Folk Painting, a marvelous flower in the garden of folk arts, has been flourishing in Neihuang, the town of Chinese date trees. It has formed its unique style in recent 20 years. As a bold combination of modernism and Chinese tradition, it is composed of vivid and bright lines in red, green, yellow, blue, black and other single colors out of special local pigments, emitting an impressive air of folk art with its “simple, primitive” figures made of “clumsy, bold-black” outlines. Manifested in them are strong vitality and unique taste of art through their descriptions about the brand-new daily life of Chinese peasants after China’s reform and opening-up to the world. In the National Art Gallery of China in 1992, the Neihuang Modern Folk Painting Exhibition was held and Neihuang, the town of Chinese dates, was named “Town of Folk Art” by the Ministry of Culture of PRC the following year. In 1999, as part of the international communication projects of the Henan Province, Neihuang Folk Paintings were exhibited in Singapore. In 2001, the art crafts were displayed in Huxian County of Shaanxi Province. Thereafter, it went to Japan for exhibition as part of the international communication projects of Anyang City.
Under the influence of senior masters like Li Jianchen and Chen Xilu, paintings have been such a popular “daily practice for all” in Neihuang among local farmers that they have been so used to painting after dinner or after a day of labor and they hold “seminars” to discuss it. The painters, most of which are villagers, have weaved their imagination of beauty in life into primitive lines of those vivid paintings to eulogize the enjoyable rural life.
Producer: Neihuang Exhibition Center of Tour Souvenirs, Anyang City
