At the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Xiaowei Hutong, Dongcheng District, Beijing, a teacher could be seen riding a tricycle to work every day no matter if it was rainy or windy, summer or winter, in a worn blue-grey Zhongshan suit with a resolute face, which revealed his life of trials and tenacity. He was Liu Shiming, a sculptor, an alumnus a grade above me at the Central Academy of Fine Arts with Mr. Xu Beihong as the headmaster and Mr. Wang Linyi as professor in the sculpture department. After his graduation from the sculpture department in 1950, he stayed on campus to teach.
In the winter of 1949, soon after the establishment of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, all the teachers and students went to the rural suburbs of Beijing to take part in the land reform movement. After returning to the school in the spring of 1950 came the "Red May Creation Movement", which was the first opportunity since the establishment of the Academy for all the teachers and students to create works reflecting the new life and outlook of society after the birth of the People’s Republic of China. At that time, all the teaching staff and students were engaged in creative activities with great enthusiasm to express the deep feelings of life. In the whole creation exhibition, what impressed me most was Liu Shiming's sculpture “Measuring the Land”, which resembled the Han-Dynasty folk terracotta figurine style, reflecting the joy of the peasants who were given the land during the land reform, and was published in the People's Pictorial at the time. The power of this unadorned, freely sculpted work is overflowing with the author's deep compassion for the masses and showed his keen observation of life. This early work of displaying talent was selected for the “World Festival of Youth and Students Art Exhibition” held in Prague that year, and was kept by the Czech National Museum ever since. To this day it remains impressive in my mind. Next came the Great Leap Forward era in 1958 when the whole country was in high spirits and had a high morale. Liu Shiming's large painted sculpture, “Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow”, a large national sculpture in a strongly romantic style, as well as a delight to the Chinese people, was based on a Hebei folk song, a strong cry of the times, which was popular throughout the country at that time:
"No more Jade Emperor in heaven,
No more Dragon King on the earth;
Now, I am the Jade Emperor,
Now, I am the Dragon King;
Ordering all the mountains to make way,
Here I am!"
With passion of the times and sharing the fate of the people, the creator praised the Chinese people’s heroic spirit to split the mountains to let the water flow and fight against the environment during the Great Leap Forward era. This imposing large-scale sculpture work, which then stood at the entrance to Zhongshan Park on Beijing's Chang'an Street, was published in the press across the country and in color albums, becoming a masterpiece of its time with a great social impact, which was a well-known representative work of the times. The guideline of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 was a politically incorrect one, but this delightfully romanticized style of Chinese national folk sculpture and the national spirit it reflects are everlasting. In the winter of 1960, as Comrade Wang Shikuo arranged, I invited Comrade Zhou Yang to give a lecture to the students in the oil painting department. Commenting on the work "Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow", Zhou said: "This is a timeless and immortal work." At that time, the painted sculpture at the entrance to Zhongshan Park was no longer there, but the national spirit of the Chinese people in that era, which represented the momentum of the Chinese people marching on and on in high spirits, was immortal. As an embodiment of the spirit of the people in that era, it still owns an important position in the history of Chinese art. In 1959, Comrade Hua Junwu proposed to recreate the sculpture for the “Art Exhibition of Socialist Countries” in Moscow, with a new name "Moving the Mountains and Creating the Sea".
