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ILLUSTRATED:

Nativist Rural Motifs

Text / Li Chiao

The renowned contemporary Chinese oil painter Luo Zhongli had achieved prominence in China's painting community by the 1980's. His masterpiece "Father" used sophisticated realist painting techniques and novel artistic concepts to inspire the art world's strong interest in Realism again. This also hinted at the end of the single themed painting styles that had once graced Chinese art. In Luo Zhongli's realist oil paintings, we see another world in front of us that he had discovered through his unique artistic perspective. This was a world made up of special moments and touching instants from the distant countryside. "Tibetan Child" provides us with this type of mutually-supporting art aesthetic that's well worth our time to carefully sample.

In the painting, the small child peers into the distance, making the dwelling in the foreground and the distant farms, fields and hills compose together a mesmerizing rural atmosphere. The tranquility invites contemplation so one could not help but be struck by nostalgia and the wonder of life. The artist has attempted to create a rural motif that belongs to Chinese Nativisim. By distilling its visual tension and color tones, he subtly draws the audience on to create a unique rhythm and interest, breath and soul - thus, through the oil painting's techniques and its expression, his series of nativist oil paintings is where his "Home" lies. We can see that the artist has attempted to use the local area's traditional motifs then juxtaposed its classical elegance. This variation then becomes his new way of structuring and expressing the formatting language of local oil paintings. The old-style southwestern atmosphere and environment is infused with the artist's endless longing as within it could be found his spiritual homeland. The treatment of shapes and spatial compositions within the work expresses the artist's response to his scene. The painter obviously intended through his artistic process to give Realism a new kind of aesthetic standard. This is the rich artistry that "Tibetan Child" brings to its audience and also the artistic merit of the painter's efforts to explore the nature of Realism in art.

Through the long period of artistic exploration, the painter's inspirations from the general population continue to point his artistic endeavors towards the rural villages. At the same time, his own art is infused with a farmer-like simplicity of emotions. The subjects of Luo Zhongli's paintings show no traces of having been idealized or glorified. Instead, they retain the purity of their image and the strong sense of everyday Ba-Shu culture. The simple nature of the characters as well as the down-to-earth use of colors, along with the unique treatment of lighting and detailed paintwork have together achieved a perfect union of content and format. "Tibetan Child" shows that the artist's creative images no longer rely on the context but instead excel in the depiction of characters and the expression of atmosphere. This means it has gradually evolved into related artistic symbols so the audience realizes the inconsistencies in how civilization has developed and responds to the spiritual need to return to one's roots.

As one of the most skillful practitioners of the Chinese Academy style, he is today still an artist full of creative vitality. By gradually distilling his own artistic style and spirit, Luo Zhongli has created his own unique art motif then combined it with a simple yet forceful painting. This has resulted in an organic fusion of Realism's focus on life and Expressionism's emphasis on realizing inner emotions, becoming one of the archetypes of contemporary Chinese oil painting styles. As a representative of contemporary Chinese oil painting, Luo Zhongli's style and artworks have now attracted the attention of local and foreign art organizations as well as segments of society.