Z.S. Liang: Truth in the Details
In his newest work, Z.S. Liang shows his continued passion for accurately portraying Native American life.
Several months ago I had the pleasure of realizing every serious collector’s dream when I had the opportunity to “shadow” a great artist—in this case Z.S. Liang—as he developed the idea for his latest major painting, did the necessary research, prepared an initial drawing, refined subsequent drawings, prepared a study, drew the final version on the canvas, spent weeks painting the composition and, finally, made minor changes and or corrections before the painting was deemed to be complete and ready for framing.
Getting to know Z.S. over the past several years, I very quickly learned that the reasons why he has been so successful in his portrayal of Native Americans, with his paintings, are varied.
First and foremost, he is a naturally very talented and skilled artist, which goes back to the intense training that he received as a young aspiring artist in his native China. Secondly, he is extremely passionate about Native American culture and most importantly, he is a stickler for detail and for making sure that each of his compositions accurately represent and depict every element in his paintings—from the clothing worn by his figures, to their weapons and or the ceremonial objects and in the case of his large historical paintings, to the geographical setting for the story that he is “telling” with the painting.
In order to achieve such a high level of accuracy in his paintings, Z.S. has become a student of the different Native American cultures and he goes to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of all the elements in his compositions. The subjects for each of his paintings are carefully thought out and they are meticulously researched before he begins his first drawing.
And one of the many things that I realized, from having the opportunity to shadow Z.S., is that like all great artists, he is never completely satisfied with his own work and he also is his own severest critic. Because of this, he is constantly challenging himself by raising the bar in order to improve the overall quality of his work, by developing more interesting ideas for his stories and by being conscious about not creating works that have a “sameness” to them.
Z.S. does this because he believes that collectors of his work rightfully deserve to own a painting that is not only of the highest quality possible, but also, they deserve to own a “one-of-a-kind” work of art that won’t be
repeated and that won’t be seen—in either a larger or smaller size or in a similar composition—in another show, another gallery, another magazine or in another collector’s home.
My actual shadowing of Z.S., over the period of time that he was working on his major painting that will be exhibited in June, at the Prix de West show, began with a brief phone conversation in November 2018 when he explained how he developed the idea for this major painting. He said that the idea and story wasn’t simply a case of immediately knowing what type of composition he would create. Rather, he started off knowing that he wanted this major work to be a very large painting and because of that, he knew that he would need to have at least five figures in the composition.
Once that was determined, he decided that he wanted the figures to be involved with some type of tribal ceremony. And from past research, he had learned how important the rare white buffalo was in Native American religious lore, so he developed a story around a warrior’s war shield that was covered with the hide of a “sacred” white buffalo.
After initially formulating the idea for the painting,
Z.S. explained that he then put together a photo shoot with Native American models. But since the idea for the painting had not as yet been completely finalized, beyond the fact that it would involve a religious ceremony, the photo shoot was done generically to determine the basic way the multiple figures would be positioned during a ceremony with the war shield.
Our initial phone conversation was then periodically followed by numerous emails from Z.S. to review the initial concept drawing and to explain all the elements in the drawing—i.e., why the figures were positioned a certain way, what type of ceremony was being depicted, the type of clothing being worn by the figures and what the figures were holding in their hands.
Over the next several weeks, the original drawing was revised several times and throughout that process Z.S. continued to detail for me—either by phone or by email— the geographical setting for the composition, the reasons why figures were added or moved, replaced or repositioned, why a figure was holding something a certain way, and how the sunlight and the shadows would result in specific color tones being either darkened or lightened in the actual painting.
While all this was happening, Z.S. also shared the reason why he chose the specific title for the painting and he shared the brief narrative that would accompany the finished painting he had written to briefly tell the viewer the “story” behind the composition.
Once he was completely satisfied with his revised drawing, Z.S. painted a study that he would use as a reference for the actual painting. He then sketched using a blue pencil so it would make it easier to pick up mistakes when he is painting the entire composition onto his 62-by-47-inch canvas. At that point, he began painting his latest major work, The White Buffalo War Shield.
A short time after he began the painting, I was able to visit Z.S. at his home studio in California. During my visit, he explained the progress that had been made on the painting, why he added both a buffalo tail and a horse tail to the warrior’s shield and he also explained the subtle changes he made—from the colored study to his canvas—with colors, light and the repositioning of the central figure’s face.
As was noted earlier, the title of this major painting is The White Buffalo War Shield. And the reason for that is because the rarity of a white buffalo or white bison caused it to be considered sacred, spiritually significant and possessing of supernatural powers by many Native American tribes. In this painting, Z.S. is depicting a group of warriors taking part in a pre-battle religious ceremony with a war shield that is made from the hide of a “sacred” white buffalo. The warriors, in the scene, are imploring the holy spirit to transfer the supernatural powers of the dead white buffalo to their war shield so that its powers could be used to “fend off” the arrows and the spears of the fierce enemy whom they will soon be encountering in battle.
Like many artists, Z.S. only works on one painting at a time and as the days and weeks passed, he continued to update me—either by phone, by email (with images) and because I live 3,000 miles away on the East Coast, by using Facetime—so I could see how he was progressing with the painting.
During this final phase of “fine tuning”
the painting, Z.S. continued making minor changes to different elements of the composition and he also made subtle changes to the faces of the figures in order to be certain that each face accurately represented who the individual is and what the individual’s role is in the war shield ceremony. On one of our last calls about the painting, he took time to explain to me that, at this stage, he was working to make sure the entire composition of the ceremony looked natural and real. At the same time, he was very careful to point out that he didn’t mean “photorealistic.” Rather, he meant “real” as a representational work of art—so that someone who stands in front of the painting will feel as though he or she is actually experiencing the war shield ceremony. Z.S. completed his explanation by saying that while he realized it would not be possible to truly make the painting artistically perfect, he was nonetheless working to make it perfect.
This memorable experience that I had of shadowing Z.S. over a several month period was both enjoyable and enlightening. And, more importantly, it gave me, as a collector, a much better understanding of and a far greater appreciation of the serious amount of work and the dedicated effort that not only Z.S. puts into his paintings, but also it gave me the same understanding and appreciation for the amount of work and dedicated effort that I know all great artists put into their exceptional works of art.
And as collectors, I believe that we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to today’s many great Western artists whose passion, devotion and “integrity” for their subject matter and for their work makes each of our lives more fulfilling every time that we add one of their masterful creations to our own personal collections. Dan Corazzi is a retired public school superintendent and software company CFO. He is on the board of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and he is chairman of the Prix de West Committee in Oklahoma. He and his wife, Maryann, reside in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. They began collecting Western art a decade ago and their collection now includes works by Bill Anton, Carrie Ballantyne, Greg Beecham, Tom Browning, G. Russell Case, John Coleman, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Paul Moore, Bill Nebeker, Tim Shinabarger and Curt Walters.