The picture shows 67-year-old Li Yinghua tidying up the "New Looks of the Ancient Capital". This delicate color painting is 21 meters in length and 0.9 meter in width, including more than 90 scenic spots and over 100 units in the capital. Currently, Li Yinghua is preparing to display this long scroll at an exhibition held by Xiangyangmen Subdistrict to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Party.
As the scroll gradually unfolds, the magnificent Forbidden City Palace, the shady Beihai Long Pavilion and Old Path, the intricately carved Yonghegong wooden Buddha, the Chinese-Western style combined Arts and Crafts Museum, and the crowded Second Ring Road and Third Ring Road... The ancient yet new Beijing is vividly miniaturized in a 21-meter-long "New Looks of the Ancient Capital".
This delicate light-color long scroll was not created by a master painter, but it is the result of three years of hard work by Li Yinghua, an ordinary resident of the Xinyi Community of Chaoyangmen Subdistrict, and also a gift prepared by this 67-year-old elder for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Party.
The motivation for creation originated in 2008. Before and after the Olympics, the ancient capital Beijing developed rapidly, and Li Yinghua's life also underwent tremendous changes - her family bid farewell to the small flat house of more than 10 square meters that they had squeezed into for many years, and moved into a spacious and bright apartment building. "The Party and the country have done so much good for us old people, if I don't do something to show the new look of Beijing, I feel guilty."
Li Yinghua, who has been fond of calligraphy and painting since childhood, entered a professional calligraphy and painting school during middle school, with foundations in Western painting, ink painting, and still-life painting. In her youth, she copied many ancient Chinese paintings, and a "New Looks of the Ancient Capital" began to brew in her heart.
Thus, starting from 2008, Li Yinghua took her own DV camera and visited royal gardens, alleys, and collected materials on-site. She recorded styles and colors with her DV camera, and drew sketches with paper and pen to record positions, often spending half a day out each time.
"In order to realistically reproduce the urban landscape, I've been to Daguanyuan and Gongwangfu four or five times." Even Beihai Park, which Li Yinghua was very familiar with, she visited multiple times. Once, she found a novel small pavilion in one of her photos of Beihai Park, but it wasn't marked in her sketch, so she went again and recorded the exact position of the pavilion. When she went there in winter, the park's trees were leafless, in order to restore the lush foliage, she revisited in summer. "I can't just imagine it," this is Li Yinghua's principle of creation. (to be continued on the second page)
(continued from the first page) After two years of traveling throughout Beijing, the conception of "New Looks of the Ancient Capital" gradually formed in Li Yinghua's mind. With a clear plan, she started to put brush to paper. While creating, soft classical music or piano pieces played in the room, helping Li Yinghua enter the artistic state. Various trees are the key to the clever composition of the scroll, in order to show the depth of nearly ten different types of trees such as willows, pines, locusts, poplars, etc., Li Yinghua specially colored them from the back of the scroll to increase the richness of the colors. Even the small trees around the Great Wall that aren't very noticeable, she spent several days painting them. And details like the grape trellises behind the Agricultural Exhibition Hall, the color of the glazed tiles of the Forbidden City palace, and the number of side rooms in Gongwangfu where concubines lived, Li Yinghua does not allow any distortion.
During the three years of creation, Li Yinghua enjoyed every moment and never felt tired, perseverance is her consistent style. In her depiction, Beijing centers around the Forbidden City, with Chang'an Street as the backbone, starting from Ritan Park, passing through Tiantan Park, News Tower, Book Building, Summer Palace, Lugou Bridge... Following the "New Looks of the Ancient Capital" all the way westward, history and modernity perfectly intersect and integrate - a vibrant Beijing city comes alive on the canvas.
The creation went smoothly, but unexpectedly, framing caused Li Yinghua great anxiety. "Three parts painting, seven parts framing," Li Yinghua took her painting to seven or eight stores, all of which refused her, "21 meters? So long! We dare not take it, afraid of damaging it." Li Yinghua talked herself hoarse, finally finding a merchant willing to help her frame the painting. Normally, framing only takes a week to ten days, but this "New Looks of the Ancient Capital" took two whole months.
As a birthday gift for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Party, every stroke in the painting expresses the gratitude of an ordinary Beijinger to the Party and their love for this city. Li Yinghua hopes that the "New Looks of the Ancient Capital" will have the opportunity to appear in some exhibitions, allowing more people to understand Beijing, appreciate Beijing, and love Beijing.
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