About two years ago, I heard about the paintings of apple tree by Xu Zhiguang. I did a search on the internet and found several of his paintings. The expansive strokes and bold colours left me with a deep impression. This spring I had an opportunity to visit Xu Zhiguang’s studio, and I was able to see various paintings in different stages of completion. Seeing him at work validated my impression of this young artist. Returning from Xu Zhiguang’s studio, I played in my mind what words can be used to summarize my feelings about those apple trees? A few months passed by in a flash, and Beijing passed from the early spring chill to the burning midsummer months. My thoughts turned from time to time to the paintings that I had seen in Xu’s studio. Summer seems to be the season that perhaps best describes the enthusiasm, boldness and vitality of Xu Zhiguang’s work.

　　Xu Zhiguang was born in Shandong and studied oil painting at the Shandong Institute of Fine Arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Although Xu Zhiguang enjoys painting different scenes around the world, his heart still belongs in the northern lands where he grew up. The white poplar is one of the most famous trees in the cold Chinese northlands. Mao Dun’s ‘Praise and Admiration of Poplar Tree’ has become a standard in high school textbooks. Poplar trees are not only a ubiquitous part of the northern Chinese plains, but are also symbolic of aspirations and idealism in an individual. Xu Zhiguang has not chosen to paint poplar trees. Perhaps this is because the poplar’s green is a little monotonous, perhaps because the tightly clustered branches are too thin, or perhaps it is because they stand in rows and thus lack of individuality. Perhaps it does not add much value to speculate as to why he picked the apple tree as a subject instead of the poplar or dozens of other possible subjects. What is interesting to me are the reasons why he is able to paint apple trees with such insight and passion.

　　As a southerner, I have rarely seen apple trees. My initial impression of apple trees was left behind in middle school. I do remember a lesson about Ding Ling’s ‘The Sun Shines on Sanggan River’, which had a scene regarding apple trees. Where Mao Dun’s poplars are uniformly laid out, Ding Ling’s apple trees are scattered to the four winds. When I came to the north to study and work, there was a year when I had to travel to Changping’s northwest suburb every week. I often passed through apple orchards and I carefully observed the form of apple trees throughout the year. Yet I could never find the same feeling evoked in ‘The Sun Shines on Sanggan River’. Only when I looked at Xu Zhiguang’s paintings did I realize that there were two types of apple trees; the well-pruned and tended apple trees in orchards that I had seen in Changping and the wild apple trees untouched by man. Only the wild apple trees transmits that unconstrained force of life, that they live as solitary survivors in the tumult of the wilds. I now understand why Xu Zhiguang likes to paint these wild apple trees.

　　Contemporary modern art seems to place a lot of emphasis on design and repetition, so in terms of composition, the uniform poplars and well-pruned apple trees of an orchard are perhaps more suitable than wild apple trees from a modernist conceptualization. However, Xu Zhiguang has not taken to any of these set conventions of contemporary art. He does not appear at all anxious to be part of the hip contemporary crowd, focusing instead on how he can project his feelings and emotions through his art. I think some people will consider Xu Zhiguang’s subject and technique a little ‘dated’ especially with the trend today towards affection and fashion. Yet his art contains an honesty that is hard to find in the stylized artificiality of much of contemporary art.

　　With the advent of highly developed mechanical reproduction, many of today’s artists have steered away from realism and plein air study of nature. Sketching and observing in the field is not a popular practice. In the race with the camera, most artists have chosen to head down the path of the avant garde while others have opted to paint hyper-realistic images. In recent years for example, the rise of manga influenced cartoon characters and hyper real surrealistic pop art styles point to this trend. Xu Zhiguang has chosen not to involve himself in this trend and instead has persisted in painting from nature allowing his eyes and emotions to formulate his art. His is not the capturing of what the eyes see as was the purpose of the early impressionists but the spiritual successor to the expressionists and post-impressionists. On his canvas, he repeatedly sketches, measures, corrects; he is not trying to draw the apple tree as much as capture a feeling. However, to call his art Expressionist suggests there is an excessive injection of subjective emotions. I think it is more appropriate to describe Xu Zhiguang’s painting with the Chinese aesthetic concept of ‘free expression’. It is not easy to describe this concept in a few words – it does not mean expressing just anything the artist wants but having an easy or unlaboured effort in the creation process because the intent of the artist is clear.

　　‘Free expression’ can only find its voice with the right subject. It is an aesthetic approach that does not lend well to abstract art because it is emotive based rather than intellectual. It is an approach that fits well with the subject of apple trees and the plein air nature study. Contemporary modern art advocates a designed approach to art whereas ‘free expression’ resists intentional design. This is why Xu Zhiguang likes to paint wild apple trees. The wild apple trees presented by Xu Zhiguang have an authentic freedom. They are unconstrained in their form; various shades of green from tree trunks and leaves, red or yellow from the fruits, the colors of clouds and the earth and of open space constitute his color symphony.

　　The ‘free expression’ of intent and the bold and interweaving use of colours can be seen not only in Zhiguang’s apple trees but in his paintings of landscapes and peach blossoms. Especially in his recent paintings of apple trees and peach blossoms, we can see that the ‘forms’ becoming more relaxed and the brushstrokes more fluid. They remind me of Qi Baishi’s flowers and bird paintings. Even though Qi Baishi used Chinese ink on rice paper and Xu Zhiguang uses oil on canvas, they both have in common that unforced free expressiveness. It would not surprise me in the least if others regard Xu Zhiguang’s apple trees as a contemporary expression of the traditional Chinese ink painting genre.

　　June 11, 2009 in Wei Xiu Park, Beijing University