He Kongde’s Mountain Under Moonlight, 2003, with a golden peak beneath a deep blue sky, a crescent above, and a small white bird crossing the foreground

Mountain Under Moonlight - Detail view - Oil on canvas texture and brushwork

Mountain Under Moonlight - Close-up detail - Color and composition

Mountain Under Moonlight - Texture Detail

Mountain Under Moonlight - Oil on canvas by He Kongde, 91 x 73 cm

Master

Mountain Under Moonlight

Name: Mountain Under Moonlight
Brand: Paint For Heart
Price: 42776.0 SGD
Availability: InStock

Artist He Kongde

Creation Date 2003

Material Oil on canvas

Size 91 x 73 cm

Category original

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Current total $42,776.00

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Perspectives

A closer look

Artwork Notes

Art appreciation

The mountain rises through the centre, its two slopes forming a stable triangular structure. Gold and pale ochre catch the upper faces, while the base descends into blue-black. Bands of grey-white cloud move horizontally across the incline and temporarily interrupt its outline. The crescent at the upper left and the bird at the lower right establish a long diagonal across the peak. With wings spread against the dark foreground, the bird brings a brief measure of time to the otherwise still mountain.

He builds the rock in substantial warm strokes that follow the incline. White, gold, and orange-ochre appear in the light, passing into violet-brown and deep blue in shadow. The cobalt sky is comparatively even, and thin cool greys draw the clouds laterally across it. A simplified pale shape is enough for the bird. Thick mountain, calm sky, and quick living form therefore move at distinct visual speeds.

He is best known for major historical and military paintings, work that demanded command of large composition and physical weight. In landscape, he applies that discipline to the mountain and withdraws the human narrative. Cloud continues to pass and a bird still crosses beneath the crescent, preventing the peak from becoming a fixed monument. The same control of mass remains visible in the central peak, while the thin cloud bands and small flying bird introduce movement through specific parts of the landscape.

Theme

Style and context

Twentieth-century Chinese mountain painting in oil drew on European academic modelling of volume, light, and atmosphere while retaining the central place given to mountains in Chinese landscape thought. Mountain Under Moonlight does not describe an extended terrain. One principal summit governs the composition, and moon, cloud, and bird register changes around its mass.

He trained in the Maximov oil-painting class and worked for many years on large-scale compositions at the Military Museum. Firm structure and credible weight form the foundation of this landscape as well. The central peak carries the image, its gold-lit face establishes presence, and the moving cloud and bird prevent excessive stillness. Historical-painting discipline is redirected towards concentrated and sustained observation of nature.

Artist Profile

About the artist

He Kongde was born in April 1925 in Xichong, Sichuan province, and studied at the National Chongqing Normal School of Art before joining the People's Liberation Army in 1946. In 1951, he accompanied Chinese volunteers to Korea as a war artist. In 1955, he entered the Maksimov Oil Painting Training Class at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, studying alongside Jin Shangyi under Soviet master Konstantin Maksimov.

He passed away in 2003. From 1962 he worked at the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, eventually becoming Deputy Director of its art studio. He served as Standing Council Member of the Chinese Artists Association and Vice Chairman of its Oil Painting Committee.

Alongside his military paintings, He Kongde's landscapes and still lifes use a quieter tonal structure — the same structural command and close observation applied to natural subjects. Forty years of monumental painting practice produced an artist able to organise different subjects through weight, interval and tone, whether a Korean War battlefield or a mountain peak catching golden light.

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