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Artist revives Tang poetry with interpretation of Zhejiang's landscapes and cultural heritage

chinadaily.com.cn| Updated: April 23, 2024 L M S

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Yue Zengguang brings to Xinchang county, in Zhejiang province, new works inspired by local landscapes and history. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A group of poets in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) initiated a tourism trend to frequently travel through the mountains and waters in east Zhejiang province, while they composed works inspired by the remarkable views of nature before their eyes. The routes as a collective are remembered as the "road of Tang poetry in east Zhejiang", connecting several towns, counties and villages that include Xinchang county, of Shaoxing.

A year ago, Yue Zengguang, a resident artist of China National Academy of Painting, retraced the journeys of Tang poets in Xinchang, and incorporated his impressions of the scenery and Xichang's history and cultural tradition with his longtime research of the blue-green (qinglye) tradition of Chinese landscape painting.

His such works have now returned to their birthplace, Xinchang, on show at Yue's exhibition at a local gallery until May 16.

The blue-green style was a unique approach to coloring in the Chinese painting, of which painters shade a great deal of blue and green, of high saturation, in landscape paintings to render vitality and magnificence.

Under his strokes, Yue has enriched this form with the addition of red hues, accentuating the contrast among the three colors, and he applies sharp, clear-cut lines to present a contemporary sensation.