In 1961, Liu Shiming left the Central Academy of Fine Arts and went to Henan Province, where he taught for ten years at Zhengzhou Art School and Kaifeng Normal College (Henan University now), and then spent seven years on secondment to the Henan Museum and the National Museum of Chinese History (now the National Museum of China), where he worked on the repair and reproduction of artifacts and copied a large number of colored pottery jars and the terracotta warriors of Han Dynasty. His work encompassed the painted pottery of the Yangshao culture and Majiayao culture, the jade human figures and animals from the female tombs at Yinxu, the bronze animals including the tiger eating a pig and tiger biting a cow, as well as small replicas of storyteller figurines from Shizhaishan Mountain Relics in Yunnan, the pottery figurines of the Han Dynasty, the Persian figurines from the Silk Road and the rust work of the small-sized Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow, the pottery of the Qin Dynasty, the replica of pottery stove from the Xia Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty dough sculpture of a plate with noodles and dumpling (jiaozi) excavated in Xinjiang, the waist badge from the Western Xia, and countless others. These extensive and painstaking reproductions, repairs and recreation of the historical artifacts have given him the opportunity to go more deeply into the study, perception, absorption and grasp of Chinese historical culture and the tradition of folk culture and art, bringing his art to a higher level. When talking about his experiences and feelings about this period of work, he said: "I was particularly impressed by the traditional Chinese art and its techniques of expression. The Qin Dynasty sculptures were so realistic that they even surpass the level that we can reach today. For example, the joints of the hands and even the fingernails were detailed. Not only the eyes and beards, but the shoelaces also had to be carefully carved. Besides, the structure of each piece of armor was clearly carved and each soldier had a different appearance and personality, from which the viewers can identify the soldier’s ethnicity. However, the sculptures in the Han dynasty lay emphasis on the spirit in an exaggerated way, and the Han figurines are not sculpted based on a complicated and realistic style. I was particularly impressed by the Han-dynasty storytelling figurine. “The Storyteller Figurine” who had a dramatic style in its gesture and facial expression, so that it looked extremely vivid, indicating the craftsman’s detailed and splendid observation. The structure of the body and flesh, the eyebrows and the wrinkles were depicted perfectly in an exaggerated way, and even the toes were full of emotions, but the arms and hands were very simply outlined. Moreover, I reproduced a whistling opera figure on a Yuan-dynasty brick carving, as well as the beauties on the brick reliefs of the Song Dynasty, and impressive image of cooking women. I also copied the decoration of frogs and others of the Han Dynasty and the antique finish after the replica of bronze arms.”
Liu Shiming’s extraordinary life experience, 10 years in Henan and 3 years in Hebei, the ancient Central Plains culture, the rich background of folk culture and the art of the Yellow River Basin, as well as his deep feelings of the colourful local life and society, strongly inspired the vitality of his artistic creation. He said, “the Land Reform, the Great Leap Forward, the 10 years in Henan and 3 years in Hebei, gave me a deep understanding of people’s life, leaving me with a profound impression. I genuinely feel that art is based on life, otherwise, there is no image accumulation. The Shaanxi cave dwellings, the culture and experiences in Henan Province offered me real feelings of life. With a little spark, it explodes like a beautiful firework. I love folk operas, such as Henan Bangzi, Shanxi Bangzi and local shadow puppets, and I collected shadow puppets. I sculpted them over and over again. If I can't replicate the scene, I don't feel like having fun, and I simply destroy it and carve again. I want to hear the voice from my sculptures, and it must be native and natural, otherwise it’s not good enough for me, since it does not have enough energy in itself. The show of Ansai waist drum, is such a magnificent scene, dust flying, drums rousing. I want to represent the sound of the drums, so the viewers can feel as if the sound is coming out from the sculptures. I also want to represent the rousing sound of suona, which would remind people of the pathos and sadness inside.
I often read newspaper stories, but I can't remember them. What I saw and heard, however, would be kept in my mind forever. Most of the sculptures I made came from the experiences of my past life. They are merely memories, without much details. This contributes to my artistic style. I sculpted quickly, like a folk artist making dough figurines, finishing the work in one go, at most polishing some details the next day. I saw folk artists making dough figurines on the street in other provinces. They could make a dough figurine very quickly, since they had in mind the key characteristics of what they wanted to create. A folk artist in Caozhou, Henan Province, made four or five figurines in an hour, all with very vivid and beautiful looks. Another point is that, due to my love for the Han figurines, I have spent a lot of time at the National Museum of Chinese History observing a great number of the figurines and the sculpted horses. The beauty of their gestures and manners as well as the exaggeration of their strength, resemble what we can see in the dough figurines in our times, but the latter ones are not as archaic and plain.”
In 1981 Liu returned to the sculpture department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a part-time lecturer, living far away in a humble house with one and a half rooms at Changqiao in Xicheng District. At that time, his leg was broken, so he rode a tricycle all the way from home to the Academy. He later used a room in the sculpture department's electric furnace room as a sculpture workroom, and together with Comrade Wu Jing, he set up an electric kiln for firing ceramic sculptures.
