Sunset over the Plateaux of Southern Shaanxi

Shi Lu Chinese

Not on view

In this painting, a mule train moves slowly along a mountain path through a cornfield that appears brilliant red in the glow of sunset. During the Cultural Revolution, the color red symbolized new China and recalled the stirring lines of the revolutionary song: "The East is Red, the sun rises; China has produced a Chairman Mao." In Shi Lu's ominous landscape, however, it is the light of the setting sun that illuminates the fields, which appear like a brushfire about to consume the travelers. The mountains, like thick black smoke, offer no sanctuary from this conflagration.

Sunset over the Plateaux of Southern Shaanxi, Shi Lu (Chinese, 1919–1982), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China

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