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Ma Jir-Bo 馬家寶 (26 August 1927 – 8 December 1985) was a Chinese realism artist and oil painter. Ma is praised for his great portraitures, highly realistic texture-feeling still lifes and memory-rekindling landscapes of Hong Kong all that made him a leading oil painter of his era. Ma is regarded as 'the legacy of Classic Western Masters in the East'. During his career, he created roughly 300 oil paintings, some 50 watercolours, as well as some traditional Chinese ink paintings and Chinese calligraphies. == Life == Before Ma's birth, his father Yat-sun was a charcoal painter 〔The drawing, blending, of charcoal (compressed coal) on the surface of a canvas, paper, or other medium. The artist uses blocks or sticks, similar to graphite pencil lead, but looser (less controlled) to express themselves. Charcoal is a permanent once laid down and can be removed somewhat with erasers or fresh bread. 〕 born from a reputable family in Haifeng, Guangdong Province. Ma's grandfather was a Scholar ("''Wu Xiu-cai''") in the Military Division 〔"''Wu Xiu-cai''" a low rank official who passed the imperial military examination at the county level in the Ming and Qing dynasties.〕 in the imperial Qing dynasty and was decapitated for resisting the invading National Revolutionary Army. Ma's father was married to Madam Zhu Yu-zhen and Ma was their son. Not long after Ma's birth the family moved to Hong Kong where Ma first learned to paint Chinese ink paintings with Gao Jian-fu (Chinese Painter, 1879–1951)〔Michael Sullivan, ''Modern Chinese Artists – A Biographical Dictionary'', (Berkeley : University of California Press, 2006), p 41. See also, http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/File:Gao_Jian_Fu.jpg〕 at the age of seven. At the age of thirteen he was first introduced to Li Tie-fu (1870–1952) and Ma had his important apprenticeship on Western painting with him from 1949 to 1950. 〔Michael Sullivan, ''Modern Chinese Artists – A Biographical Dictionary'', (University of California Press : Berkeley, 2006), p 115.〕 During the apprenticeship, both Ma and Li Tie-fu lived together in a squatter in Diamond Hill, Kowloon, Hong Kong.〔Ma Jir-bo, ‘Li Tie-fu: The Person and His Paintings’'' Wenweipo Daily'', February 2, 1979.〕 As a patriotic artist who sold his paintings to raise fund to support the Nationalist Revolution led by Dr Sun Yat-sen, Li Tie-fu parted his patriotic ideology to Ma.〔Ma Jir-bo, ‘Li Tie-fu: The Person and His Paintings’ ''Wenweipo Daily'', February 2, 1979; Helen Kwok, ‘The Art and Life of Ma Jiabao’ (1999) 2 ''Besides: A journal of Art History & Criticism'' 169 at p 171.〕 By his influence, Ma was a loyal supporter of the Communist Revolution and he adopted Eugène Delacroix's ''Liberty Leading the People'', 1830 to paint ''Just to Survive'', 1955 to describe his approval of the Communist regime. Some of his earlier paintings are highly patriotic and political, such as ''Xia Jia Bang'', 1961 and ''The Sea of Blood'', 1961 ; as well as having a strong sense of social justice. ''A Christian Nun'', 1966 and ''A Medical Doctor'', 1971 are paintings of a social justice theme. After Li Tie-fu returned to the Mainland in the summer of 1950, Ma moved to Cheung Chau 〔Cheung Chau (Chinese: 長洲, Pinyin: Chángzhōu; lit. "Long Island") is a small island 10 km southwest of Hong Kong Island. It has been inhabited for longer than most other places in the territory of Hong Kong, with a population of about 23,000 up to 2006. Administratively, it is part of the Islands District.〕 to study the way to paint in different light settings. He lived there for a few years before returning to the Hong Kong Island in 1966. Ma acquired his first student Wong Chung-Man. In 1964, Ma's hidden life in Cheung Chau was discovered by the editor of the South China Morning Post〔The South China Morning Post (aka SCMP or 'the Post'), together with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is an English-language Hong Kong newspaper, published by the SCMP Group with a circulation of 104,000.〕 and the article he wrote 〔Fredric Kaplan, ‘Artist in Cheung Chau: Prefers Western to Chinese Style’, ''South China Sunday Post Herald'', May 17, 1964.