Fei Wu, in ink
海納百川 · 有容乃大 “The sea takes in a hundred rivers; what makes it great is how much it can hold”
The second portrait of Fei Wu, painted without color: a crown, six dogs and a teddy bear, on tea-colored silk.
The color one is a room full of things she loves. This one is an argument — the title is a line every Chinese schoolchild knows, and it is about capacity rather than achievement.
Xiang paints her daughter twice and gives the ink version the harder compliment.
Xiang Li on the title
海納百川,有容乃大 — the sea takes in a hundred rivers; what makes it great is how much it can hold.
Go and find them
This page is about the painting. Their own work is better.
What is in this painting
Xiang Li builds a portrait out of creatures. Each one is a claim about the person sitting among them.
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1 The title
Two columns, top left. It is a saying about tolerance, not about size.
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2 The crown
Rendered stone by stone, in a painting that has no color to spend on it.
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3 The six dogs
A German shepherd, a bulldog mid-roar, a labradoodle, a French bulldog and a collie — every one of them a portrait rather than a type.
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4 The bear
Wedged in among the dogs on the left, showing one paw.
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5 The white silk she is wrapped in
Drawn in the same gray wash as the background, so the whole picture is one color and still reads as three materials.
