Three Black Figures
Zhao Xuebing
赵学兵
Production date
2015
Media
ink on paper
Measurements
32.5 x 24 cm
Notes
Zhao Xuebing's 2016 series of ink drawings are highly refined, revealing his confident technique and his knowledge of both western and eastern traditions. 'Three Black Figures' shows the conversational grouping of Thomas, James the Greater and Philip from Leonardo Da Vinci’s severely damaged and controversially much-restored fresco of the Last Supper.Apart from the fascination of seeing this familiar image removed from its context and reproduced in an entirely different medium, the process recalls a Chinese tradition in which each new generation of artists trained by copying from the masters, ultimately aiming to add something new to the ‘original’ work in a new iteration, in a kind of endless, generational ‘translation’ of images.
Accession number
2016.130