Artwork Description

Title: Quiet Morning
Artist: Shen Xinggong (b. 1943)
Date: Undated
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 14.6 × 17.5 in (37 × 44.5 cm)

Artwork Identification
Quiet Morning is a serene and contemplative oil landscape by Shen Xinggong, rendered with textured brushwork and a sensitive eye for tonal harmony. A calm river occupies the central band of the composition, reflecting a quiet sky and dividing the foreground of sunlit grasses from a distant line of trees and modest architecture. The composition is horizontally stratified, offering a rhythmic spatial depth evocative of the southern Chinese landscape.

Artistic Style and Influences
Shen Xinggong’s work is firmly rooted in the Jiangnan regional painting tradition, while also drawing on Western impressionistic and post-impressionistic techniques. His textured impasto and layered pigment application emphasize atmosphere over detail, creating a tactile surface that evokes the fleeting poetry of light and mood. Influenced by his mentor Su Tianci, Shen developed a lyrical and meditative visual language that unites observation and emotion.

Historical Context
Painted in the aftermath of China's Cultural Revolution, Shen’s landscapes can be read as meditations on stability, beauty, and memory. Emerging in the late 20th century amid the reopening of China to international art discourse, Shen’s work reflects a synthesis of traditional Chinese aesthetics and modern oil painting technique. His focus on the Jiangnan countryside—a region long romanticized in Chinese poetry and painting—anchors his work in both cultural nostalgia and contemporary practice.

Provenance
Provenance documentation can be provided upon request.

Condition and Conservation
The work appears in good condition. The surface shows rich and intentional textural brushwork with no apparent losses, abrasions, or discoloration visible from the provided image. A light layer of varnish enhances tonal depth. No conservation issues are currently evident, though in-person inspection is advised.

Artistic Significance
Quiet Morning exemplifies Shen Xinggong’s celebrated ability to capture the quietude and poetry of nature with painterly sensitivity. As a former vice-president of the Nanjing Academy of Art and a significant figure in Chinese oil painting, Shen’s work holds a respected place in the canon of modern Chinese art. This work would appeal to collectors of lyrical landscape, post-socialist realism, and East Asian modernism.

Xileng Yinshe2017 autumn 20180419