Picturing an epic journey
Exhibition celebrates the culmination of 30 years of work by artist Shen Yaoyi to depict the trials and triumphs of the Long March, reports.
In 1988, Shen Yaoyi embarked on an art project almost as epic in scale as the subject itself. Thirty years later, in March 2018, he finally completed the magnum opus — a three album collection comprising 2,200 engravings depicting the Long March, the famous two-year tactical retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China which began in 1934.
The collection of engravings, presenting scenes rendered in great detail, along with three oil paintings, comprehensively documents that historic trek to evade the forces of the Kuomintang.
The ongoing exhibition Shen Yaoyi’s Illustrated Stories of the Long March at Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts presents
278 engravings from Shen’s trilogy of albums to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC.
The exhibition comprises three sections. The Red Ribbon on the Earth shows the 12,500-kilometer trek, which led to the relocation of the CPC’s revolutionary base from East China’s Jiangxi province to Northwest China’s Shaanxi province.
The Long March 1936, a sequel to the first section, illustrates how the major units of the Red Army triumphed separately in key battles en route before finally merging into one force in Gansu province in October 1936, marking the end of the Long March.
The section The Promethean Fire works as a supplement to the Long March, depicting how other small units of the Red Army fought with Kuomintang forces in regions across the country to deflect the enemy’s focus from the Red Army’s Long March, during which they traversed rivers and mountains, struggling with harsh environment.
Fan Di’an, president of the China Artists Association, says that Shen’s works are a perfect combination of art and reality to tell the vivid stories of the Long March based on the artist’s decadeslong research and journeys to the routes which the Red Army took during the march.
Shen then spent 12 years finishing the trilogy. The 78-year-old has visited various places along the route of the Long March many times since 1975. He visited snowcapped mountains, grasslands and rivers, talking to local people who met the Red Army to gather anecdotes. He also interviewed many soldiers from the Red Army.
“There were few photos of the Long March. I want to recreate those historical scenes,” says Shen, adding that, despite years of research, he found only 15 photos.
Wu Hongliang, head of the Beijing Fine Art Academy, says many TV series and films themed on the Long March drew inspiration from Shen’s pictures. The institution held a show of Shen’s work featuring The Red Ribbon on the Earth in 2006.
“The hats and equipment of each soldier are different in Shen’s engravings. The details are so vivid that they make the viewers believe that they are real scenes,” Wu says.
Shen graduated from the engraving department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1966. He first became interested in the Long March when he saw a map showing the route of the march when he was at college, which sparked his curiosity and marked the beginning of his lifetime pursuit of the subject.
In 1975, Shen embarked on his first visit to areas along the route, spending three months traveling from the march’s starting place in Jiangxi province to Shaanxi where the major units merged.
He produced two of his iconic oil paintings inspired by the journey: Revolutionary Ideals Higher Than Heaven and With Firm Strides We Start Again. The former fetched 40 million yuan ($6.16 million) at an auction in Beijing in 2012, while the latter is in the collection of the National Museum of China.
From 1988 to 1993, Shen finished his album The Red Ribbon on the Earth based on a namesake novel by writer Wei Wei. It’s made up of 926 engravings and a picture book based on it has been published in several languages and countries.
Shen has combined the line drawing technique learned from traditional Chinese painting with an approach obtained from oil painting in the Red Classic series, which gained him fame and praise in China’s art circle.
Between 2012 and 2014, he produced The Long March 1936 and finished the final album of the trilogy, The Promethean Fire, in 2018.
He is often asked why he still concentrates on the subject, since the times and the environment have changed dramatically.
“Our generation would owe a debt to history if I don’t do it,” Shen explains, adding that if he doesn’t visualize the history while the people related to it are still alive, there’s a chance it will not be preserved for the next generation.