The affection of the Chinese for our culture is not a new phenomenon. Nowadays, on the streets of the capital, you can see numerous visitors from China at any time of the year, nearly as many as before the pandemic. Once again, smiling guests from the Celestial Empire stop in the metro asking to take a photo, and once more, huge buses can be seen on Moscow's streets, from which a tour guide's hand triumphantly emerges, often holding an unclosed umbrella or a funny palm on a stick. Shortly after, a multitude of Chinese tourists spills out of the bus, invariably equipped with cameras—both large professional ones and small "point-and-shoots."
A vast amount of travel content created by Chinese tourists in Russia has been showcased multiple times on social media. However, the opportunity to see how Chinese artists reflect our homeland in their work is quite rare. But now, Muscovites have that chance. A personal exhibition by Chinese artist Gu Xiaobing titled "Landscapes of Color" has opened at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
His works capture not just impressions of Russia, but also his knowledge and feelings about our country and culture. He studied in the master's program at the Surikov Art Institute and still resides today in Troitsk, a suburb of Moscow.
It is fascinating to see how two schools of painting blend in the artist's work. The Chinese tradition and contemporary Russian landscape create a synthesis of cultures, and what a synthesis it is!
Without knowing intriguing facts about the artist, one might think that these are paintings by different creators at first glance. The landscapes are our own, familiar to the bone! But the longer you stand in front of a painting, the more you sense that the prism through which the artist views our expanses is different. The difference in composition immediately stands out. Indeed, your eyes do not deceive you: the artist maintains the Chinese compositional tradition.
The entire exhibition is an exciting journey through the mind of a "biculturalist" (a person who is proficient in two cultures). It feels as if you have entered the thought process of a bilingual individual, only it is expressed on canvas. Undoubtedly, we are presented with the works of a Chinese artist. This is evidenced by other pieces, such as a minimalist series inspired by rock carvings on Helan Mountain (China). If only I knew Chinese! Perhaps there are encoded messages in the form of hieroglyphs that remain inaccessible to the uninitiated? The "Chineseness" also manifests in floral still lifes, whose technique is a close relative of traditional Chinese lacquer painting. On the other hand, there is something distinctly Russian about these flowers. It’s as if these bouquets were gathered by a homemaker and placed in a vase (certainly made of the once fashionable Chinese porcelain).