"Hometown Brigde": oil on canvas, Guang Zhi Zhang, 1998, 11" x 17.5"

Born in the late 1940's, in a small northern Chinese village, Guang Zhi Zhang (Zhang Guang Zhi) grew up believing that hard work would get him into a good college, and he would be able to better himself.  Then, came Mao, the Red Guard, and the cultural revolution.  Academics, academia, and academic studies were denounced, in China, and it was not really a time for any one to go to college, in stark contrast to the high times, in America and Europe for colleges and college students, during that same period of the late 1960's.

They often say that artists must suffer for their art.  People, like Michelangelo, in Renaissance Italy, or even Da Zhong Zhang, and Zheng Tian Li , in modern China, seem to have done some suffering.  It's usually just a self-fulfilling prophecy: a person chooses to paint or sculpt, and they have to rely on self-support or money from a benefactor, if they find one, until, if ever, they become well-regarded as an artist.  Then, finally, they can support themselves through their art sales. In the mean time, they usually have to suffer, just like any other entrepreneur.  Artists, in mid-twentieth century China had even more of a handicap, as only those who painted flattering pictures of the State, much like was also the case in the Soviet Union during that era, were allowed to be painters.

Guang Zhi Zhang, never having considered becoming an artist, never had to face that type of suffering.   After high school, Zhang joined the "Red Guards", a neo-Maoist youth group that had a large presence during the cultural revolution.  His tasks, as a Red Guard, were to post news on news boards.  To back up a bit, news, in those days, in China, was written on blackboards, in communities: there was no local newspaper.  Those news boards even had illustration drawn on them.  Even today, the local news board is just down the block from where we live, in Guangzhou; now, actual paper newspapers are pasted onto the board.

During his time as a Red Guard newsboy, someone took notice of his ability at illustration on the boards and asked him if he would make a painting of Chairman Mao.  Being a good Red Guard boy, he complied with the request and made an eight meter high painting of the Chairman, winning accolades, not only for the size of the piece, but also for its execution, especially since it was painted from a small photo as the model.  One thing led to another, as is often the way that life goes, he was asked to join the real army, the People's Liberation Army, and he was assigned to painting portraits and scenes involving Mao.

Then, when the cultural revolution ended, in the late 1970's, and Zhang wanted to finally attend college, he was, at first, turned down because of his age.  His years serving his dark master, Mao, paid off, though, as the government eventually made special compensation for army members by directing some colleges to open up classes, especially for them.  Zhang attended Lu Xun Art Institute and, thereafter, went to France to get a Master of Fine Arts degree, under Claude Yvel, who is a master of the Trompe L'oeil style of painting, which is extreme realism in which the objects in the painting are made to look real, not painted.

Today, Guang Zhi Zhang still paints and is still part of the government, working in the ministry of culture, in his hometown.  He paints in both realistic and impressionistic styles (he tells us that it depends on his mood and on the subject matter).  We just happen to love the little impressionistic painting at the top of this entry.  It has those muted impressionistic colors, set off by the bright blues and greens around the stream and the sky, that fills it with light.  In addition, the impasto impressionistic brush strokes, in many cases, define objects or their parts with a single stroke.  We are thankful that Guang Zhi Zhang's circuitous journey, through the dull days of Maoist China, has led him to produce such beautiful and bright art.