Chickens and Pumpkins Folk Art Painting

Chickens and Pumpkins Folk Art Painting
Chickens and Pumpkins Folk Art Painting
54cm
21¼"
39cm
15¼"

Typical Gallery Price: $90.00

$39.88

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You will need a picture frame to properly display this artwork.

Framing is not included!


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Approximate Measurements

39cm x 54cm ≈ 15¼" x 21¼"

Chickens & Pumpkins

Certainly this painting is done with a lot of fantasy at heart. Even though China is a big country, the pumpkins do not quite dwarf the chickens like this.

This is really a fun painting with a group of chickens below a huge pumpkin patch. If you look closely, the two chickens near the top seem to be contemplating the shear size of the pumpkins they are witnessing.


About the artist...

This painting is by a man named cáoquántáng (Cao Quan-Tang).

Chinese Folk Artist Cao Quan-Tang in his village

Cao Quan-Tang passes on his
artistic talents to his son.

Cao Quan-Tang is from a village called "Qindu" in Huxian County of Shaanxi Province in Southern China. He was born in 1957 and has been painting since he was 15 years old. He was a struggling peasant artist until the mid-1980's when a revival of folk art began in China, and his work received many awards and acclaim. Some of his painting have achieved top honors at international art exhibitions.

According to Cao Quan-Tang, his paintings all represent experiences in his life as he grew up surrounding by village life in the middle of China.

Famous Asian folk art creator, Cao Quan-Tang and his family

The whole Cao family.


About the Painting itself...

The artist used "shui fen" (paint powder and water - similar to gouache), on thick paper to create this painting.

If you get a piece of mat board cut for you, this Chinese painting will fit nicely in a standard 18" x 24" frame. If you want really wide matting, you could even use a 22" x 28" standard picture frame. You should probably get the matting cut professionally, but you can probably handle the rest yourself. Please see our step by step guide to framing Asian art if you want some tips.


About Chinese Folk Art and its History...

This style of folk art was born in the 1950's just after the Revolution (when Chairman Mao took power). The art developed independently in Huxian (Hu County) in the Shaanxi Province for many years (the same Province where you will find the Terracotta Soldiers).

Things changed drastically when the Cultural Revolution came to pass in China. Within a few years, art was only acceptable if it portrayed some form of socialist propaganda, or showed some form of working together in pursuit of Mao's Communist ideals. This propaganda art seldom provided any pay for the artist who were instead forced into working hard in the fields as peasants on communal farms to survive.

Chairman Mao

As the last of the Cultural Revolution sputtered to a stop with the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, freedom began to slowly ring again when Deng Xiao-Ping took power. Deng Xiao-Ping brought China out of the dark ages, and away from "Maoism" and Communism (one of the greatest leaders in Chinese history in my humble opinion). By the 1980's, freedom to once again practice 3000 years of artistic tradition emerged. Chinese folk art was finally allowed to be what it was meant to be, a way to freely express various scenes of daily life and snapshots of Chinese village culture.

Stamp set of folk artists issued by the Chinese post office.

Chinese Folk Art Today

According to Chinese Government statistics, there are now more than 2000 folk artists in Southern China. Sixteen of these artists have been recognized as the "Famous Masters" of Chinese folk art by the Chinese Cultural Arts Bureau. These sixteen artists were recently honored by China Post with the issuing of a set of commemorative postage stamps. Of these sixteen masters, we represent three of them: Pan Xiao-Ling, Cao Quan-Tang, and Zhang Qing-Yi.

A lot has changed in the folk art community of China since I first started selling these paintings about 4 years ago.

Chinese folk artists have become rather famous, and sought after for exhibitions around the world. Recently these artists formed a labor union of sorts, to ensure that they receive a handsome sum for all of their paintings. Most of them have been able to improve their station in life through the sale of their artwork. One of these artists once said, "We've become good little capitalists, just like President Nixon dreamed of".

Chinese Folk Artist Envelope

On my last trip to buy more Chinese folk art,
Cao Quan-Tang gave me this signed special-edition
envelope with his commemorative stamp attached.

This item was listed or modified
Sep 14th, 2017

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Vegetable sellers in a Chinese village market

This is the weekly market in a large village.
The women are wearing traditional head dresses of their tribe. Each tribe has a different color and style of headdress.
---
These ladies told me that they traveled for two days on foot from their little village in order to sell their vegetables here.


South China Village Travels

When I travel from place to place I see a lot of things, and sometimes there is a bit of that "glamorous adventure" that you might expect. But there is another side, which is the daily necessities that we all need to live.

I always carry enough food for 2 days in my backpack. This food is intended for emergencies. However, sometimes this emergency food is eaten when the dining car is only serving pig's feet and fish-head soup during multi-day voyages aboard one of China's many slow passenger trains.

Lucky for me, even in the smallest village, the people there need to eat too. Most of the time I find a wide variety of vegetables and at least a few kinds of fruit for sale at a curbside market.

This is how they sell meat in parts of China

The people from more than five smaller villages come here once a week to sell and trade their wares.
---
This man walked a pig all the way from his village, and butchered it on site. The meat will all be sold and cooked today, so there is no need for refrigeration (or so they tell me).

Many small villages don't have restaurants, so it is important to be able to fend for yourself. I can usually get some boiling water from somewhere (There is always somebody nearby making tea in China, so there is never a shortage of hot water). Throw in some ramen noodles, a few cut vegetables, maybe some dried meat, and you have a soup of sorts.

A lot of the time, I ask for hot water from a villager (who is shocked to see a foreigner) and I am immediately invited to eat in their home with the whole family. Suddenly I am the "honored guest". In the village-culture of China, it is an honor to have a guest in your home. They would be insulted if I offered money for the food and hospitality.

If it gets late, they will offer me a place to sleep in their home (often you are given one of the best beds in the house, but I seldom take that offer as some family member ends up sleeping on the floor when this happens).

How Chinese ethnic minorities carry their babies

This young mother is wearing the headdress of her tribe, and the baby boy (prized because he is a boy) is wearing almost a crown-like headdress.


Sometimes a buzz starts in the village about the "visiting foreigner". I end up walking through the village with a dozen children following me down the street trying to practice English. In one case, I ended up teaching English in an elementary school for a day. The children had never seen a "white person" before, much less had a chance to talk to one - this fact seems to feed their curiosity and excitement.

By the way, there is no shortage of Children in minority villages of China. The "One-Child-Policy" does not apply to members of minority ethnicities. This allows for the small tribes and ethnic groups, as well as China's many minority nationalities to prosper and maintain their populations within China. It is the majority "Han-Chinese" people in the cities that must follow the "One-Child-Policy".

Another necessity is transportation. Sometimes things can get interesting in this department too. If there is not a "mini-bus" that comes near the village, I can often find a ride on a motorcycle, back of a truck, in a rowboat down river, or just hike. When I arrive in the next village, the adventure starts all over again...




Typical Gallery Price: $90.00

$39.88

Sold Out
Sorry you missed it.

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