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The Loneliness of the King

The Loneliness of the King by Ciaee

added Feb 17th 2009
 ›  Tools: Photoshop / Painter IX and Gesso (trad textures)
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Artist's Comments

Title:
齊天大聖的孤獨 (Qi Tian Da Sheng de Gu Du)
Translation:
The Loneliness of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven (literal)
The Loneliness of the King

On my entry:
I dug up the novel to read and spent many days thinking of what to paint for this one. I was reminded of many interesting events of the story but I really didn't want to do a straight narrative. I discussed this with my parents during meal times (being Chinese we were all familiar with the story) and just out of the blue one day, a thought came to me and I said to my dad, "Hey... Sun Wu Kong didn't actually have any real friends."

I suddenly realized what a lonely creature he was. I went back to read Chapter 27-28 - this was when Tang San Zang expelled him and he went back to Hua Guo Shan (Mountain of Flower and Fruit), which was mostly burnt down by the great war caused by his mischief 500 years ago. My heart literally ached for him when he cried for his master. :(

To see if anyone shared my thoughts on Sun Wu Kong's loneliness and to make sure that I wasn't being overly sentimental about this (xD), I googled around and actually found quite a few things... some blog entries and the lyrics to a song by Mayday. My painting isn't based on that but I thought I'd mention that here. [link] [link]

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Image comments

  • pollolomo

  • pollolomo

    Sep 21, 2009

    I love all your gallery!! and what can I say about thid one ... I could feel the sadness from the first momment. Love the colours and the textures. Congratulations!!! ^_^

  • Chao

  • Chao

    Aug 22, 2009

    It's a beautiful way of portraying the 'king' - and the lonely moment.. btw, I remembered that was really really upset when Tang San Zang expelled Sun Wu Kong... :P

    I envy how you can capture/show emotion in your works.. that's something that I constantly trying to do :)

    Keep up the great works! :D

  • Alexander

  • Alexander

    May 02, 2009

    I was going to comment on this in the thread, but it's a few pages back now so I figured this would be a better place. Your piece is gorgeous in and of itself, but reading about the idea behind it makes it even more poignant. I never thought about Sun Wu Kong that way, and you've suddenly made me empathize much more with the character. The fact that you spent so much time deliberating on the story and what you could do with it artistically is also incredibly inspiring, because it's things like that that mark a true artist. Again, great piece, and thank you for sharing it with us.

    P.S. Thanks for the .pdf link; I haven't read the story in a long time so it was great to get a new copy of it.

    • Ciaee

    • Ciaee

      May 03, 2009

      It is the words like yours that keep us artists going. It can be a little disheartening at times when people don't stop and think of the thought that went into an artwork. It also makes us feel that perhaps we have failed in conveying our message through that painting alone. So thank you for viewing, and for spending some time to read the description, and also for your kind words. ♥

  • dkreset

  • dkreset

    Mar 08, 2009

    awesome ! I love this one ~ thnx for the add by the way.  you speak mandarin?

  • daveisblue

  • daveisblue

    Feb 27, 2009

    Beautiful indeed! I can totally see this piece being reproduced on to a massive canvas and put up for a gallery show. Great work Ciaee.

    • Ciaee

    • Ciaee

      Feb 27, 2009

      Thank you! I've never been in a show before and what you've described sounds very nice. :3