Pang Jiun was born in 1936 in a prominent artistic family that had already produced three generations of renowned painters, including his father, Pang Xunqin, who belonged to the first wave of Chinese artists studying in France, and his mother, Qiu Ti, who studied painting in Japan. Born and bred as an artist, Pang remained active and immersed in art throughout his entire life. His parents had undergone the baptism of Western oil painting, and been great promoters of modern art in China. Absorbing both the experience and knowledge of his parents, while at the same time being imbued in Oriental art and culture, Pang Jiun soon began to develop his own individual style of painting. Pang Jiun relates the classical to the modern, and imbibes their peculiarities to his advantage; in the process, he also discovers the thread running through oil painting and Chinese painting, particularly the Xieyi ink painting. Both the modern Western oil painting and the Chinese ink painting leads to his conclusion that a highlight of Xieyi is one of the most important ways to regenerate Chinese oil painting.

The work”In The Mountains Amongst Clouds” is a perfect example of Pang Jiun’s ingenious approach to landscape painting. Here, hills of branches set in the foreground correspond to the background’s mountains which seem to float in fog and mist of layers so thick the viewer is immersed in the scene. Steeped in deep grey tones, the work presents a sort of visual illusion. While the image has an overall subtlety, poetically it is rich, which allows the viewer to sink further and further inside. And the artist’s ingenious way of balancing techniques borrowed from different painting traditions, on display here, is what truly sets Pang Jiun’s oil painting apart from the rest.