724
佚 名 农事 通草画
清代
ANONYMOUS FARMING
Water colour on pith paper
Qing Dynasty
9×7cm×12
RMB: 10,000-20,000
通草又名通脱木，五加科子乔木，茎中的髓颜色洁白，有丝绒的质感。把这种植物树心切成薄薄的切片，薄而半透明，可以用来作画，所谓通草画就是指绘制在这种材质上的水彩画。19世纪兴起于广州，主要用于出口，题材以反映清末的社会生活场景和各种形色人物为主，诸如官员像、兵勇像、杂耍图、纺织图、演奏图等。作品造型生动，色彩浓艳，人物刻画惟妙惟肖。由于采用西方绘画原理，又反映中国本土风情，所以深受当时西方人的喜爱。由于通草纸很容易破裂，所以很少有大尺寸的作品，加上难以保存，目前传世不多。通草画对研究中国早期的西画发展有着重要的意义，同时也是今天我们研究当时中国近代史的珍贵档案，可以补充官修档案和文人笔记等文献记载之不足。
From the 1820s pith became a familiar material in Europe, under the name of rice-paper, as a raw material for artificial flowers, and as a medium for export paintings from China. The structure of pith sheets was early recognized as different to that of paper, but it was not until 1852 that William Jackson Hooker was able to describe the source plant, as Aralia papyrifera Hook, now Tetrapanax papyrifer (Hook.) K. Koch. Using his consular contacts, Hooker was able to build up a remarkable collection of pith, as raw materials, artificial flowers and Chinese paintings. In China，this kind of paintings sprang up in Guangzhou since 19th, they mainly depicted about life styles and portraits in late Qing dynasty. Vividly and bright-colored figures reflected native Chinese taste and were popular in the westerners. Because of the fragile pith paper, the size of paintings was usually small and they were not easy to conserve. They are significant to the research of Chinese early western painting and the supplement of the incomplete literal documentary record.