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Canola Flowers, 1973
oil on paper
Mysterious Qinghaihu Lake
1979, oil on paper
Little Pond, 1981
oil on paper
Little Pony, 1983
oil on paper
Painting amid a Fateful Past
by Bian Xie
Chinese great scholar and philosopher Confucius once said,” you come to know about your fate when you are 50 years old, but nothing bothers you anymore when you get to the age of 60.”
This is true for Zhu Naizheng, a Chinese oil painter.
The Central Academy of Fine Arts grew out of the National Arts School of Beijing, whose president was Xu Being (1895-1953), one of the originators of Chinese art teaching.
At 60, he believes it is time to recall the past fame, success and misfortune, although these may not bother him anymore as they did before.
On his 60th birthday, he plans to give an exhibition at the China Art Gallery from October 25 to November 5.
A versatile artist, Zhu is first and foremost an oil painter. His representative oil paintings such as “The Golden Season,” “Flowers in Spring and Fruits in Autumn” and “In Starlight in May” have long been familiar to art lovers.
This is the first time the painter will publicly exhibit his ink paintings and calligraphy, totaling 60 in number.
They are the painter’s early works, all in small size, that have faithfully recorded the road the painter has come through.
Born in 1935, two years before the Japanese invaded China; Zhu spent his childhood wandering from one place to another with his parents.
Misfortune continued when he had grown to be a talented painter from the Central Academy of Arts.
In 1959 upon graduation, he was sent to the wilderness in Northwest China’s Qinghai Province because he was called a “rightist.”
For 21 years, Zhu lived in a secluded place surrounded by high mountains, deserts and endless storms.
He survived because he believed that “Good works come of hardships.”
He immersed himself in research on art, leaving behind what had happened to him.
It was then that the painter solidly laid a foundation for his brush style as well as his strong philosophy toward destiny.
He enriched his sense of color by observing the unique costumes worn by minority groups inhabiting the province.
Like a musician, he kept a rhythm in painting vast scenes of mountains and expressed his loneliness in his works.
“No mountains or rivers can be well-depicted if the painter has not traveled over 10,000 miles,” Zhu said.
In 1980, Zhu was invited to come back to the Central Academy of Arts and it was then that he began to win wild acclaim for his paintings.
The works to be shown at the gallery are little known because Zhu has only showed then to his closest friends.
But the painter is fond of these works, from which his early experiences can be traced – And from which his magnificent works came into being.