Zhao Zhunwang’s memory of the old times in the old city is still so fresh as if it happened just yesterday. He would jump onto his worn-out bike, and pedaled about seven to eight hours to Tanzhe Temple, a Buddhist monastery west of Beijing which was built even before the city itself existed. It took him longer than usual because he had to repair his old bike several times before he arrived at the place where he would paint for the rest of the day. And this kind of painting life lasted for quite a few years. He would go to any loveable and touching places in the city to capture their beauty on his sketch books. That was in the 1960s when he was just 16 or 17. He had already clearly envisioned his life as an artist, and been able to attentively depict the city where he was born and brought up through color and lines.

Sitting in his apartment at Sanyuanqiao, Beijing, and his face still betrayed simple happiness when he recalled his persistent pursuit of art in his younger days. In 1945, Zhao Zhunwang was born in Liulichang(literally meaning glazed tile plant), one of the most famous cultural streets in Beijing with a well-known folk artist mother in the field of embroidery. His parents were close friends with such great painting masters as Qi Baishi, so in his own words, he naturally fell in love with painting under family influence. Now Zhao is a successful and famed painting artist, and a kind grandfather his grandchildren love so much. This 62 years old painter has lived in the U.S for over a dozen years, but he still speaks mandarin with strong and perfect Beijing local accent.

And he is probably the most important painter in the past three decades who paints the ancient and yet modern city. Since 1970s, Zhao Zhunwang has drawn several thousand paintings, and has organized three large scale painting exhibitions dedicated to the city’s scenery. In the year of 1982 while still working at the Beijing Tourism Administration, Zhao Zhunwang started the fist painting exhibition with the support of veteran artist Ye Qianyu, which showcased paintings of Beijing by painters from Beijing such as Li Xiaoke, Li Baolin and Yang Yanwen. In 1989, Zhao Zhunwang joined in the exhibition of Beijing scenery held in Macao, with the delegation headed by painting Master Wu Guanzhong.

And in the year of 2001, after living in the U.S for over ten years, Zhao Zhunwang once again organized the third exhibition devoted to the Beijing landscape, to show his support for Beijing’s bid for the Olympic Games in 2008. The painting albums were later presented as gifts to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and U.S. president George W. Bush. And this was the fourth painting exhibition about Beijing Zhao Zhunwang was involved. However it was different from previous ones in that it focuses on his personal paintings, which have obviously demonstrated his different understanding of and appreciation for the city over the past three decades.

Many people have painted the scenery of Beijing, either in the style of Chinese painting or that of western painting. This ancient metropolis is open to each and every artist, but only those who have shown their utmost sincerity will produce the most profound works of art. Zhao Zhunwang never conceals his sentimental attachment to Beijing in his paintings where you can see the old train station at Zhengyangmen, the moat around the Forbidden City, gate towers, stone bridges, decorated archways, teahouses, old and famous stores, trolley buses, the ancient buildings at Guozijian(the Imperial College) and the thousand years old cypress trees etc. This is Beijing in the eyes of Zhao Zhunwang, so real yet so touching. To him, the city which is different from day to day is full of endless charm.

In order to best express his feelings for the city, he has made courageous and creative attempts in his painting techniques. Normally people believe that the typical way of Chinese painting, especially the cavalier perspective, is more suitable for depicting great rivers and broad landscape than modern metropolitan themes, while oil painting is ideal for the focus perspective in big cities. However as far as painting techniques are concerned, Chinese painting can demonstrate special touches in modern and metropolitan themes. Its dots and lines as well as brush strokes can vividly convey the message of beauty in the vertically and horizontally intertwining landscapes. Zhao Zhunwang skillfully combined the advantages of the two types of painting. During the years living in the U.S, he systematically studied western painting. As a result, in the aspects of shape formation and color expression, Zhao Zhunwang’s paintings have embodied visible ideas and shape concepts of western painting. And exactly this makes his paintings of Beijing dramatically different from those by the other painting artists.

Beijing is quite suitable for painting, and yet it also proves to be difficult sometimes. This ancient city abounds with temptations in the mixture of traditional and contemporary atmospheres. Sometimes it appears to be arrogant and unyielding while in other cases it looks like a shy maiden growing up in a feudal rich family. And sometimes it seems so abundant and yet sometimes it is shockingly barren. In Lin Yutang’s novels, the city was so enchanting that it was viewed as one of the two most charismatic cities in the whole world, with the other one being Paris. This is the Beijing whose beauty and elegance the painter has always been trying to capture, sometimes graceful and yet sometimes violent. His paintings in the past few decades have all demonstrated his nostalgia for the old Beijing and his longing for the new look of the city in the days to come.

