Salute to Mandela, oil painting, 127cm×101cm, by Liu Xiangming. The confident smile of Mandela can be seen from the colorful lumps and the five handprints next to his face vividly shows the spirit of Mandela, "Freedom, Equality, Tolerance and Peace". Moreover, the five handprints surrounding Mandela also represent the admiration of people from the five continents of the world. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The passing of Nelson Mandela, former president of the Republic of South Africa, has aroused mourning from around the world.

The artist Liu Xiangming, with no exception, couldn't restrain his emotions and created a series of paintings with his family out of respect for the great figure. The artistic result consists of three oil paintings titled Salute to Mandela, China and Mandela and World and Mandela.

The artist expresses his view on the realistic meaning of Mandela through his artwork that is, "We need the idea which can greatly promote the world's civilization."

Liu Xiangming, an academician at the Shenzhen Nanshan Fine Art Institute, is a contemporary artist based in Shenzhen, Southeast China's Guangdong province. The well-known artist once visited soldiers who had participated in the Long March (1934-1936) and created collective portraits of them, which became a hit.