Book Review: 鄭問画集—鄭問之三国誌 (Chen Wen Collection: Chen Wen's Three Kingdoms)

鄭問 or Chen Wen is a Taiwanese manga artist. He has moved around a lot to Hong Kong and Japan to promote his artwork.

For those who play games relating to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, most likely you have come across his illustrations. This book shows a unique application of Chinese art to the popular Three Kingdoms period. There are close to a hundred character portraits inside. I'm not sure if all of them are commissioned for games but I do see some "game over" paintings.

His style is very unique, mixing Chinese painting style of watercolours with a bit of manga element. Every piece has the nice textured brush strokes and colour washes. The level of abstraction in some are high, but still shows form — such is the beauty of Chinese paintings. He uses cotton swaps and chopsticks to draw some of the bodies because some brushes are hard to control.

Every piece is captioned with Japanese, English and Chinese text. They are on the characters rather than the art. Included at the back is a brief working process as well as an interview with Chen Wen.

It recommended to those who love Chinese art and Three Kingdoms.

You can find 鄭問画集—鄭問之三国誌 (Chen Wen Collection: Chen Wen's Three Kingdoms) on amazon.co.jp and yesasia.com.

If you buy from any links on the blog, I get a little commission that helps me get more art books to feature.

Here's the Amazon Japan buying guide for your reference.