Gentle Contact (Translation)
淑 近現代 呂建軍 油畫 (Primary Title)
Lu Jianjun 呂建軍, Chinese, born 1960 (Artist)
Born in Hangzhou, southern China, Lu Jianjun studied oil paintings at Shandong Fine Art College in 1986 and at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1996. After moving to San Francisco in 1999, Lu made several trips throughout the United States and Europe, where he viewed paintings by European masters in person for the first time. Gentle Contact depicts a young woman dressed in traditional clothing, sitting on a wooden chair, surrounded by traditional Chinese furniture and antique objects, such as a porcelain jar and jewelry. All this recalls the artist’s childhood visit to his mother’s hometown in southern China. The domestic details, rich color palette, and light and dark contrast reveal Lu’s classical training in oil painting and the inspiration of Flemish and Dutch artists. The sitter’s elongated hands and fingers suggest the influence of European Mannerism, an anticlassical style that emphasized idealized features.
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