officials, the most famous being the traitor Qin Hui, persuaded Emperor Gaozong to recall Yue Fei to the capital. Yue Fei had been readying to attack the Jurchen's Jin Dynasty Capital at the time. The emperor ordered Yue Fei to return twelve times in the form of twelve gold plaques before Yue Fei capitulated.

Qin Hui could not find a reason to execute the captured Yue Fei and was about to release him. However, Qin Hui's wife made the suggestion that since the emperor held absolute power, Qin Hui having the authority of the emperor, needed no reason to execute Yue Fei.

Yue Fei and his son, Yue Yun, were sentenced to death and executed on charges that were not proven but instead "could be true".
It is for this reason that not only Qin Hui, but his wife also kneels before Yue Fei's tomb.

Legend has it those who plotted to have Yue Fei executed were haunted by his ghost and driven to commit suicide.

Today, he is revered as one of the great symbols of patriotism and a national hero in China

Manjiang Hong is well-read and is known throughout China and Chinese people around the world, and his mausoleum in Hangzhou is well-visited. There are also two heavily mutilated statues of Qin Hui and his wife, topless, kneeling outside the temple as if begging for mercy. People in the past used to spit upon and kick them, until they were protected as part of the historic temple.

Also, to instill a sense of patriotism, the Chinese government required all primary school students to read and study at least one text about Yue Fei.

Several martial arts have been attributed to Yue Fei, including Eagle Claw, Xingyiquan, Fanziquan, and Chuojiao, among others.

Yue Fei has been in 126 battles and won them all; this is perhaps the best military record in world history.

This edited information about Yue Fei was obtained from Wikipedia
Used in compliance with the GNU Free Documentation License.

 


About the Art

This is a elaborate style painting using special black Chinese ink and watercolor on xuan paper (rice paper).

This rice paper was then taken to our mounting shop in Beijing where a hand-made silk wall scroll was created for this painting.

This wall scroll then flew with me from China to the USA and is now located at our San Diego, California gallery, ready to be shipped to you.


How I found this art...

Visiting an old friend and artist in Chengdu, I notice a woman is politely waiting for me. Soon enough, I finish my business, and leave my friend to work on some art that I would pick up several days later. The polite woman greets me as I walk out. She quietly asks if I would just take a look at her artwork.

I walk over to her little booth and take a look. The work is good, and I am surprised that she doesn't have a studio-gallery like a lot of artists. She says that she likes to sell in the market, and put paintings in the hands of "the common man". It is then that I realize we have a similar philosophy.

famous warrior artist of China

The artist, Li Ying-Lai, was really excited when I told him that I wanted dragons and legendary warriors of China. He said that dragons and warriors are his favorite subject to paint.

I look through her whole collection, and pick out several pieces that I like. Her husband shows up, and helps out getting paintings out of boxes for me to look at.

After we settle and I pay for all of the paintings, he asks if there is any other kind of art that I am looking for. I tell him, in Chinese, "I have been looking for warriors and really cool dragons for a long time". Suddenly he is very excited. Grabbing through several boxes he emerges with a photo album. He hands the album to me and tells me that I must look!

Opening the album, I see a great collection of paintings of "Legendary Warriors of China" and several eye-catching dragons. He tells me that all of the photos are of his paintings.

Now, I get pretty excited, because I've been looking for good warrior-paintings for more than a year and a half, and I am always on the lookout for a good dragon-painting.

He doesn't have any work ready to sell, but we talk about sizes, styles, and which warriors and dragons I want, and even down to what the background of each piece should be. We talk until the end of the day, and finally we talk about the price. I am expecting something high, but the price he gives me is just too low for this quality of work. So, for the first time in my art-buying career, I "reverse-bargain", and tell him that I will pay 50% more as long as the quality is good. He and his wife look puzzled for a second, and then he remarks in Chinese, "I have been waiting to hear someone say that for a long time". The gesture as they took it was not about money, but more about my personal compliment on the quality and importance of the art itself.



A family of Chinese artists

Li Ying-Lai with his wife and daughter. As usual, I am the "non-Chinese-looking guy" in the picture.

About the artist:

The artist's name is Li Ying-Lai. He lives with his wife and young daughter near Chengdu, in the Sichuan province of China. As if fitting the stereotype, he loves to paint dragons and warriors, but his wife paints beautiful women, flowers, landscapes, and animals.

They both live the en life of artists. Both of them have the attitude that the art itself is more important than money. The honor of knowing that their work will now be on the walls of homes throughout the world is the thing they feel strongest about.

2006 Update

Leaving Kashgar (a 2000-year-old trading post and gateway from China to the Middle East), I was sick as a dog, even incorrectly thinking that I had Malaria for a few days. I wanted badly to just head back home to Beijing, but I knew that I needed to head to Chengdu to see this husband and wife artist duo.

It had been over a year since I had seen them, and due to a phone number change, we lost contact for a while. It was time to rekindle our relationship (relationships or "guanxi" is a very important concept in Chinese culture - it's often about showing mutual respect, exchanging favors, developing a friendship before doing business, and building trust).

I found that Li Ying-Lai is doing pretty well now. His artwork was recently featured in "The 3rd Eye" magazine (a major fine art publication distributed in Mainland China and Hong Kong). Other art critics have recommended investment purchases of Li Ying-Lai's artwork, expecting that it will increase in value during the coming years.

This also means it's time to pay more for his artwork. We talked for a while, and decided to increase everything by about 50%. So suddenly a $100 painting from him is now $150, but orders for his artwork pour in from Shanghai collectors that are paying twice as much. The fact that we have "guanxi" from all of my purchases of his artwork before he became famous means that I can still bring his artwork to you at a higher, but still affordable price.

This item was listed or modified
Aug 14th, 2016

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Picture of Ancient Warriors of China - Outlaws of the Marsh

Want a Custom Asian Warrior Painting?

This artist creates many different warrior paintings. If you are looking for a famous warrior of ancient China, just let us know which warrior, and what size you want, and we'll commission the painting and mount it for you in our workshop.

The painting shown to the left is an excerpt (about 2/3 of the whole painting) from a special piece the artist did that is over 11 meters (35 feet) wide. At the time of writing, this painting is for sale at an asking price of $10,000. It's been featured in a couple of Asian art magazines, so the painting itself is getting famous. But it's just waiting for someone with a lot of wall space and the means to complete a very big art framing project.

Typical Gallery Price: $400.00

$178.88

Sold Out
Sorry you missed it.