Visitors to the National Art Museum of China this week may encounter a striking treat for their eyes and souls as a grand retrospective show of hundreds of art works of diverse genres is being held.

Donated by Liu Xun, the 1,783 works are from different artists. Among them are 363 works of oil, ink paintings, prints, caricatures created by Liu himself over the past decades, and more than 1,200 Chinese ink paintings, prints, mixed media works, Tibetan tangkas, sculptures, handicrafts by Chinese folk artists, and paper-cuts, 108 oils by Russian artists, and 88 duplications of ancient Chinese paintings produced in Japan.

"It is the first time the museum has received such a bulk of donated art works from a Chinese artist," curator Feng Yuan told last week's press conference.

Artist of life

"At 82, I can do few more useful things for our society. By donating my private collection I intend to share my passion for art and my love for life with more people, of all ages, from all parts of the world," explained Liu.

Modest as always, Liu has long been regarded as a leading figure in China's art circles, both for his artistic achievements and his personal charisma.

And as a senior adviser to the Beijing municipal government, Liu also chairs the managing board of the Beijing International Art Palace Foundation, which he established in 1985 as a non-profit-making organization for promoting art in China.

Busy as he still is as a businessman and administrator, Liu still finds time to paint.

His works are favorites among art collectors and a number have been included in the collections of art museums in Asia, North America and Europe since the late 1980s.

In 1988, Liu staged his first exhibition of oil paintings, causing a sensation in the art circles of Beijing.

In 1998, an exquisite art album entitled "Liu Xun's Chinese Ink Paintings" was published by the Xinhua Publishing House.

Between 1989 and 2002, he held solo art shows in Singapore, Hungary, Sweden, Russia and the United States.

Apart from oil painting, he is skilled at Chinese ink painting, but not in the traditional way.

His works never lack philosophical depth. Both Liu's oil and ink paintings express his ceaseless pursuit of that which is true, good and beautiful in nature.

Liu says he "cherishes a profound love of nature" and his favorite themes include the sun, the clouds, seas, prairies, mountains, waterfalls, lakes and ponds, and flowers.

He holds a particular fondness for the lotus, a symbol of virtue and moral integrity in traditional Chinese culture.

It is pure and graceful and gives off a subtle, unforgettable fragrance.

Liu sketches lotus flowers in different seasons and captures their beauty with different approaches.

"In the current commercial whirlwind of a rapidly-developing society, a large number of painters place making money high on their list of considerations and their hasty creations leave an odd aftertaste," Liu wrote in an essay.

Liu's oil paintings are fresh and elegant, neither completely realistic, nor totally abstract. Rather, they are rendered more in an Impressionist fashion, but still bear a unique Chinese flavor.

Liu never tires of adding new elements to his painting style, but one thing remains the same. As Shao Dazhen, a Beijing-based critic observes: "The objects in Liu's paintings hover between a visual likeness and a romantic, creative representation. And the art works leave the viewer much room for imagination."

Liu admits he cares little whether his ink paintings conform to traditional criteria. He just paints "at will and to my heart's content" and takes up the painting brush only when he is "lit up by a spark of inspiration," he once wrote.

No poetic lines, stylized inscriptions, no seals, common to most traditional Chinese ink paintings down the centuries -- Liu's style is unorthodox.

In his ink paintings, Liu does not use traditional xuan paper, but special paper created by modern techniques and imported from Japan. Nor does he limit himself to Chinese brushes, but uses any tools he feels suitable. His experimentation goes back long before the so-called "experimental ink painting" became fashionable among many young and middle-aged Chinese artists over the past few years.

Liu believes that there is no unbridged gap between oil painting and ink painting though they are indeed very different.

In the early stages of his career as an artist, he employed the techniques of traditional Chinese painting in some of his oil works.

And in the past two decades, he has tried to combine Western painting skills into his ink paintings.

He argues that different schools, styles and techniques should be encouraged and artists should not be confined to a certain art form, rather they should reach out for any means of art they see fit to express themselves.

"Liu's impressive paintings are filled with a vitality and beauty rarely seen in the works of the artists of his generation," said Zhu Hongzi, a critic with the China Culture News.

In his oil paintings, Liu often employs such traditional Chinese ink skills as xieyi, or freehand brushwork, to help bring out a romantic charm.

With his deft use of colors, creative compositions and forceful lines and impressive splashes of color, Liu has successfully worked out many brilliant works that give the viewer a strong sense of rhythm and melody, a testament to Liu's lifelong passion for music, especially classical.

Liu was born in 1923 in Nanjing, and in 1938, at the age of 15, he joined the Communist Party in Chongqing. Like many of his generation he was searching for an ideal, for an independent new China "where the poor, the exploited and the underprivileged could become the masters of their own destiny."

Two years later, he went to Yan'an, the base of the national liberation movement, or Red Army, in today's Shaanxi Province in the Northwest.

At that time, he created political caricatures, woodblock prints and posters to express his ideas and feelings.

Tumultuous times

After the founding of New China in 1949, he worked as a senior editor, first for the People's Pictorial and then of Picture Story magazine.

In the mid 1950s, Liu first learned the skills and concepts of oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. "A new door threw open before me. Oh, painting can be done this way! Why not try my hands on this?" Liu told himself.

Thereafter, he embarked on a path from which he has never departed -- one which blends Eastern and Western concepts and skills in his own creations.

But a dark shadow was growing and in 1957 it fell on Liu and he was branded a "rightist." Then the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) erupted. Liu was accused of being an "active counter-revolutionary" and imprisoned.

He was still incarcerated in Tangshan when the catastrophic Tangshan earthquake struck on July 28, 1976 killing nearly a quarter-of-a-million people.

The persecution of that period ended with the arrests of the "Gang of Four." Deng Xiaoping, also a victim of their distorted ideology, returned to power, and a new age dawned for China.

After nine years of imprisonment, Liu's hair had turned grey. Those years had stolen his youth, but not his belief and ambition.

Always ready to confront a challenge and a natural explorer, Liu put all his heart into carving out a whole new career. "Never did I think I could change the world. But I believed I could do one or two more good deeds for my people and my country in my life," Liu recalled.

He founded and expanded the Beijing Institute of Painting, organized Beijing Artists' Association, reorganized the Chinese Artists' Association and supervised the construction and management of the Crowne Plaza and Beijing International Art Palace, among other things.

Through his long years of experience and observations, Liu came to realize that economic strength is essential for art to thrive, alongside such factors as an agreeable and harmonious social atmosphere and passion to constantly improve the quality of artistic works.

Liu's art palace, comprising an art gallery, a concert hall, and a five-star hotel in Beijing, uses most of its income to support promising Chinese artists. It provides a venue for art exhibitions and discussions, awards for exceptional creations, and finances young artists to widen their horizons abroad, many of which were seen as bold practices during the early stages of China's reform and opening up, under Deng Xiaoping's leadership.

In his spare time, Liu pens poems and essays that are ambiguous, implicit, lyrical, sometimes laden with a touch of pathos, but more often with a wakening sense of optimism, a subtle artistic style similar to that of his paintings, critics say.

Liu's essays and poems are a delightful artistic treat which carry the reader with the author's quick wit, vivid descriptions, and insightful reflections on man, nature, life and death, love and hatred, a moment and eternity.

While the eye finds poetic imagination in his oil and ink paintings, the reader and listener of his literary works see a mind's eye picture.

The ongoing art exhibition ends on March 12, after which a regular display of a portion of the donated works will be on show all year-round.

(China Daily March 10, 2005)