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Lot Essay
In his works, Luo Zhongli persistently takes ordinary Chinese peasants as his primary subjects. Set in farming villages, his works offer a glimpse into the humble living conditions of Chinese peasant families, and celebrate their resilience to hardship and optimistic outlook on life.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Luo Zhongli moved away from the Photographic Realism of his earlier works and turned to Rustic Realism.
This was thus a transitional phase for the artist.
His works from this period show continuation of earlier "classical realist styles", with its attention to detail but they also reveal an original concern for a simple, readable, unardorned artistic language. In Little Girl (Lot 3362), 1991, one finds a young peasant girl with a schoolbag, hens eating and pecking on the ground, huge hay stacks and a flight of modest peasant housing in the background. The representation of this harmonious and peaceful scene allows the artist to tap into the essential, organic human emotions that stem from this honest way of life.
This work possesses the same elegance and sophistication found in the artist's early Photographic Realism works, but a new emphasis is placed on the harmonious connection between the figure and the background. Here, the artist's focus is not on the figures, but on the clean, stylized composition, calling attention to the objectivity of the natural world. The artist also wonderfully creates rich and realistic textures in the grass and haystacks through the use of fine, precise and dry brushstrokes. Luo Zhongli's concern for real life and high regard for the laboring class is encapsulated in the quiet simplicity and real emotion found in his works.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Luo Zhongli moved away from the Photographic Realism of his earlier works and turned to Rustic Realism.
This was thus a transitional phase for the artist.
His works from this period show continuation of earlier "classical realist styles", with its attention to detail but they also reveal an original concern for a simple, readable, unardorned artistic language. In Little Girl (Lot 3362), 1991, one finds a young peasant girl with a schoolbag, hens eating and pecking on the ground, huge hay stacks and a flight of modest peasant housing in the background. The representation of this harmonious and peaceful scene allows the artist to tap into the essential, organic human emotions that stem from this honest way of life.
This work possesses the same elegance and sophistication found in the artist's early Photographic Realism works, but a new emphasis is placed on the harmonious connection between the figure and the background. Here, the artist's focus is not on the figures, but on the clean, stylized composition, calling attention to the objectivity of the natural world. The artist also wonderfully creates rich and realistic textures in the grass and haystacks through the use of fine, precise and dry brushstrokes. Luo Zhongli's concern for real life and high regard for the laboring class is encapsulated in the quiet simplicity and real emotion found in his works.