Back in the early days of the People's Republic of China, the country's best and brightest artists studied in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union may be gone with the wind, but an unusual exhibit at the Guan Shanyue Art Museum looks at the influence of Russian oil painting on Chinese oil painting.

The Contemporary Russian and Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition, with 148 oil paintings by more than 50 Russian painters and over 40 Chinese painters, is on display through March 19.

Most of the Russian painters are from the prestigious Repin Academy of Art, St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts, Sculpture and Architecture, including masters Konstantin Maximov and A. Marnikov.

Uniting teacher and student, the Chinese painters include Feng Fashi, a student of Maximov in the 1950s.

Since its founding in 1757, the Repin Academy of Art has promoted Russia's classical fine arts and preserved its tradition of realism.

"This exhibition not only helps viewers gain insight into the influence of Russian fine arts on the development of Chinese oil paintings in the past 50 years, but also provides a platform for painters from both countries to dialogue with each other," said Vladimir Kuzmichev, professor and director of the oil painting department of the Russian State Pedagogical University, St. Petersburg, who attended the exhibit's opening Feb. 21.

Kuzmichev said he was not surprised to see that the Russian painters generally surpassed their Chinese counterparts in the artistic level of the works on display.

"Every form of art has its own root and tradition, and the most difficult thing for today's Chinese painters is to build up their own tradition," he said. "But on the other hand, from the exhibition, we can see that Chinese painters have been quickly improving their skills and artistic level in recent years."

Kuzmichev said he was particularly impressed by "The Houses on the Hill" by Mao Daizong, in which the artist uses oils to depict the lyrical scene that is the essence of traditional Chinese landscape painting.

The exhibit's curator, young Chinese painter Chen Wenhua, said the main purpose of the exhibit was "to expose Chinese painters to the Russian tradition of realism in a new context today.

"Many works of Russian master painters on display here could be seen only in art books, but today we can have a face-to-face dialogue with them," said Chen, who went to St. Petersburg in 2001 to study oil painting at the Repin Arts Academy and is currently pursuing two doctorates in Russia.

According to Chen, who owns the Beijing Zhongyide International Art Co. Ltd., Russian oil paintings have special academic, cultural and political significance for China.

The Soviet system of art education was transplanted to China after 1949, gaining strength in the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time, a lot of talented Chinese students were sent to Russia for further study. Russian realism was one of China's officially approved art forms.

"However, with Chinese artists exposed to various avant-garde Western arts since China opened its door to the outside world at the beginning of the 1980s, the solid technical system Chinese artists built on the base of Russian oil painting is almost collapsing today," Chen said.

Chen hopes Chinese artists, especially young painters, will learn how to preserve and develop their acquired tradition through dialogues with their Russian counterparts.

(Shenzhen Daily February 28, 2006)