The Russian Academy Of Arts

Dates: July 26 – August 25, 2024

Venue: the Museum and Exhibition Complex of the Russian Academy of Arts (19 Prechistenka street, Moscow)

The Russian Academy of Arts presents the Art of Sunlight exhibition of paintings by the Rector of the Art Institute of the Xiamen University Zhang Liping. The exhibition has been timed to the 75^th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Russia and is part of the program of the Cross Culture Year of Russia and China. The exhibition has been curated by the Honorary Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Guo Xiaobing.

The history of the dialogue between Russian and Chinese art is as long as the rivers Volga and Yangtze. The Russian painting, both classical and modern, is rich in contents and has its original language. Beloved by the Chinese people it has inspired and influenced many artists fr om China. Professor Zhang Liping is a contemporary Chinese painter who studied Russian oil painting. Emphasizing the importance of the basics of composition and strict artistic form he brilliantly combines these principles with the language of the traditional Chinese “painting of ideas” (Hsieh yi), which is otherwise called the “freehand style” distinguished by some understatement, the use of broad brush strokes and the desire to depict only an image of reality, but not its true copy.  The synthesis of Russian and Chinese painting techniques has allowed Zhang Liping to generate his own pictorial manner. His canvases represent a dynamic and rhythmic symphony of color wh ere the expressiveness and visual tension are achieved by paints mixed simultaneously with a palette knife and a brush on the canvas. China and Russia have rich nature and share its special role as a home of human spirit, that is why the landscape painting is highly valued by the people of these countries. For many years Zhang Liping has travelled to many cities, villages, mountainous and coastal regions of China in search of new sources of inspiration and maintained his continuous connection with nature. He has created a number of extraordinary landscapes that became masterpieces of Chinese art. The space of his canvases is multi-layered and is filled with a unique color palette. Of great significance for the Chinese traditional culture is the idea of “the unity of the Heaven and a human” that has been vividly manifested in the works by Zhang Liping. 

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