The colors and feel of the Southern Yangtze
Print Edition
IT is perhaps, the top oil canvas display in the country: “Southern Yangtze 2017 China Oil Painting Exhibition” at Suzhou Art Museum through June 2.
Organized by the China Oil Painting Society, the Suzhou Municipal Government and Department of Culture of Jiangsu Province, the exhibition featured nearly 163 paintings selected from 6,000 entries.
Themed under “Southern Yangtze,” it indeed is not an easy subject for artists, though many have repeated the subject from time to time.
Different places nurture different people. The Southern Yangtze, are famous for breeding fish and growing rice, and people are considered as mild and tender.
“Southern Yangtze is a kind of flavor, not something concrete,” says Xu Jiang, director at China Art Museum and also one of the jury members of this exhibition, “The beauty of the Southern Yangtze lies in its water and mist.”
When people talk of the southern Yangtze, the image is often of the water towns, tranquil and serene.
But the Southern Yangtze is more than that.
“Painting is a mirror, or to be more exact, a reflection of everything mirrored on one’s heart,” Xu explained, “Each artist has his or her different impression of Southern Yangtze, and this exhibition will show the ‘reflection’ on their heart to the public.”
Southern Yangtze varies from a quiet scene in a water town, a gently sitting young girl, a vast piece of light and shade, or to the chaotic metro scene in the eyes of the artists.
The highlight of the exhibition is “Double Bridge in Zhou Zhuang” created by Liu Yulong.
It’s the same subject of Chen Yifei (1946-2005) in the 1980s. The work featuring the double bridges, an iconic scenic spot in Zhou Zhuang, the famous canal town in Jiangsu Province, not only won Chen overnight fame in the West, but was also given as a gift by Michael Armand Hammer to late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. In fact, this is a subject that might outshine others, because many are afraid that they cannot match it.
“To be honest, I didn’t think of Zhouzhuang at the beginning,” Liu said, “It was during a trip for me and my students for sketches there that did I realize how beautiful the canal town was.”
Liu recalled clearly that it was a raining evening and he was walking down the cobblestone roads.
Amidst the raindrops, he felt suddenly drawn down centuries of history.
“History is the core in this work,” he said, “Different from Chen’s paintings that emphasizes on the quiet beauty and elegance of the town. My work focuses on the history depth of the place. I used some dark colors to depict the weather-beaten bricks. For me, every historical trace is treasured. What I want the viewers to see is another Zhou Zhuang, not just a tourist destination.”
For young artist Huang Siyu, Southern Yangtze is the inexplicable emotional feel in the eyes of a young girl.
“Although I was born in Beijing, but I dreamed of the Southern Yangtze when I was even a little girl,” Huang said, “I always have a feel that I might have lived in Southern Yangtze in my previous life. For me, Southern Yangtze is not reflected through the depiction of water and mountain, but rather the complicated inner side of a young girl. That’s the Southern Yangtze in her heart.
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