Memories of South China
Asian Watercolor Painting

Discounted - older stock - silk border will not match others in this category.

yi		Recall/Memory
jiang		River
nan		South

Memories of South China

This is the roughly translated title of this piece

If you are wondering about the title, I'll explain that when jīang and năn are used together, this is almost always referring to South China (because if you have been there, you know there are a boatload of rivers in the south).

In the past history of China, places in the south like Suzhou and Hangzhou were known for being rich and for having warm weather throughout the year.

These were popular places to do trade with the rest of China and Asia because the rivers would provide a way to move goods and people in and out as they pleased.

Even in modern China, after places like Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai, more adventurous people often make the trek to Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Another interesting thing is that Suzhou is known my some as "Chinese Venice", since the only way to get around in town is by a hand paddled water-taxi.

Any visit to South China should leave you with wonderful memories and adventures that you will want to remember, as this painting title suggests.

This painting is from the...

"Xiao Meng Collection"

The artists of this collection are actually a married couple who travel around China together looking for subjects to paint. Their real names are Chen Yong Ping and Chen Wei Ling but they sign all of their work under the single pen name Xiao Meng.

They work as a team on most of these paintings. One of them does the background and the other will handle the detail work on each painting.

The artists take great pride in the fact that they have developed their own unique painting style which they call "hazy painting" (this is roughly translated - it sounds better in Chinese).

They use a combination of "freehand style" and "elaborate style" in their paintings. The background is done using broad fast strokes and spray with very thin paint. The foreground (cranes) are done with a lot of detail using a delicate technique with a very fine brush.

This is painted on special rice paper with a silk matting/border. Painted with special Chinese black ink and water color.