Tu Zhiwei: The Highest Standards

This year, Chinese oil painter Zhiwei Tu was elected president of the United States' National Oil Painters Association. This is the first time a non-American was bestowed with the honor.

Born in Guangdong in 1951, Mr. Tu was awarded a master's degree by the Guangzhou Academy of Arts in 1981. He earned another Master's Degree in Fine Arts in 1990 from Drake University in the United States.
Shortly afterwards, his huge oil painting, "Dancing While Playing Pi-Pa" caused a sensation in Chicago when it was sold to a collector for a sum in the six figures.

Zhiwei Tu was born in the rural village of Wengyuan. As a boy he liked to draw constantly. His work as an adolescent and early teen made a local sensation and drew the interest of art critics from as far away as Beijing. But he was still unknown to much of the art world even within China until 1972, when he was admitted to the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. That same year, Hu Yichuan, president of the Guangzhou Academy of Art (who would later become Mr. Tu's son-in-law) made the prediction: "This young man will one day be world famous as an outstanding artist."

After enduring the early excesses of the Cultural Revolution, traveling throughout Tibet during its later stages, and then completing his studies when schools reopened, Mr. Tu took up his first post as art professor at Shaoguan University near his home village. Within a couple of years, he received an invitation to join the prestigious faculty of the Guanzhou Institute of Fine Arts. There, he quickly became engrossed in the artistic subject of Chinese historical themes. In 1978, Tu set out to visit the Hubei area, where archaeologists were just unearthing the shocking find of large, ancient bells at a site near the village of Dunhuang. These confirmed earlier depictions seen in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, which also were under intense study and had been subjected to extensive archaeological research as well as artistic representations by well known Chinese artists such as Chang Shu-hong and other masters.

Zhiwei Tu realized that in painting historical themes such as those of Dunhuang, the task should not be to copy the cave murals but to bring those ancient times alive. The clothing, musical instruiments, dancing techniques, and even the reaction of on-lookers needed to be researched, then reimagined, in-depth to give modern viewers a true sense of the life-loving spirit of Dunhuang as it had existed in the halcyon days of the Silk Road. So, he traveled to the nation's numerous museums to study their dusty collections of ancient clothing, furnishings, instruments, utensils, drawings, and the like. In 1980, Tu traveled to Beijing to consult with Mr. Shen Congwen at his home about ancient Chinese costumes. Mr. Shen, however, was due to make visit abroad, and but so entranced was he with Mr. Tu's endeavor that so he invited him to stay by his side as he packed his bags and answered questions. That first meeting Zhiwei Tu still remembers vividly to this day.

Within a few years, Zhiwei Tu had created a series of "Dunhuang Dance" paintings -- works with Tu's own unique style -- faithful to the joyful spirit of the ancient, now badly faded, Dunhuang murals that showed dancers and musicians and courtiers as they lived. Tu's vivid colors, the dramatic scenes he envisioned, and a subtle chiaroscuro effect brought alive perfect three-dimensional scenes for the viewer, as if one were actually there to witness the scene. hear the music, and see the dancing of the Dunghuang performers as wellas witness the varied reactions, and sometimes intrigues, of those in the audience.

Tu Zhiwei has said, "Dunhuang was the intersection of East and West, where different cultures met. It inspired a 'big flash' of artistic 'light' in its time. Although the dancers can be seen in ancient Dunhuang frescoes, I have relied on the actual form of the human body, using colors, brushstrokes, and a 'light' effect to create unique images that evoke deep cultural connections between now and the distant past."
　　
Zhiwei Tu sought wider vistas when he emigrated from China to continue his studies in the United States in 1987. His American mentor [Jules Kirschenbaum] told him, "Your painting technique is already superb. What you can learn from me is the concept of the artistic spirit."

Living in the United States was very difficult at first for Tu Zhiwei. "I came to America not for the purpose of making money and not to have a comfortable life, but to develop my art by.thoroughly engaging the arts of a different culture, the United States. At that time, it was much more difficult to come to the United States. The times, the language, the culture, and the customs were so unusual for an artist from China that I found it very difficult to understand the situation. The United States was not easy. Artists be warned! Without money one can not survive here."

Despite the difficulties posed by his suddenly impoverished-student circumstances, he persevered for the love of his art. "I pick up a brush and there is nothing that can distract me. I never grow tired, I do not know hunger or thirst. I forget everything except what I am painting "

From the 1980's onward, Zhiwei Tu completed a huge number of historical oil paintings: "Sima Qian," "Yu Swordsmen," "Rebound Pipa", "Han Zhaojun Syria", "The Drunken Beauty." Beginning in the 1990's his work began to attract wider attention and met with rave reviews. Commentators raved over his technque and the sheer emotion evoked by the form, color, and light of his works.

As Lucy Kemu Shara, chairwoman of the National Association of the Second Painting, said: "Tu's work, thanks to his many years of research, embodies China's most splendid cultural history in large paintings. Every one of them stands alone as a strong ideological and cultural performance. When images by the artist impart such a tremendous emotional human spirit, viewers are attracted to the painting. The painter and the painting become one, in time and space. This is the true genius of the artist and his talent."

Although Zhiwei Tu can employ many different painting styles, in these paintings he brings creative focus to historical themes with a more traditional, realistic style. He beleives some suibjects simply demand it. He cites as examples such western artists such as the classical Dutch figures of Rembrandt, the British painter Turner's scenery, French pastoral paintings -- some are in color, some pen and ink, and some even in unique materials or media. Artists must have different preferences and styles, but the subject always is more important than the style.

"In the unique 'feelings', 'feel' and' taste' of my paintings, I hope that people will see my work as uniquely the work of Zhiwei Tu, not so much for its form as for its emotional content," he says. "Color and technique are very important, but they are only tools for creating a total artistic vision. The substance of that vision is the most important. After all, art is created by the artist."