Artwork Description

Title:The Setting Sun is Shining in the Mountains
Artist: Zhirou Chen
Date: 2010
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 17.3 x 15.7 in (44 x 40 cm)

Artwork Identification
Zhirou Chen’s The Setting Sun is Shining in the Mountains is an evocative oil painting that reinterprets the traditional landscape through an abstract lens. Executed with vigorous, expressive brushwork, the composition suggests a mountainous terrain bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun. Earthy browns, rich yellows, and glowing oranges dominate the palette, imbuing the work with a moody and atmospheric quality.

Artistic Style and Influences
While maintaining an abstract sensibility, the painting demonstrates affinities with Post-Impressionism and early modernist landscape traditions. Chen employs gestural strokes and layered chromatic passages to evoke rather than delineate natural forms. This approach aligns with a lineage of artists—from Cézanne’s structural color fields to the emotive expressiveness of early 20th-century abstraction—while asserting a contemporary voice rooted in interpretive freedom.

Historical Context
Painted in 2010, this work emerges during a period when Chinese painters increasingly explored hybrid vocabularies, merging Western modernist aesthetics with indigenous landscape traditions. Chen’s abstraction of natural scenery reflects this dialogue, transforming a familiar motif—the mountain at sunset—into a meditative exercise on color, form, and perception.

Provenance and Authenticity
Please contact the gallery directly for detailed provenance information and certification of authenticity.

Condition and Conservation
The painting is in excellent condition, with stable pigments and no evidence of cracking, flaking, or prior restoration. The textured impasto is well-preserved, and the canvas remains taut and secure on its stretcher. Standard museum-quality care is recommended.

Artistic Significance
The Setting Sun is Shining in the Mountains stands as a nuanced example of Zhirou Chen’s ability to synthesize traditional landscape sensibilities with modern abstraction. The work’s chromatic warmth and structural dynamism position it as both a celebration of nature’s transience and a testament to the enduring vitality of painterly gesture within contemporary Chinese art.