Shi Lu (; 1919–1982), born Feng Yaheng (), was a Chinese painter, wood block printer, poet and calligrapher. He based his pseudonym on two artists who greatly influenced him, the landscape painter

Shitao Shitao or Shi Tao (; other department Yuan Ji (), 1642 – 1707), born into the Ming dynasty imperial clan as Zhu Ruoji (朱若極), was a Chinese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and landscape painter during the early Qing dynasty. Born in the Qu ...

and writer

Lu Xun Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. W ...

Life and art

Shi Lu came from a wealthy land owning family in

Renshou County Renshou County () is a county in Meishan City, Sichuan Province of China. It is located in Middle-West of Sichuan Basin. It has an area of , and population of 154,040,000. Founded in the Qin dynasty. Its name may derive from the first Sui Dynast ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

Province. A student of the Chinese traditional painting style '' guohua'', he studied at Dongfang Art College and West China Union University in

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

(1934-1940). He joined the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

and in 1949 at the first national assembly was elected and executive member of the

China Artists Association The China Artists Association (), originally the China National Art Workers' Association (), is the official national association of Chinese artists, with its headquarters in Beijing. It was established in July 1949, with Xu Beihong as its first c ...

. In 1955 Shi Lu travelled to India to supervise the overall art design of a Chinese pavilion at an international expo. In 1956 he attended the Asian-African National Art Exhibition in Egypt. During these travels he made many sketches of the people he observed developing his technique of Western drawing and Chinese brushwork. In 1959 he was commissioned to produce a large scale painting to be displayed in the

Great Hall of the People The Great Hall of the People is a state building located at the western edge of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It is used for legislative and ceremonial activities by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the ruling Chinese Co ...

in Beijing to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the forming of the People's Republic of China. By this time Shi Lu had developed a mature style and looked upon the opportunity to create what is now considered his masterpiece. The painting depicts

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

standing on the precipice of the Shaanxi mountains in 1947, leading his troops against the

National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...

. The painting was criticized for the small image of Mao with a grand landscape and his back turned to the viewer. One critic saying that he appeared "isolated and at the end of the road". Shi Lu refused to revise the painting when asked and further uncompromising stances on his artistic vision lead to his eventual persecution by the

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

. His art was publicly denounced, he was put in prison and not allowed to touch a brush for three years. During this time Shi Lu suffered a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After his release in 1970 he quickly returned to painting, taking some of the water color landscape sketches he had made in India and Egypt and adding a dense overlayer of ink painting that exhibited a darker and more erratic style, similar to that sometimes found in the work of people with schizophrenia.Britta Erickson, “Shi Lu: Giving Form to the Incomprehensible,” ''A Life in Chinese Art: Essays in Honour of Michael Sullivan'', ed. by Shelagh Vainker and Xin Chen (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, 2012), pp. 48-58.

Major works

* Fighting in Northern Shaanxi

References

Sources

* * *

External links

* http://www.artnet.com/artists/shi-lu/biography * https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2014/05/28/shi-lu-the-literatus-vs-the-revolutionary/ * https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/voices/galleries/shi-lu * http://arthistoryreference.com/a1/51726.htm {{authority control Republic of China painters Painters from Sichuan 1919 births 1982 deaths People from Meishan