Rare works
Dai Ze, 90, the only living artist in the exhibition, once expressed to media when he saw the exhibition, "I am impressed. Many of the paintings I've only heard about but have never seen before."
The exhibition includes a portrait of a man by Xu Beihong, which he painted in class while studying in France. Qi Zhenqi, one of Xu's outstanding students, died at the age of 32. Within the very limited number of his works shown, paintings featuring Beijing people's daily lives such as Dongdan Playground and A Small Market in Dongdan are the most representative ones.
"They are like antiques that once were damaged or lost but are rediscovered today," said Cao Qinghui, art director of the exhibition.
Two big portraits by Li Yishi, the first artist who received a professional art education in the UK at The Glasgow School of Art, are attracting a lot of attention at the exhibition. "People had no idea that Li had such oil paintings," said Cao.
One of the portraits, featuring Chen Shizeng, another big name in Chinese contemporary art history, raised the topic of how Chen and Li, who held differing academic positions, remained close friends.
Significant implications
Cao told the Global Times that one of the reasons that Beiping Art School played a crucial role in Chinese art history is that the academic tradition has been passed down over the generations and is still influencing China's art education today.
Xu Beihong was the president of National Beiping Art School from 1946 to 1949. His academic proposition - to work closely with real life experience, drawing inspiration from the observations of daily life instead of solely practicing with still models in a studio - remains an important school in China's art education today.
Many of the paintings in the exhibition are examples of how artists use Western aesthetics and skills to portray Chinese content. They also show how some Chinese artists that received Western art training kept Chinese features in their works. Wang Huangsheng told the Global Times that in paintings of Wu Fading, the first artist that had an education in France, the simple style without any emphasis on colors was like traditional folk Chinese paintings.
Another example is Li Yishi's portraits. The items included, the chosen background and the relation between the character and its background all carry Chinese cultural features. The relation between Chinese and Western techniques and styles in oil paintings "has always been a hot topic for modern Chinese artists. It is valuable to see such reflection in works from the 1920s," said Wang.
"Why is Chinese art today like this?" artist Xu Bing asks. Xu believes that the exhibition and study of the works from National Beiping Art School are a great help to scholars in understanding the inner characteristics of Chinese art.
While for curator Wang, the way of study and research, comparing which country the artists studied in, which school they attended, and which professor they followed, becomes particularly meaningful.
"An exhibition is not about whose painting in which year. It is about what these works reflect, where certain differences stand and why? The study and research of each work within its historical and cultural context create a new angle of putting out exhibitions," said Wang.
Source:Global Times
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