Months have passed but Yang Feiyun, a veteran oil painter and professor with the Central Academy of Fine Arts, can vividly recount two exciting journeys aimed at "seeking inspiration from life and nature."

"Sunshine, raindrops, lush woods, roaming livestock, and the smell of green grass and countryside meals Immersed in such a rustic setting, we could not help but pour our impressions onto canvases," says Yang, 51, who traveled and sketched along with 16 other young and middle-aged oil painting artists.

This April and August, they traveled to the Taihang Mountains in Northwest China's Shanxi Province and to Lijiang in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

They are now presenting 200 of their oil portraits based on their intimate encounters with rural people and nature at the National Art Museum of China in downtown Beijing. The group exhibition runs until November 19.

"For decades, sketching had been considered a fundamental training for students at the Central Academy of Fine Arts," said Jin Shangyi, chairman of Chinese Artists' Association, at last weekend's opening ceremony of the art show.

However, "the practice of sketching from life and nature is despised and ignored by many of today's 'vanguard' artists, especially those who claim they are 'abandoning the traditions'."

For centuries, sketching from life and nature has been a must-do drill for many Western master painters from Rembrandt, Velazquez, Corot, Manet and Courbet to Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Morandi, pointed out Yang.

"How can we Chinese oil artists abandon it so easily?" he wondered.

"For many of the artists living in urban areas, 'civilization' and 'culture' have been reduced to conceptual signs rather than meaningful visual signs," said Chang Lei, a member of the sketching team.

"In the face of overwhelming media information about art and the rapidly changing world, many have lost their own judgment and confidence in their cultural identity. Stepping out of their isolation and embracing vibrant life and nature may do some good to their artistic creation in the future."

The sketching trips are part of an annual art project initiated 10 years ago and co-sponsored by the Creative Artists Studio of the National Research Institute of Chinese Arts, the Chinese Oil Painters Society and the All China Federation of the Literary and Art Circles, organizers said.

(China Daily November 15, 2005)