In Liu Shiming's workroom, he preserved all his folkloric sculptures, large and small, from his hard work, most of which were sculpted naturally according to his memories of the old days. "The Farmhouse", "The Farmhouse Cave Dwelling", "Ansai Waist Drummer", "Man Playing Suona", "The Ferry and the Ferryman on the Yellow River", "Henan Zhuizi", "Shanxi Bangzi" and "Performer Backstage", and works representing the folklore of Henan and Hebei Province, the free market of Beijing city life, the local fair and the children, etc., constituted a museum of folk art and folklore in modern times. That was an artistic world created by his life experience and diligent work, which made him a true artist of the people, a real master of the art of folk sculpture. When you stepped into Liu's sculpture workroom, you could sense the folk culture, as if you were in an art museum of local life and folklore. He lived his entire life in this artistic world, without catering to the political trends, nor pursuing the market price, and he expressed his genuine emotions as he pleased. He is a true artist.
As the painting is like the person, so is the sculpture. In Liu's artistic creations, people will not sense the unattainable technical skills that create an artificial distance from the audience, nor is there a deliberate pursuit of a new and different style, they are so vivid and intimate. As the painter Mr. Dong Xiwen used to say: "The good thing about folk art is that it does not rely on unattainable technical skills that confuse people, but brings the creator and the audience closer together." Liu Shiming, a simple, deep and reticent man, has a passion that lies within him for life and working people, which is like a tall, quiet volcano. Only in the moment when it erupts with its inner fiery magma, can one feel the heart-stopping power of the outpouring. Only the fiery emotion of the romanticism of life is able to, as he says, explode “like a beautiful firework”, with a little spark. His kind of obsessive and sincere love for the rhythms of life is something that I have been obsessed with.
In his workshop, although there is no grand monument-like structure, no so-called great theme, and no unattainable and daunting technical skills, it gives the audience the connotative capacity and artistic energy to an incomparable degree. Its immense emotional power is like a concentrated atomic bomb. There is no room for emotional indifference, nor can one find an academic mode of creation, nor can one even sum up his technique in artistic expression in terms of the general concept of visual likeness, vividness or the so-called arbitrariness of artistic technique. It can only be a momentary catharsis of artistic energy ignited by burning emotions reaching their breaking point, which is determined by the qualities of the artist and cannot be learned. This feeling, which I have seen in the 15,000-year-old primitive art rock paintings of the Lascaux caves in south-central France, is the expression of a great artistic energy that could only have come from the artistic expression of primitive man's sacred worship of the giant totem bull, which is not in any way the ordinary pattern of so-called artistic activity reflecting life, nor is it what some art historians call a numerical record of primitive man's hunting for the fruits of his prey, but can only be the expression of the sacred and fiery emotions of the worship of the supreme gods and goddesses.
In the history of Chinese sculpture, I believe that such enormous artistic emotional energy can only be seen in the creation of terracotta figurines and huge stone sculptures by folk artisans in the Han Dynasty, where the slaves were (relatively) freed from the personal dependence of their masters in slave society, with the catharsis of their free emotions bursting forth. Such emotional energy created the Han figurines, brick sculptures, portrait stone murals and huge stone sculptures, within which lies the strong romantic style that is like the rising sun at eight or nine o’clock, showing great vitality although it was born in a haphazard period. This burning passion and romanticism had never been seen before. It is neither the primitive art of the primitive society, which had not yet mastered the skills of artistic expression and where art remained in the symbolic stage, nor the artistic creation to simulate images of life from the late slave society to the Qin Dynasty, such as the Terracotta Warriors. By the Han Dynasty, only in the ascendant period of feudal society, when art reached a high level of maturity, could the art be the flames of the rising sun. Despite the profundity of Tang art and the superb realist skills of Song art, which had reached its peak as the midday sun, the sunset of feudalism ensued and the once unbeatable lion of the Tang Dynasty degenerated into the Empress Dowager Cixi’s poodle, wagging its tail to imperialism. Moreover, the arts and crafts at that time were reduced to merely crafts, not art at all. However, the folk art and folk sculpture created by the hundreds of millions of Chinese workers after the polarization of art after the Han Dynasty have continued the glorious tradition of art and the national spirit of the Chinese people during the rising period of feudal society in the Han Dynasty for two thousand years. It is this glorious tradition of the development of Chinese folk art that Liu's sculpture inherits and improves, and it has an important place in the history of the development of Chinese sculpture. The times moved forward and the Chinese society, seeing an end of feudalism, moved on to a higher stage of development. People will enter the era from the kingdom of necessity into the kingdom of freedom. The development of Chinese art will never follow the pattern of the West, nor be in line with the West. The philosophy will return to the people, and art will return to the people, and to nature. At a higher level, developing the national and popular nature of art, developing the individuality of art, will be an inevitable rule that does not change with people's will. Liu Shiming's art is an artistic phenomenon born out of the call of the times and has a timeless vitality.