In my life experiences, the city in this era surprisingly resembles certain other periods of time and places which I had been longing to be involved. And that was Vienna in the 1900s, or Paris in the 1920s, or Paris in the 1960s. Those were the youth of sense and sensibility for human beings when people had been empowered with great imagination and ambition and used every possible means of expression to depict and retain the eternity of their cities----music, novels, paintings, poetry and architectures. And the city Zhao Zhunwang has been depicting is full of this power of sense and sensibility. “Every painting, together with every gateway, cypress and relics in the paintings, is a sign of my sentimental attachment to the city,” he said. The city in his words seems to be more straightforward than that in his paintings. A man, a city.

The Beijing city in Zhao Zhunwang’s paintings somehow reminds me of Paul Gauguin’s Tahiti Island, which was so gorgeous and yet melancholy. The French painter was deeply touched by its beauty all the time, so when he eventually left the island, he asked, “where did we come from, and where will we go?” Zhao Zhunwang’s Beijing also reminds me of Shostakovich and the city Leningrad. His world known Eighth Symphony was composed just for the city for its bravery and determination. In the trenches in Leningrad during the WWII, the composer himself conducted the debut performance of the symphony, amidst bombings and Red Army’s charging call. It was an eulogy for a city, a nation and an era for its dignity and greatness. His paintings also remind me of Orhan Pamuk who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006and the city Istanbul. All his life the writer has been depicting the city. “The destiny of Istanbul is also mine. I’ve been attached to the city, because it makes me what I am today.” Zhao Zhunwang and Beijing can also be compared with Dai Wangshu and the southern city Hangzhou. In his representative poem Rain and Lane, he transforms his sentimental attachment to the warring city into yearning for the girl with lilac-like melancholy holding an oil-painted paper umbrella. Beijing to Zhao Zhunwang is also like the border town to Shen Congwen, the noted Chinese writer. The small town in western Hu’nan is a spiritual sustenance throughout his wandering life, no matter how far away he was from his home.

It is the same for Zhao Zhunwang that Beijing is his sentimental attachment all his life. He is interested in every tree, every gable wall and every Hutong(lane) in the city. “To paint Beijing will be my lifelong commitment to the city,” he said. Talking about his latest personal painting exhibition here in Beijing that he has been working on, he looks so anticipating and enthusiastic. It is like an ode to his mother from a child who has been wandering all over the world, so emotional and sincere. He also talked about the exhibition held in San Francisco the third year after he moved to the U.S., saying it was more a way of nostalgia than a painting exhibition.

“Missing Beijing is like drinking ‘douzhi’ soybean juice.” This local drink is by no means tasty, as it is sour and bitter. Zhao Zhunwang’s nostalgia is rather vivid. Any pain, happiness or anxiety resulting from the feeling has a meaning for him.” The city has been changing so fast.” Somehow I can feel his anxiety, as it is becoming harder and harder to follow the pace of the ancient city’s renovation. But he never gives up his own unique way of looking at the city where the bordering line has been extended further and further, with old buildings are Beijing torn down and new, taller ones are being built one after another; streets are being widened and more and more flyovers and overpasses can be seen. These new metropolitan elements are popping up in the ancient city. Where does the beauty of change lie, it is another story of Beijing. It is not a beautified appraisal to the forever expanding city, or a criticism to the dirty aspects in the process of modernization. He can always find the charming parts of the city although they look extremely simple and yet real.

Nothing is more touching than the sincerity and sentimentality revealed in his paintings. His version of the city is so sentimental and pretty that I could hardly recognize. To me, the daily routines of the modernizing city are completed in the process of dismantling and reconstruction. However when you try to understand and feel the city with sincerity, each moment you gaze at it, you will find its beauty. I think it is true. Only love can change simplicity into abundance, make violence into tenderness and get splendor into plainness. This is Zhao Zhunwang’s Beijing, the city he loves so much. And this fourth painting exhibition of his does not just show his paintings in the past few decades, it also demonstrates the great personality of Beijing. It is Zhao Zhunwang’s Beijing.