Salt of the Earth

Farmer-painter Wang Nailiang works on a painting while his wife Wu Yaping offers assistance.

During our recent trip to Shaanxi province, we were amazed by the improved living conditions in the countryside. Farmers in Donghan village, Huxian county, have captured these changes with brilliant paintings.

Beginning in the late 1950s, farmers' paintings developed from simple illustrations for propaganda purposes into a dynamic art genre, particularly in Huxian, Jinshan in Shanghai, and Rizhao in Shandong province.

About an hour's drive from Xi'an, the provincial capital, Donghan has bright flowerbeds and neat lawns at the village entrance, while a huge billboard announces broadband wireless has been introduced to the area. An old man taps on a remote control and the electric gate silently opens to let us in.

Inside the village, rows of whitewashed buildings look like villas with their spacious courtyards and garages. When we ask a woman where the artists are, she pauses from picking the persimmons and gestures: "Come with me."

She ushers us into a flat and our jaws drop at the treasure trove in front of us.

The walls of the two rooms are filled with terrific watercolor paintings. A series of works themed on plowing and harvesting wheat are reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh's oil works.

"My husband did all these," says our guide Wu Yaping, sitting at a huge desk covered with half-finished pictures and bottles of pigment. She has every reason to be proud: While managing the house and raising two children, she colors the paintings if her husband is too busy.

As we admire the paintings, Wu fetches her husband, who is building their new home. He has dust all over his face and unruly long hair. At 48, Wang Nailiang is one of the approximately 30 leading farmer painters in Huxian county.

Wang loved painting as a child and was fortunate enough to meet two art professors from the China Art Academy who came to the area to study farmers' paintings in the 1970s. Though he never went to art school, Wang was inspired by rural life.

Sometimes when he gets an idea while tending the corn and wheat in the family's 1,300 sq m of fields, Wang sketches on his palms and completes the picture when he returns home in the evening.

Unlike some farmers who exaggerate human figures into cartoon-like images, Wang likes realistic forms.

"I try to capture both the appearance and the spirit of the subject," Wang says.

Wang craves breakthroughs with each painting and says one work is particularly memorable. In 2003, he went to the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi to watch the Ansai waist drum dance.

During this year's National Day parade in Tian'anmen Square, farmers from Ansai county, Shaanxi, thrilled international audiences with the dance.

Wang tossed away a dozen drafts of the group dance until he arranged the dancers in two circles. Several dancers are depicted in mid-air, arching their bodies.

"I'm quite satisfied with this artistic exaggeration," Wang says modestly. His work, Boiling Yellow Earth (Feiteng de Huang Tudi) is in the National Art Museum of China collection.

Melody of Shaanxi (Qin Yun) is another signature work and has been displayed in the United Kingdom, Canada and many other countries.

There are three moons in the paint ing: A real golden moon, a crescent moon-shaped boat where two farmer musicians accompany a Qinqiang folk opera singer, and the half-moon circle formed by villagers with their dogs and chickens.

"I don't think any other farmer painter has done three moons before," Wang says.

Wang met his wife Wu through a matchmaker, as is traditional. Life wasn't easy for the couple before his paintings gained recognition. But things have improved greatly.

In 1998, the village made a decision to tap into its artistic talents. The whole village of over 200 families and some 1,000 people designed a new village, including the roads, water supply, sewage, electricity and landscaping. They then left their ancestral homes, which used to get flooded in the summer.

Every day, travel agencies bring in visitors from around the world. Some stay to learn from Wang and two other noted artists, Pan Xiaoling and Cao Quantang.

Visitors can also learn how to prepare local delicacies and plough the fields, or reap the year's harvest with their hospitable hosts.

With large agricultural machines making the job of being a farmer an easier one, Wang has more time to paint. Profits from this activity have enabled the family to rebuild the house. He has spent about 130,000 yuan ($19,000) on the three-story building, which he will decorate with paintings.

There are some people who copy the farmer paintings. The county government has applied for intellectual property rights for the painters, but Wang is not afraid of the copy cats.

"Rural life always supplies me with inspiration. When I calm down to paint at night, fresh thoughts pour forth and I create works that are uniquely mine."