Visit with Artist Quan Shan Shi

Quan Shan Shi is a man’s painter- a type of Hemmingway of the Chinese art world. His dark eyes, flowing mane of grayish, black hair, and sturdy build reflect an intensity that enabled Quan to become one of China’s most respected oil painters of the 20th century. His works, like Hemmingway’s, constantly challenged the Socialist Realism traditions of Maoist China and Stalin-lead Soviet Union. His reputation is legendary, and it was with great honor and slight fear that I entered his Hangzhou studio recently for a private meeting.

Quan, born in 1930, was among the first Chinese art students to travel to the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. He quickly was taken in by the famous Soviet artists, Mylnikov, Arishinikov, and Vgarov. Quan recognized early the gap between the Soviet students and the Chinese students, especially in the use of colors. He decided to break away from his Chinese class-mates, and asked to be assigned to classes where there were no other Chinese. By the second semester, his works were already surpassing those of the local students.

Quan claims that the greatest influences on his work have been from Titian, Velasquez and Manet. He feels that artists must focus first on the basic skills emphasized during the Renaissance: sketching, construction of anatomy, perspective and composition. Even though he became a master at the use of colors, he believes his works have garnered international recognition because of his strong foundation in these basic skills developed 500 years ago, but too often downplayed by contemporary art schools.

After viewing some of his works from his 1979 sojourn to the Silk Road, we shared tea alongside floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Hangzhou’s fog-shrouded skyline. When in the presence of a true scholar of art like Quan- a professor of dozens of books, winner of endless accolades, and a respected professor- one cannot but wonder how he feels about the current prices being achieved by some of China’s contemporary artists. How does a man like Quan, so steeped in the classical art tradition, view the recent fad for politically-inspired art? Quan stirred his tea and, while watching the leaves spin turbulently around the porcelain cup, left me with this interesting metaphor:

“If I take a large basin and throw in a dozen live fish and a dozen dead fish, and then stir the basin like this,” he pointed to the tea leaves still circling. “Interestingly enough, it will be the dead fish that move the most quickly. The live fish will be struggling against the current and facing more turbulence. But when the water stops spinning, those live fish will still be alive. The dead fish, those that moved so quickly, will be silent.”

For a man of eighty years old, Quan has seen an endless array of artistic trends. Throughout that time, he has remained a respected master- a fish that is always alive and well in a capricious and fad -conscious art world.