A promise kept in paint

Beginning in 1977 and continuing for nearly three decades, Jiang journeyed through counties, towns and villages inhabited by different ethnic groups. She admired not only "the vigorous beauty of their costumes and dwellings", but also the balance she observed between people and nature.

"Some ethnic groups do not have a written language," she once said. "So they embroider their history into their clothing, or preserve it through customs. In these people and their surroundings, I saw a grand fusion of Chinese civilization stretching back thousands of years. Isn't that fusion itself a kind of sublime beauty?"

Tian Liming, the celebrated painter who once studied under Jiang, says her work elevated everyday people through brush and color. "By bringing ordinary people to life in her paintings, she gave form to a nation's spirit and celebrated truth and kindness," he says.

Another important part of Jiang's artistic world was her study of color in traditional Chinese painting and, later, her experiments with synthetic pigments after retirement.