In the winter of 1949, soon after the establishment of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, all the teachers and students went to the rural suburbs of Beijing to take part in the land reform movement. After returning to the school in the spring of 1950 came the "Red May Creation Movement", which was the first opportunity since the establishment of the Academy for all the teachers and students to create works reflecting the new life and outlook of society after the birth of the People’s Republic of China. At that time, all the teaching staff and students were engaged in creative activities with great enthusiasm to express the deep feelings of life. In the whole creation exhibition, what impressed me most was Liu Shiming's sculpture “Measuring the Land”, which resembled the Han-Dynasty folk terracotta figurine style, reflecting the joy of the peasants who were given the land during the land reform, and was published in the People's Pictorial at the time. The power of this unadorned, freely sculpted work is overflowing with the author's deep compassion for the masses and showed his keen observation of life. This early work of displaying talent was selected for the “World Festival of Youth and Students Art Exhibition” held in Prague that year, and was kept by the Czech National Museum ever since. To this day it remains impressive in my mind. Next came the Great Leap Forward era in 1958 when the whole country was in high spirits and had a high morale. Liu Shiming's large painted sculpture, “Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow”, a large national sculpture in a strongly romantic style, as well as a delight to the Chinese people, was based on a Hebei folk song, a strong cry of the times, which was popular throughout the country at that time:
"No more Jade Emperor in heaven,
No more Dragon King on the earth;
Now, I am the Jade Emperor,
Now, I am the Dragon King;
Ordering all the mountains to make way,
Here I am!"
With passion of the times and sharing the fate of the people, the creator praised the Chinese people’s heroic spirit to split the mountains to let the water flow and fight against the environment during the Great Leap Forward era. This imposing large-scale sculpture work, which then stood at the entrance to Zhongshan Park on Beijing's Chang'an Street, was published in the press across the country and in color albums, becoming a masterpiece of its time with a great social impact, which was a well-known representative work of the times. The guideline of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 was a politically incorrect one, but this delightfully romanticized style of Chinese national folk sculpture and the national spirit it reflects are everlasting. In the winter of 1960, as Comrade Wang Shikuo arranged, I invited Comrade Zhou Yang to give a lecture to the students in the oil painting department. Commenting on the work "Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow", Zhou said: "This is a timeless and immortal work." At that time, the painted sculpture at the entrance to Zhongshan Park was no longer there, but the national spirit of the Chinese people in that era, which represented the momentum of the Chinese people marching on and on in high spirits, was immortal. As an embodiment of the spirit of the people in that era, it still owns an important position in the history of Chinese art. In 1959, Comrade Hua Junwu proposed to recreate the sculpture for the “Art Exhibition of Socialist Countries” in Moscow, with a new name "Moving the Mountains and Creating the Sea".
In 1961, Liu Shiming left the Central Academy of Fine Arts and went to Henan Province, where he taught for ten years at Zhengzhou Art School and Kaifeng Normal College (Henan University now), and then spent seven years on secondment to the Henan Museum and the National Museum of Chinese History (now the National Museum of China), where he worked on the repair and reproduction of artifacts and copied a large number of colored pottery jars and the terracotta warriors of Han Dynasty. His work encompassed the painted pottery of the Yangshao culture and Majiayao culture, the jade human figures and animals from the female tombs at Yinxu, the bronze animals including the tiger eating a pig and tiger biting a cow, as well as small replicas of storyteller figurines from Shizhaishan Mountain Relics in Yunnan, the pottery figurines of the Han Dynasty, the Persian figurines from the Silk Road and the rust work of the small-sized Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow, the pottery of the Qin Dynasty, the replica of pottery stove from the Xia Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty dough sculpture of a plate with noodles and dumpling (jiaozi) excavated in Xinjiang, the waist badge from the Western Xia, and countless others. These extensive and painstaking reproductions, repairs and recreation of the historical artifacts have given him the opportunity to go more deeply into the study, perception, absorption and grasp of Chinese historical culture and the tradition of folk culture and art, bringing his art to a higher level. When talking about his experiences and feelings about this period of work, he said: "I was particularly impressed by the traditional Chinese art and its techniques of expression. The Qin Dynasty sculptures were so realistic that they even surpass the level that we can reach today. For example, the joints of the hands and even the fingernails were detailed. Not only the eyes and beards, but the shoelaces also had to be carefully carved. Besides, the structure of each piece of armor was clearly carved and each soldier had a different appearance and personality, from which the viewers can identify the soldier’s ethnicity. However, the sculptures in the Han dynasty lay emphasis on the spirit in an exaggerated way, and the Han figurines are not sculpted based on a complicated and realistic style. I was particularly impressed by the Han-dynasty storytelling figurine. “The Storyteller Figurine” who had a dramatic style in its gesture and facial expression, so that it looked extremely vivid, indicating the craftsman’s detailed and splendid observation. The structure of the body and flesh, the eyebrows and the wrinkles were depicted perfectly in an exaggerated way, and even the toes were full of emotions, but the arms and hands were very simply outlined. Moreover, I reproduced a whistling opera figure on a Yuan-dynasty brick carving, as well as the beauties on the brick reliefs of the Song Dynasty, and impressive image of cooking women. I also copied the decoration of frogs and others of the Han Dynasty and the antique finish after the replica of bronze arms.”
