During the first half of the twentieth century, a group of Chinese ink painters opened up a new path for the future of Chinese art. They leaned towards neither the Modernist tendencies then emerging in Europe, nor the academic classicism developed through centuries in China. Instead, they sought changes in techniques and concepts within the traditions of Chinese art itself and created new faces for it. Qi Baishi (1864--1957 ) was one of these artists in that time period. Inspired by predecessors such as Shen Zhou (1427--1509), Bada Shanren (c.1626--c.1705), Shitao (1642--1708) and Wu Changshuo (1844--1927), He incorporated Chinese calligraphy characters into his paintings and formed a simple, abstract style that was unfamiliar at the time. In addition, he chose subjects closely tied to people's everyday life, such as flowers, birds, insects, and vegetables, which made Qi's painting approachable and legible. Qi Baishi was most famous for his flower and insect paintings, but this paper will focus on his landscape paintings which comprise only one tenth of his oeuvre. Applying an extreme abstract and simple style, Qi's landscapes were controversial in the early twentieth century because they seemed to go too far from the Chinese literati painting tradition. This paper will analyze Qi's landscape paintings to reveal how he broke the canon that had governed Chinese landscape painting for centuries. Through an attention to historical context, form and the ideas that informed the visual arts at the time, Qi's relevance to Chinese modern art will be evaluated.
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