White Horse

Horses shiver as the sun sets over the village post house;

Lamps warm the Imperial City in the spring.

Gao Qipei painted this horse with expressive brushwork, using his fingernails to achieve unique lines. A classic proverb (translated above) suggests that judging the qualities of a fine horse was like judging talent in people. Many scholar-artists like Gao, who both wrote literature and painted images like this one, identified with the solitary horse as a symbol of a noble mind and resilience in the face of adversity.