From farmers to heroes, every face finds dignity

Many who visit the exhibition are impressed by the enormity of the mountains in several 4-meter-long landscapes. The titanic peaks exhibit an overwhelming stillness, striking a contrast with the sense of motion manifested by the clouds above, small villages below and the activities of the people depicted.

Yang says that while he painted, he thought about a saying from The Analects, (the collection of Confucius' sayings) that a man of virtue finds pleasure in the mountains.

"In nature, one finds the strength to reinvigorate himself," he says.

He hails that same vigor for life in the depiction of the average people he met while traveling and sketching.

The exhibition features a variety of portraits. Oil artist Chao Ge once said that from the year 2000 onward, Yang created portraits of women, whose beautiful figures, rendered with a sense of tranquility, embody the idealized symbolism of the eternity of art. The two painters graduated from the oil painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the same year.