1991.6.1. Painting
It is a woodblock print which consists of five fabric scrolls (490.9 cm x 606.2 cm in total approximately) . This painting is a compositions of bald headed crowd with sky and clouds in a gray scale. The most important detail in this picture is the large head with an anonymous finger pointing to the sky. This figure is turning so only his left face is shown. He is looking at his finger with a very distinct smirk on his face . His right side is frozen and only some upper teeth are shown. Within a crowd, there are all bald head and facing upward to look to the sky or where the finger is pointing. Some of them have strong emotion by the facial expressions, some are reaching their hands and some look confused. The crowd is painted in a much denser level.
This painting reveals confusion and lost. The crowd does not know where to go and where to look at. The gray scale of this painting reflects the uncertainty as well as the strong emotion of people during this era. There is a sense of loss in direction which represents for the youths and artists in China who are uncertain about the future. Fang Lijan painted the crowd with non distinctive figures to reveal his feeling during that time. The definitions of self-identity and nation-identity are lost. The figures' faces are distorted from suffering through searching or finding for something that is nowhere to be found. Some other critics view the large figure as Christ-like image because Fang Lijan is influenced by Western culture and style
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Famous quotes containing the word painting:
“If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.”
—James Mcneill Whistler (1834–1903)