A huge painting of a flowering cotton tree in the style of Chinese painting by renowned martial artist Zhu Mo was recently exhibited at the Zhu Jiang Hotel in Guangzhou.
It took almost two months of painstaking work to create this work, that is eight meters long and three meters high.
Zhu Mo is a military artist, whose childhood was spent in a military town, on this fertile soil his deep and sincere love for the PLA grew. On the day of the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the Army, he painted a monumental painting depicting a cotton tree, in which the artist expressed his reverence for the People’s Army and the heroes of the revolution.
The cotton tree, or kapok, is endemic to southern China and is the only flower that blooms on trees of this height. Its flowers are bright and laconic, dense and graceful, and its tall and slender branches are full of strength, beauty and greatness. Therefore, the inhabitants of Guangzhou consider kapok a symbol of the city and respectfully call it the “flower of heroes”.
This grandiose and majestic work fully reflects the enthusiasm and unyielding spirit of the southerners. The work is unique both in composition and in expressive power and depth of design.
There are many paintings dedicated to the cotton tree, but few have succeeded as well as Zhu Mo in conveying its power and colorful charm. In the energetic movements of the brush, the artist embodied the spirit of heroism that he imbued with over the years in the army.
Zhu Mo has created a work of this magnitude before. The painting Tall trees guard the southern borders, 8 m long and 2.5 m high, also breathes nobility and courage.
One of the artist’s earlier works is called A red star is reflected in red cotton. The contrast between the cotton tree and the airplane depicted on it has a deep meaning. The work embodies the idea that the southern borders of our Motherland are full of peace and beauty only because they are faithfully guarded by the People’s Army.
Many of Zhu Mo’s works are dedicated to a flowering cotton tree; almost all of them are colorful and full of grandeur. His unique creative language can be considered a new form of artistic expression. Martial artist, writer, poet and inventor Zhu Mo is a research artist who combines calligraphy, painting and printing in his works. He invented the technique of 3D calligraphy, as well as calligraphy and fingerprint painting. In 2015, his work was included in the National Classical Code of the People’s Republic of China. In April 2017, Zhu Mo was invited to exhibit at the UN headquarters: he became the first artist to present Chinese calligraphy to the UN. In April 2019, the artist was invited to Japan with the author’s exhibition Eternal Peace between Japan and China. Calligraphy and Painting of Zhu Mo, for which he received a state award from the former Prime Minister of Japan Tomiichi Murayama, and in November 2019 was awarded the title of Academician of the Tokyo Academy of Painting.