Liu Shiming’s extraordinary life experience, 10 years in Henan and 3 years in Hebei, the ancient Central Plains culture, the rich background of folk culture and the art of the Yellow River Basin, as well as his deep feelings of the colourful local life and society, strongly inspired the vitality of his artistic creation. He said, “the Land Reform, the Great Leap Forward, the 10 years in Henan and 3 years in Hebei, gave me a deep understanding of people’s life, leaving me with a profound impression. I genuinely feel that art is based on life, otherwise, there is no image accumulation. The Shaanxi cave dwellings, the culture and experiences in Henan Province offered me real feelings of life. With a little spark, it explodes like a beautiful firework. I love folk operas, such as Henan Bangzi, Shanxi Bangzi and local shadow puppets, and I collected shadow puppets. I sculpted them over and over again. If I can't replicate the scene, I don't feel like having fun, and I simply destroy it and carve again. I want to hear the voice from my sculptures, and it must be native and natural, otherwise it’s not good enough for me, since it does not have enough energy in itself. The show of Ansai waist drum, is such a magnificent scene, dust flying, drums rousing. I want to represent the sound of the drums, so the viewers can feel as if the sound is coming out from the sculptures. I also want to represent the rousing sound of suona, which would remind people of the pathos and sadness inside.
I often read newspaper stories, but I can't remember them. What I saw and heard, however, would be kept in my mind forever. Most of the sculptures I made came from the experiences of my past life. They are merely memories, without much details. This contributes to my artistic style. I sculpted quickly, like a folk artist making dough figurines, finishing the work in one go, at most polishing some details the next day. I saw folk artists making dough figurines on the street in other provinces. They could make a dough figurine very quickly, since they had in mind the key characteristics of what they wanted to create. A folk artist in Caozhou, Henan Province, made four or five figurines in an hour, all with very vivid and beautiful looks. Another point is that, due to my love for the Han figurines, I have spent a lot of time at the National Museum of Chinese History observing a great number of the figurines and the sculpted horses. The beauty of their gestures and manners as well as the exaggeration of their strength, resemble what we can see in the dough figurines in our times, but the latter ones are not as archaic and plain.”
In 1981 Liu returned to the sculpture department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a part-time lecturer, living far away in a humble house with one and a half rooms at Changqiao in Xicheng District. At that time, his leg was broken, so he rode a tricycle all the way from home to the Academy. He later used a room in the sculpture department's electric furnace room as a sculpture workroom, and together with Comrade Wu Jing, he set up an electric kiln for firing ceramic sculptures.
In Liu Shiming's workroom, he preserved all his folkloric sculptures, large and small, from his hard work, most of which were sculpted naturally according to his memories of the old days. "The Farmhouse", "The Farmhouse Cave Dwelling", "Ansai Waist Drummer", "Man Playing Suona", "The Ferry and the Ferryman on the Yellow River", "Henan Zhuizi", "Shanxi Bangzi" and "Performer Backstage", and works representing the folklore of Henan and Hebei Province, the free market of Beijing city life, the local fair and the children, etc., constituted a museum of folk art and folklore in modern times. That was an artistic world created by his life experience and diligent work, which made him a true artist of the people, a real master of the art of folk sculpture. When you stepped into Liu's sculpture workroom, you could sense the folk culture, as if you were in an art museum of local life and folklore. He lived his entire life in this artistic world, without catering to the political trends, nor pursuing the market price, and he expressed his genuine emotions as he pleased. He is a true artist.
