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As well as painting landscapes, Fu Baoshi was also an accomplished painter of figures. His paintings of ancient Chinese figures from the 3rd and 4th centuries BC are particularly acclaimed.

As a leader of the so-called New Chinese Painting Movement, which reformed traditional Chinese painting after 1949, Fu stood out from most of his contemporaries with his great passion for art, and his innovative brushwork and unique picture composition.

Fu’s reforms were followed by a group of artists in Nanjing where he then lived. He was recognized as the founder of the Nanjing-based New Jinling School of Fine Arts. The school included such important artists as Chen Zhifo (1896-1962), Qian Songyan (1898-1985), Song Wenzhi (1919-1999), Wei Zixi (1915-2003) and Ya Ming (1924-2002).

Their works, which added a contemporary touch to traditional art, have been the most welcomed from the contemporary period in the Chinese art market today. When he took up the State commission to paint the “Jiangshan Ruci Duojiao” (Beautiful Landscape of the Motherland), which has been hung at the entrance of the Great Hall of the People since 1959, he had to make a special application to the then Premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) for “two boxes of liquor.” Finally, the master was found lying silently before the uncompleted work, his brush dropped nearby and his liquor spilled from the cup.

Philosophy

In the early 17th century, as the Ming Dynasty was changing into the Qing Dynasty, Shi Tao, a renowned master of Chinese painting, was quoted as saying: “How did our ancestors paint before the rules of painting were established? Even after rules were established, would they forbid the creation of new rules by their successors? If we just learn their style rather than their idea of painting, we will never create new innovations. So, wouldn’t that be a waste of time?”

（Source: chinaculture.org）