Style Imitating Art | Landscape by Huang Binhong

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. It challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha so we know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Salazar chose this week’s art inspiration, a landscape by Chinese literati painter Huang Binhong. She saw his statue at West Lake in Hangzhou and wanted something to commemorate her recent China trip. The ink wash painting reminded Salazar of how West Lake looked when she was there – “all washed out in shades of gray and blue but there was a stark beauty to it as well.” 

The Artwork

Landscape by Huang Binhong

About the Artist: Huang Binhong

Literati painter and art historian, Huang Binhong, was born on January 27, 1865, in Jinhua, Zhejiang province in East China, to a merchant father, Huang Dinghua, who was also an art enthusiast. He was the first son of four boys and three girls. His grandfather, Huang Fengliu, was also an artist. However, it was his father’s interest in art that was the catalyst for young Binhong’s passion for painting.

In 1888, his father’s business collapsed and the family moved to their ancestral home in Shexian, Anhui province. As a young man in Shexian, Binhong developed a strong connection with the land and grew fond of Xinan literature and painting which he would later emulate in his own work. He also began collecting and studying ancient seals. Not the animals, but the tiny engraved stones that were used to seal ancient documents with wax. His collecting led him to also become a serious student of seal engraving. He even went on to publish one of the earliest comprehensive dissertations on engraving in modern times. The compositions of his later paintings are often characterized by the positive use of void which is directly influenced by the aesthetic values of seal engraving. The tiny engraved stones of the seals helped to train Binhong’s sense of structure and archaic force which heavily influenced his later paintings.

Binhong strongly opposed the Manchu (or Qing) Dynasty, which maintained power in China from the early 1600s until 1912. He quietly engaged in revolutionary activities until he was exposed and fled to Shanghai, where he published and edited various art books. He finally landed in Hangzhou, where he became inspired by Western Impressionism which influenced him to combine two major Chinese painting systems, ink and wash painting and color painting, into a unified style of art. He is considered one of the last innovators of the literati painting style and is most notable for his freehand landscapes.

As a young man still living in Shexian, Binhong married his first wife, Hong Zhen, who passed away early in the marriage. The couple had several children and experienced tragedy early on when their second daughter passed away in 1915, followed by the tragic death of their eldest son in 1917. In 1920, while living in Shanghai, he married his second wife, 17 year old Song Ruoying, who was 38 years younger than him. She became his lifelong partner for the next 35 years, managing their household and supporting her husband’s work. Two of Binhong’s surviving children, Huang Jian and Huang Yingjia, participated in the preservation of their father’s artistic legacy after his death at age 90 on March 25, 1955.

About the Art: Landscape

The landscape painting that Salazar chose for this style challenge is an ink wash painting from 1932. It represents the transition from his “White style” to his “Black style” which began in 1928. Many of his landscape paintings are untitled (or titled simply as “Landscape”) and I can’t find any references to the size of this particular work. Since I’m really late with publishing this post (again), I’m going to stop searching for this information now.

Helpful Links

• Wikipedia: Huang Binhong
• China Online Museum: Huang Binhong’s Landscape Painting
• Huang Binhong’s ancient seals at Zhejiang Expo
• Lu-Kesi.com: Huang Binhong 黃賓虹 (1865-1955)
• China Heritage Quarterly: Artist Sobriquets and Studio Names
• Huang Binhong: A Collector’s Guide to the Late Style

About My Outfit

For my style interpretation of this painting, I started with an old tee shirt maxi dress that features a grey ombre coloring effect similar to the wispiness of the ink wash. I layered it with a recently thrifted black and white floral robe (the one I wore to high school graduation in June). The style of the garment itself was inspired by the Chinese robes worn in the early days of the Qing Dynasty and the detailed print provides beautiful lines reflective of the artwork. The botanical print also references the subject matter of the painting.

With all of my black, grey, and white in place, I wanted to bring in a tiny bit of red to represent the seal of Chinese characters that appears in the upper right corner of the artwork. My red cowgirl boots were perfect to inject that touch of red while also keeping the outfit true to my personal style aesthetic. I also added red leather feather earrings to tie the boots to the whole outfit. I completed the look with my new black straw hat and two very old necklaces…a double leather strand with gold feather pendants (it used to have three leather strands but one recently broke off) and my Michal Golan choker pendant.

At first, I was unsure how this outfit was going to come together but in the end I absolutely loved it!

I hope you have enjoyed this round of dress up. Be sure to check out how Salazar and Marsha have styled their outfits inspired by this ink wash painting. If you would like to participate in this round of Style Imitating Art and have your outfit included in Salazar’s round up post on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, please be sure to send your photos to her at 14shadesofgreyblog@gmail.com by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, September 8, 2026.

Happy styling!

Shelbee