In the past, both cities of Shanghai and Suzhou used to be a part of to Jiangsu province.During the late years of (the) Qing Dynasty, while Shanghai was occupied by the Great Powers of the West, the city undergone a rapid and drastic change. With its foreign and Chinese components increasingly fused, Shanghai emerged from a middle-sized agrarian county to become a cosmopolitan, culturally hybrid modern metropolis. finally in the 1920-1930s, Shanghai has come in to a real prospective metropolis and gain its position in the world.

　　At the same time as Shanghai was expending inexorably into the bustling economic and cultural hub of the East, Suzhou retained its unique lingering charm of the ancient, peaceful, small Jiangnan town.

　　The landscape of the city with its canals and bridges that cross the city, with winding narrow paths running parallel to the waterways, remained unchanged. The city preserved its distinctive flair of the ancient town.

　　From those times onwards, the two cities took their individual path of development and the difference between the cities became more noticeable. Nonetheless, both of the cities managed to preserve the folk culture: local  customs and traits unchanged, as if the  Suzhou creek  tied these two cities together.  They managed to preserve folk customs and local traits intact.

　　"The Tales of Earthly Life of Two Cities - Joint Painting Exhibition by Li Shoubai from Shanghai and Xie Yousu from Suzhou"  is based on the dispositions of two cities, culturally, among the similarities there are differences of these two cities and among the differences there are similarities. By the exhibition we are there to display the interesting earthly life,  and lead our audience to feel nostalgia affection and the hometowns, listen to the  sweet wu dialect from the artworks.

　　The places where we live affect us and influence the way we view the world. Indeed, living in different cities shapes certain attitude towards life and affects the way we experience it. So, naturally, when it comes to their work, both masters with their artistic virtuosity produce idiosyncratic works that demonstrate the ways they view and experience the world  an reveal their innermost emotions and sensitivity .

　　Shikumen residences, the cradle of Shanghai culture, the true mirror of the city's traditional earthly lifestyle, as well as the most distinctive feature of the city's landscape, are the main subjects of Li Shoubai's work. Back in the day, the residents of Shikumen were chiefly schoolteachers and clerks, writers and artisans, artists and actors, people who stood somewhere in between of upper and lower classes of the society.

　　Scenes that Li Shoubai chooses to depict on his heavy color paintings capture the spirit of Shikumen living: there is a flapping of the clothes drying under the sun in the courtyards of Shikumen lanes, afternoon tea in the hall, peddler's scream echoing down the alley, smooth sounds of jazz rising up from the gramophone, every day new scenes the play of the same, but different life perfomed on the stage.  Every day a new play is staged in the this stage of this same, yet different life.

　　If one could imagine Shanghai without Shikumen, so many stories would have remained untold, and so many characters would have never come to existence.

　　Employing heavy color fine brush work techniques, Li Shoubai illustrates Shikumen culture on his paintings, coincide with what one might expect from Shanghai history and commercial life.

　　Combining rhythmic sweet precise brushwork with rich dramatic colors, Li Shoubai pays equal attention to rendering of landscapes and figures of his characters, when creating his heavy color paintings.

　　His style of artistic expression calls to mind popular Shanghai's calendar posters of the 1920s and 1930.

　　The calendar posters, which served primarily as advertisements, depicted close-ups of young women elegantly posed and beautifully dressed. One can think that the style of artist's works works is derived from the art of calendar posters. of Li Shoubai are influenced by the calendar paintings.

　　In fact, Li shoubai makes fundamental change from the models of his paintings to the bright colors he employed in the painting, especially plus art deco features, also using raw-rice paper and illustrate double-side on his paintings, which make his artworks appear to be a new kind face.

　　This makes me think of the Art Nouveau popular in Europe on the late 19th century. What is called as Art Nouveau, is a new type of arts trend with a frame drew by lines and purpose of decoration , artists like Gustav Klimt from Austria, and Alphonse Maria Mucha from Czech were all belong to this arts trend.

　　They are all keen on describing the graceful and beautiful position of different figures, and their gorgeous clothes and accessories, also inserting designs for decoration and bright colors, which could offer the audience pleasant visual enjoyment.

　　When we come back to the heavy-color paintings by Li Shoubai, we notice that he gains commonplace with Art Nouveau in Europe. For example , the description of figures shape, position, clothes and accessories, also the delicate sketch of decoration design, and the saturation of the colors.

　　Our painter creates signifying images by describing the figure faces. In the recent years he also paints very meaningful expression in the figure's eyes. Chiefly the figure paintings by him speak to the audience by body languages, Mr. Li introduce us the carefree living and peaceful love between neighbours, through the posture and relations between the misses and ladies living in Shikumen buildings.

　　Otherwise, Li Shoubai also absorbs some techniques from modern arts in the West, like Montage skills. Therefore we may say that Li Shoubai's artworks with Chinese fine brushwork and heavy colors are coincide with his arts pursuit and position, which express the culture and spirit of Shanghai Shikumen building, we say, the residents from west and east come here and fuse into one union, and the characteristics of accepting difference from all the world.

By Zhu Guorong

(Consultant of Shanghai Artists Association,Theorist of Arts History)

作者：Zhu Guorong