At 3:00 pm on November 1, 2024, the opening ceremony of the "65th Anniversary Series of Activities of Guangdong Academy of Painting" will be held in Guangzhou, and the event will run through December 15. The works have been on display since October 25.
This exhibition covers a variety of art categories such as Chinese painting, oil painting, murals, and lacquer painting, showing the magnificent picture of "Green and Beautiful Guangdong," telling the Chinese story, the Greater Bay Area story, and the Guangdong story of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
Debut of a huge flower-and-bird painting
The size of this work reached 3 meters by 16.8 meters. It took a team of 19 well-known painters about 4 months to complete. The work describes the natural beauty and ecological richness of Guangdong in the form of huge flower-and-bird paintings. It is a new exploration, breaking through the previous pattern of production dominated by figure painting and landscape painting.
Since late June, the Guangdong Academy of Painting has started to invite famous painters from across the country, in-service painters of the Guangdong Academy of Painting, and young painters in particular, to visit regions representing "Green and Beautiful Guangdong" for research and sketching.
In terms of layout, the whole picture of the work titled "Green and Beautiful Guangdong" is permeated with grand natural scenes and orderly spatial organization, with plants and animals of the southland included in a magnificent composition. This long scroll constructs an ecological world on a broad scale, creating a vast realm where all things grow as one.
Highlighting the characteristics of Guangdong and the Greater Bay Area
Lin Lan, one of the main creators of this painting, Vice Chairman of the China Artists Association and Chairman of the Guangdong Artists Association, said: "I particularly value the word 'beautiful' in 'Green and Beautiful Guangdong'. We want to record it. This is the original intention for us to create the painting."
"Respecting nature, adapting to nature, protecting nature, and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature is a very important issue at present," said Fang Chu Xiong, a famous flower-and-bird painter and professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
Yin Shuyu, a first-class artist of the Chinese Academy of Painting of the Chinese Academy of Arts, said that the theme of this work coincides with the spirit of Lingnan and traditional flower-and-bird paintings. For one, it shows the climate and natural landscape in the Lingnan region. On the other hand, it reflects the current ecological civilization.
Liu Haiyong, a professor at the China Academy of Art, believes that the integrated development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has been thriving over the years, and the theme of "Green and Beautiful Guangdong" is very suitable to express this vigorous spirit of struggle and the atmosphere of the times.
An event to promote art exchanges
The exhibition has five sections with different themes. For instance, works with regional characteristics of professional art institutions in Guangdong's 21 cities are displayed in the "Beautiful Home" section.
The "Beauty and Sharing" section features works by 32 famous artists from important art institutions across the country, promoting the exchange and mutual learning of art creation.
Fang Tu, former director of the Guangzhou Academy of Painting, highly praised the creative form of in-depth painting exchanges between artists of different ages and from the north and south through this ecological theme. He believes that showing Green and Beautiful Guangdong through exchanges between the northern and southern artists in China has special meaning. "The Lingnan School of Painting has made similar exchanges before. Guan Shanyue and Li Xiongcai, representative figures of the Lingnan School of Painting, are the pioneers of 'going out' and 'bringing in'."
Reporter | Lin Xuna
Translator | Wei Nan
Photos | Guangdong Academy of Painting
Editor | Will, James
