PRINTCatalogue Note:
Xihu (West Lake) in Hangzhou is renowned for its beautiful scenery (including the lake itself and the surrounding hills), and for the many famous people who are associated with the area. It was here, in 1928, that Cai Yuanpei founded the National Academy of Art, the first modern art college in China. Under the leadership of its first President, Lin Fengmian, the National Academy of Art adopted an approach that encompassed both Chinese and Western culture, and produced many important artists, such as Zao Wou-ki, Chu Teh-chun and Wu Guanzhong, writing a brilliant page in the history of Chinese art. After a number of reorganizations and renamings, the Academy evolved into today’s China Academy of Art. Xu Jiang studied here (when it was still known as the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts), and later followed in Lin Fengmian’s footsteps by taking up the position of President at the Academy. Xu’s artistic career, and his approach to art, is closely linked to the history and spiritual traditions of the Academy, and it was the heady cultural atmosphere at the Academy that cultivated Xu’s wide-ranging, highly contemporary artistic vision.
Unlike the earlier generation of Academy alumni, who were faced with the challenges posed by the clash between, and fusion of, Chinese and Western cultures, Xu Jiang experienced the Cultural Revolution and the subject beginnings of reform, studied overseas in Germany, and witnessed the rapid growth of the Chinese economy. In an era of globalization, Xu Jiang has focused on local culture and on the recall and recreation of native memories. “Summer Rain,” painted in 1995, is a work that embodies the depth of the artist’s emotion when gazing on his own native soil. On a wide canvas, Xu has used lively, expressive brushstrokes to portray the upheaval caused by sudden rain under an azure sky on a summer day. Xu employs an abstract style to depict this imposing landscape, with the richly layered blues and whites “colliding” against one another and curling round like great waves. The painting simultaneously portrays the rhythmic power of the elements in the universe, and brings across the artist’s idealism regarding his beloved homeland, and the sense of being caught up in the currents of history.
Unlike the earlier generation of Academy alumni, who were faced with the challenges posed by the clash between, and fusion of, Chinese and Western cultures, Xu Jiang experienced the Cultural Revolution and the subject beginnings of reform, studied overseas in Germany, and witnessed the rapid growth of the Chinese economy. In an era of globalization, Xu Jiang has focused on local culture and on the recall and recreation of native memories. “Summer Rain,” painted in 1995, is a work that embodies the depth of the artist’s emotion when gazing on his own native soil. On a wide canvas, Xu has used lively, expressive brushstrokes to portray the upheaval caused by sudden rain under an azure sky on a summer day. Xu employs an abstract style to depict this imposing landscape, with the richly layered blues and whites “colliding” against one another and curling round like great waves. The painting simultaneously portrays the rhythmic power of the elements in the universe, and brings across the artist’s idealism regarding his beloved homeland, and the sense of being caught up in the currents of history.