Chinese beauty- Ehru and chinese illustrator Qianyu

I may not know much about China, but there is one thing I know for sure: they know what beauty is. (If you wanna read more about the many multiple notions of chinese beauty you can go to Iwa ni Hana blog by Wabisabi-she does an awesome job here : Iwa ni Hana). My experience of chinese beauty is relevant with mainly two things: ehru and illustrators.

I first came to know of the heavenly music that ehru produces through Saiunkoku Monogatari (one of my favourite anime btw), where Shuurei plays it especially when she feels sad to soothe herself and others.

                 

                 

And an ehru player live, just to see how the instrument looks like.

                  

It's really something unique, which you're either going to hate or love. I remember when my mother first heard it and she asked "what are these cries and whinings?" It's a stringed instrument and I dare say that they have the specialty to touch your inner strings when music is produced (pun intended). I'd say ehru is the eastern violin. Nature can really be felt through  the soaring notes. Even though violin has been used for the same job (see Four Seasons), I can't stop thinking that at least at this part ehru does it better.

Then, there are illustrations and paintings. They pay attention to the details of nature and people. The illustrator hosted in this post is Qianyu. She creates dream-like works mostly through the use of watercolour effect and airbrush. The softness, smoothness, transparency and tranquility they emit ,relaxes you. The hair and clothes are always well done creating the sense of movement and fluidity even when there isn't much movement going on. I especially like the ones where the pallette is limited in faint pink and white. Other colours that are preferred by the artist seem to be soft greens and vivid blues and reds. There are some illustrations that do not refer to ancient China rather to more modern themes like goth girls, couples of today and Europe. Enjoy the illustrations. You can find more here: blog sina-qianyu

And for last image a fanart from the artist, also previewing our next post :)