The Magic Horse of Han Gan

The Magic Horse of Han Gan by Chen Jiang Hong translator by Claudia Zoe Bedrick, illustrated by Chen Jiang
This wonderful book is about a young poor boy named Han Gan who loved to paint. His family was poor and to help his family out, Han delivered meals for a local innkeeper. One day while delivering a meal he goes tot he house of the famous painter Wang Wei. When the boy saw Wang's horses he decided to draw them in the sand, Wang impressed by the Han's drawing invited him back to draw as much as he wanted to. Han was eventually sent to the emperor's palace to attend the academy for official painters where he wasn't free to paint his lovely horses. rather than copy the works of previous painters, he wanted to paint horses as he always has. His paintings were so realistic they could jump of the page, in fact they did one day. A Chinese warrior asked Han to paint him a mighty horse, Han disapproved of his rating and through it in the fire. The mighty horse then jumped out of the fire and the warrior took off on him defeating all of his enemies. The horse was deeply saddened by the misuse of his strength and beauty so he ran back to Han's paint studio where he joined several other horse paintings. This fictional legend teaches a lesson that strength and power used in the wrong way can be a very bad thing. although the horse in the story is fake, Han Gan and his wonderful paintings are real. He lived around 1200 years ago and only a few of his paintings have survived time. His horse paintings were so real that it seemed as if they could jump off the page. The illustrator, Chen Jiang created the illustrations for this book using the same techniques that Han Gan used. This book can be used for nearly all levels if you read it out loud, and i would highly suggest it for students to learn something about the Chinese culture.


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