The six-part feature series "The Art Beat", which premiered on CGTN television 
and various social media platforms on January 22, features six of China's 
leading contemporary artists – five painters and one symphony conductor. 
Produced in multiple languages, it describes how their art, by capturing the 
spirit of the times, tells China's story from a cultural perspective. 

Through their stories, and by examining the influences and innovation 
manifested in their work, the series explores how they reflect and impact the 
times they are living in. These artists, while garnering inspiration and 
strength from traditional Chinese painting and music, are constantly 
preoccupied with the future of their art in today's fast-changing world.

"Drawing is also a process of self-cultivation," says Chen Jialing, a leading 
figure in the Shanghai School of traditional ink painting. Chen, famous for his 
depictions of plum blossoms, makes innovative use of free-spirited lines to 
describe the reality and picture the world around him.

"Painting and life, they were two lines before. As you walk farther and 
farther, the separate two lines merged into one," says Jia Guangjian, dean of 
the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. Jia, who says he gains inspiration for his 
painting from real life, has revived the boneless painting style and introduced 
it into contemporary art.

"A painting should conform to the changes of the times. I follow modern 
trends," says Fan Yang, doctoral supervisor at the Chinese National Academy of 
Arts. Anything that catches his eye can become the subject of a painting, from 
nurses treating COVID-19 patients, to spectacular scenery. Sensitive to the 
changing times, Fan has spent many years painting a visual record of 
developments in the world around him.

"Art prodigy" Wang Mingming learned to paint at the age of five. "I've been 
trying to capture the spirit of the Chinese and identify the artistic 
conception at the core of the Chinese arts," he says. Wang has now become 
convinced that Chinese art must follow a Chinese path.

"We must preserve the essence of ancient art, while reflecting our contemporary 
spirit and culture," says Feng Dazhong, an ink painter who was born into a 
miner's family in Liaoning Province in 1949. Feng is known for his bold and 
unconstrained paintings of tigers, which are hailed as "the finest tigers in 
all the world".

"I'm all for the popularization of classical music. Since they need it, I'll do 
it," says Zheng Xiaoying, China's first-ever female symphony conductor and the 
first Chinese musician to conduct at an opera house abroad. The 93-year-old has 
devoted her life to nourishing people's hearts and souls with music. At the end 
of 2022, she and her student Wu Lingfen, with a combined age of 170, staged the 
opera "La Traviata".

Season one of "The Art Beat" has received a warm response from international 
audiences, who have described it as "inspirational" and "amazing". The second 
season, which will be aired in mid-2023, will feature more Chinese artists who 
are striving to preserve and innovate their art at a time of rapid social 
change.

SOURCE  CGTN

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