As the painting is like the person, so is the sculpture. In Liu's artistic creations, people will not sense the unattainable technical skills that create an artificial distance from the audience, nor is there a deliberate pursuit of a new and different style, they are so vivid and intimate. As the painter Mr. Dong Xiwen used to say: "The good thing about folk art is that it does not rely on unattainable technical skills that confuse people, but brings the creator and the audience closer together." Liu Shiming, a simple, deep and reticent man, has a passion that lies within him for life and working people, which is like a tall, quiet volcano. Only in the moment when it erupts with its inner fiery magma, can one feel the heart-stopping power of the outpouring. Only the fiery emotion of the romanticism of life is able to, as he says, explode “like a beautiful firework”, with a little spark. His kind of obsessive and sincere love for the rhythms of life is something that I have been obsessed with.
In his workshop, although there is no grand monument-like structure, no so-called great theme, and no unattainable and daunting technical skills, it gives the audience the connotative capacity and artistic energy to an incomparable degree. Its immense emotional power is like a concentrated atomic bomb. There is no room for emotional indifference, nor can one find an academic mode of creation, nor can one even sum up his technique in artistic expression in terms of the general concept of visual likeness, vividness or the so-called arbitrariness of artistic technique. It can only be a momentary catharsis of artistic energy ignited by burning emotions reaching their breaking point, which is determined by the qualities of the artist and cannot be learned. This feeling, which I have seen in the 15,000-year-old primitive art rock paintings of the Lascaux caves in south-central France, is the expression of a great artistic energy that could only have come from the artistic expression of primitive man's sacred worship of the giant totem bull, which is not in any way the ordinary pattern of so-called artistic activity reflecting life, nor is it what some art historians call a numerical record of primitive man's hunting for the fruits of his prey, but can only be the expression of the sacred and fiery emotions of the worship of the supreme gods and goddesses.
In the history of Chinese sculpture, I believe that such enormous artistic emotional energy can only be seen in the creation of terracotta figurines and huge stone sculptures by folk artisans in the Han Dynasty, where the slaves were (relatively) freed from the personal dependence of their masters in slave society, with the catharsis of their free emotions bursting forth. Such emotional energy created the Han figurines, brick sculptures, portrait stone murals and huge stone sculptures, within which lies the strong romantic style that is like the rising sun at eight or nine o’clock, showing great vitality although it was born in a haphazard period. This burning passion and romanticism had never been seen before. It is neither the primitive art of the primitive society, which had not yet mastered the skills of artistic expression and where art remained in the symbolic stage, nor the artistic creation to simulate images of life from the late slave society to the Qin Dynasty, such as the Terracotta Warriors. By the Han Dynasty, only in the ascendant period of feudal society, when art reached a high level of maturity, could the art be the flames of the rising sun. Despite the profundity of Tang art and the superb realist skills of Song art, which had reached its peak as the midday sun, the sunset of feudalism ensued and the once unbeatable lion of the Tang Dynasty degenerated into the Empress Dowager Cixi’s poodle, wagging its tail to imperialism. Moreover, the arts and crafts at that time were reduced to merely crafts, not art at all. However, the folk art and folk sculpture created by the hundreds of millions of Chinese workers after the polarization of art after the Han Dynasty have continued the glorious tradition of art and the national spirit of the Chinese people during the rising period of feudal society in the Han Dynasty for two thousand years. It is this glorious tradition of the development of Chinese folk art that Liu's sculpture inherits and improves, and it has an important place in the history of the development of Chinese sculpture. The times moved forward and the Chinese society, seeing an end of feudalism, moved on to a higher stage of development. People will enter the era from the kingdom of necessity into the kingdom of freedom. The development of Chinese art will never follow the pattern of the West, nor be in line with the West. The philosophy will return to the people, and art will return to the people, and to nature. At a higher level, developing the national and popular nature of art, developing the individuality of art, will be an inevitable rule that does not change with people's will. Liu Shiming's art is an artistic phenomenon born out of the call of the times and has a timeless vitality.
April 10, 1998