Oil painter's rustic series delivers nostalgic feeling

Chen Shuzhong was brought up in rural northwestern Liaoning province. For four decades the oil painter has been depicting rustic landscapes and the life he is most attached to emotionally.

Warmth of Homeland, Chen's one-man show at the National Art Museum of China running through Aug 8, shows dozens of countryside scenes on canvas.

Through Chen's perspective of looking back on his early years in the countryside, one is introduced to a broad vision of the realities of northern China and the energy of day-to-day peasant life.

Chen's works are reminiscent of the genre paintings by Flemish artists Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Younger, as well as the style of magical realism.