〕 attracted the attention of the then Diplomat and Banker of Thailand Mr Chali Yongsunthon, who later became a close supporter of Ma and acquired some of this works and later brought them back to Thailand. Probably disappointed by the happening of the Cultural Revolution and his abhorrence of violence which occurred both in the Mainland and in Hong Kong, politics and social justice themes were not found in his post 1971 paintings. Continuously through his life, Ma was dedicated to realism. By hanging ''An Artist Painting his Father'', circa 1968 at the center of his art studio, he intended to remind all his students to refrain from abstractism. Probably influenced by Jean-François Millet,〔Jean-François Millet (October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the naturalism and realism movements.〕 many of his portraits are of peasant farmers (cf. ''Peasant's Harvest'', 1978), workers (cf. ''Old but Strong'', 1963) and of ordinary people in lower social class (''A Hooker Smooker's Resting Moment'', 1976). "Painting to reflect society" – had been attributed to his style of painting and that he would not paint what the public do not understand.〔JR, ‘Painting to Reflect Society’, ''South China Morning Post'', March 26, 1976, p 7〕 In 1970, Ma married to Madam Tam Wai-Mun, Alice (born 1939) who was one of his art students and had learned paintings from him for over two years before their marriage. They had a son, Lawrence Yan-kwok (born 1970), who has not chosen art as his career but rather to become a barrister in Australia and later in Hong Kong. Ma acquired a number of students in the late 1960s and early 1970s, among them Wong Wen-san (Wang Yun-shan), Yeung Yick (Yang Yi), Chan Yan-fu (Chen Ren-fu) and Chung Yiu (Zhong Yau). At the same time as Ma's own style matured in the 1970s, his health started to deteriorate. Suffering from a lung disease, he was always short of breath and was difficult to manoeuvre. Hiking up the Peak and so as to paint the entire Victoria Harbour in 1974〔''The Victoria Harbour'', 1974.〕 was most notable as it is now part of the lost scenery of the rapidly developing Hong Kong to rekindle the public's collective memory. In 1977, Ma was selected as the represent the Hong Kong art community representative to attend the prestigious National Day celebration in Beijing on 1 October. Before that, Ma was commissioned to paint two large portraits: one of Chairman Mao Ze-dong and another of Chairman Hua Guo-feng by the then Director of Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong.〔Xinhua's branch in Hong Kong was not just a press office. It was named a news agency under the special historic conditions before the territory's sovereignty was transferred from Britain to the PRC, because the PRC did not recognise British sovereignty over the colony, and an embassy cannot be set up within what it considered its soil. Until 1997, it served as the de facto diplomatic mission of the PRC in the territory. It was authorized by the special administrative region government to continue to represent the central government after 1997, and it was renamed The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong SAR on 18 January 2000. See Xinhua News Agency#Xinhua in Hong Kong.〕 At the National Day celebration, he was welcomed and greeted by Ye Jianying and Liao Chengzhi. The two portraits were hand-delivered by Ma to the Director in September 1977 and were displayed next to the national flag at the National Day celebration. They were never seen after 1977 and the whereabouts of the two portraits is a mystery now.〔Leung Sai-wah, ‘Ma Jirbo's Portraits of Chairman Mao’, ''Taikungpao Daily'', October 7, 2010, p C2.〕 In the 1980s, his health further deteriorated and aggravated by the presence of kidney stones. Ma did not paint much and there were only two oil paintings produced in 1985. He died in the Queen Mary Hospital on December 8, 1985, aged 58, from the combination of his long ailing lung illness together with complication from a laser kidney stone surgery. He was survived by this mother, his wife and son. Ma's attitude to life: ''Death is most frightening but even more frightening than death itself is the lack of great contribution to the human race. 死是最可怕的事但於人類不能作出偉大的貢獻那比死還更可怕'' (Spring, 1975) On 7 December 1985, a day before his death, he wrote in his diary: ''Painting is my lifelong devotion. I am not afraid of death as () is a natural course of things ... (students ) have to paint more frequently, don't be sad, I feel absolutely comfortable, because I have made myself a patriotic artist'', translated from ''畫是我的生命. 我不怕死，這是自然的規律 ...已後多寫畫，不要悲傷,我覺得完全舒服,因為我做了一個愛國畫家''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ma Jir Bo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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