Camel Riders on Tianshan, Li Shan

Exhibition Label:
"Using the Past to Serve the Present in 20th Century Chinese Painting," Oct-2006, Ai-lian Liu, Asian Art Intern
After graduating from the Zhejiang Art Institute in 1958, Li Shan went to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China, the location of Tian Shan (Heavenly Mountains). He traveled extensively by camel, painting the landscape and the lives of the Uyghurs, a Turkic people linguistically and culturally distinct from the Han Chinese majority. The Uyghurs lived in this region for millennia before the Manchu invasion in 1759, when the independent Uyghur kingdom became part of the Qing Empire (1644-1912). The Uyghurs revolted many times against the Qing and subsequent Chinese rule, but were annexed once again by the PRC, which imposed its ideology of multiple ethnicities united under Communist rule. Thus, this romantic portrayal of happy camel riders has a complicated political subtext.

Exhibition Label:
"Images of the Journey," Jun-2005, Hillary Pedersen
After his formal training at the prominant Chinese Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Li Shan spent a significant amount of time traveling in the northwestern steppe regions of China, where he became interested in the lives of the Uighur people. Residing in Xinjiang, an autonomous region of northwest China, the Uighurs are a Muslim minority group of Turkish descent with a language and culture distinct from that of the Han Chinese majority. The artist has depicted
a Uighur woman in traditional clothing, herding sheep on camelback, another animal behind her carrying a large load of travel necessities. Because of the tight surface of the thick paper, the ink was not readily absorbed, causing
the interesting blurred effects seen in this painting.

Archive Label 2003:
Li Shan was born in Qingdao and in 1958 graduated from the Zhejiang Art Research Institution. He went to live in Nanjing in 1960, and there was influenced by the works of Fu Baoshi. Later, Li became editor of an art newspaper in Xinjiang at which time he developed an interest in Uighur culture. He turned to the deserts and steppes of Western China for subject matter, exemplified by this depiction of a lovely young girl herding a flock of sheep by camelback. Because the paper is hard-surfaced, the ink was not readily absorbed and thus created the interesting blurred effects seen here. Beyond rises a sheer wall of cliffs, rendered in an almost abstract matter popularized by Fu Baoshi.