The Suzhou Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting was founded in 1960 to preserve and transmit the style not only of the Wu school, nut of traditional painting in general. However, its role is not just to simply transmit the canons of the past, but also to constantly renew them, with excellent results: the works of the Academy masters adorn the Great Hall of the People (the Chinese parliament) and many other government buildings. In recent years, this prestigious institution has been very active in organizing exhibitions both nationally and internationally.
This exhibition, promoted by the Suzhou Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting, the City of Venice, the Province of Venice, the Venice Expo Committee, Venice International University, San Servolo Servizi, the Department of Far Eastern Studies of Ca' Foscari and the Istituto Confucio, presents 58 works by 17 painters illustrating the different genres of traditional Chinese painting: landscapes, "flowers and birds", portraits etc. While the inspiration is antique, the result is modern: the artists reinterpret a tradition that is deeply rooted in contemporary China according to their present-day sensibility.
For example, the paintings in the "flowers and birds" genre by di Xu Yuanshao recall the luscious style of the great Xu Wei (1521-1593), with splashes of ink that suggest shapes rather than defining them precisely, a style that had also been used by Qi Baishi (1864-1957). Sun Junliang seems to rely on Huang Binhong (1865-1955), an artist and theorist who adapted the painting of the literati to the new social realism of the early 20th century. The works of Liu Jia are a homage to Luo Zhongli, a master of photographic realism, with faces whose hyper-realistic wrinkles are now rendered by thick ink strokes. Whatever genre inspired them, all the paintings on show are in ink and colour (some only in ink) on paper, exactly according to Chinese tradition.