This painting was created in 2017. This year I spent more time thinking about art in sketching courses, which also caused a disconnect between my color painting and sketching. I am more bold in looking for the core of Chinese culture in sketches, even though I still know very little about traditional Chinese culture. However, I am more conservative when it comes to color painting.
Overall Size: /
Size without the frame: /
Country: China
Date: 2017
Materials: /
Condition: well preserved
Creative themes and style | My works revolve around the creative concept of "The land of humanity, People on the land".The people in the painting are people in nature, and the lines, shapes, and colors are close to nature. The nature in the painting is nature in the eyes of humans, existing in interaction with humans.I don’t pursue a series of works with a fixed and continuous style. I hope that the style of the pictures will synchronize with the changes in my life and always remain oscillating. The performance of the work must be in sync with the development of one's own life in order to be Sincere and powerful.Ideas are later.
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This pencil sketch quietly delineates a corner of the campus. Compositionally, it employs scattered perspective, breaking free from the constraints of single-point perspective. Similar to the spatial construction found in traditional Chinese landscape painting, it naturally links the steps, pool, greenery, and distant architecture, creating a deep and dynamic visual hierarchy. Like the landscapes of Ni Zan, its simple arrangement conveys a profound and serene atmosphere.
Color (within the monochromatic gray scale) leverages pencil strokes to build layers. From the dark gray textures of the foreground greenery to the faint outlines of the distant buildings, variations in value distinguish spatial depth. Comparable to the hazy quality of Corot's landscape sketches, it uses gray-scale gradation to dissolve boundaries, making the scene appear as if veiled in a thin gauze, capturing the fleeting ambiance of light and shadow, imbuing the scene with nostalgia and poetry.
Brushwork (or Linework, as it's pencil) is seemingly casual yet contains order. Lines are either coarse or delicate, generated according to the nature of the subject. The sharp outlines of the pool edge contrast with the looser hatching of the plant foliage, echoing Cézanne's exploration of underlying structures. Through touches of the pencil point, it deconstructs and reconstructs the scene's elements, making the lines themselves a medium for perceiving space and form. Within the simplicity lies a nuanced understanding of the campus scenery.
Content and Theme focus on an ordinary campus scene: the steps, pool, and greenery before Huizeyuan serve as vessels for youthful memories. This aligns with the approach of Impressionist painters capturing urban street scenes, elevating commonplace locations into artistic subjects. Through sketching, it preserves the essence of a specific moment, transforming campus features into a nexus connecting individual and collective memory.
Emotional Expression is woven into the unadorned depiction. The creator uses the pencil as a bridge to convey affection for the campus. Without overt sentimentality, yet through meticulous strokes – much like Vuillard recording domestic scenes – the everyday setting is suffused into a haven for the spirit. Within the interplay of grays flows a gentle nostalgia for the campus tranquility and youthful years, allowing viewers to empathize with the poetry and wistfulness hidden within this campus corner, conveyed through simple lines. This sketch, with its unpretentious technique, offers a deeply affectionate footnote to the campus landscape.
The pool’s edge follows a curved outline with step-like turns, unlike the common circular or rectangular forms. Its shape resembles that of a traditional garden pond, lending the sketch a sense of classical garden ornamentation.
The fountain is rendered with a mix of line work and tonal shading. The lines are clear but not overly detailed, focusing instead on the contrast with the darker areas of the pool. This treatment makes the fountain act as a structural focal point, rather than just a literal object.
With its subject drawn from a Chinese-style courtyard corner, the piece conveys a quiet, contemplative mood. It is well-suited for study room decoration or as part of an exhibition on garden culture. Its value in courtyard sketch collections lies in its ability to capture spatial atmosphere rather than mere physical form.
Trees and shrubs are suggested with loose, evenly distributed pencil strokes, avoiding detailed leaf rendering. Instead, varied directional hatching builds layers of depth, which both emphasize spatial perspective and echo the orderly shape of the pool.
The soft gray tonality creates a calm and gentle atmosphere. What the viewer perceives is not dramatic light and shadow, but the sense of everyday courtyard serenity. This approach aligns closely with the goals of on-site sketching art, which emphasizes immediate recording and atmosphere-building, making it valuable in both art education and sketch research.
