------Program code: DO-080721-00873 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
07-21-2008 08:27
The painter regards his art as his life. He is one of the creators of the Zhejiang School of Portrait Painting. His name is Fang Zengxian.
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51 years ago, near the beautiful West Lake, 24-year-old Fang Zengxian created a landmark in New China’s portrait painting history.
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It was a masterpiece of “Xinzhepai”, or the New Zhejiang School. Produced in 1955, it had as its theme the most common but neglected details in Chinese villages. The painting is a vivid depiction of an ordinary old farmer produced using simple but delicate lines. It caused a sensation in Chinese arts circles at the time. Half a century has passed, but Lu Qihui, Fang Zengxian’s wife, still remembers the high praise for the painting.
Fang Zengxian’s fascination with farmers is deeply rooted in his childhood. He was born in the summer of 1931, to an ordinary farming family.
His family was very poor. At the age of 3, Fang Zengxian left his parents’ home to live with his grandmother, half a kilometer away.
In the eyes of the little Fang Zengxian, the exquisite wooden gate of his grandmother’s house was the most beautiful image in the world. It was at this house that his appreciation of beauty and art was born. In his grandmother’s house he found books such as “The Paintings of Jiezi Yuan” and “A Pictorial of Dianshi Zhai”, which inspired in him a yearning for art.
But it was his mother who first encouraged him to paint.
Paintings of his mother; group photo of his mother, his brother and him; painting that his mother copied
Becoming an artist was by this time Fang Zengxian’s dream. After leaving junior high school, he was supposed to go to a normal senior school. Instead, Fang Zengxian, despite his lack of formal training as an artist, applied for the Hangzhou State Academy of Arts.
But when he faced a plaster model for the first time, he had no idea what to do.
