In 1980, Chinese farmers worked hard and lived tough lives. Luo Zhongli’s representational painting titled Father reveals a situation of a typical Chinese farmer. He does not beautify the image of the farmer. However, he took advantage of realism to interpret the meaning of the farmer that made this painting become valuable. This piece was made in 1980 and is currently located in the Chinese National Art Gallery in Beijing. In this famous oil painting Father, Zhongli shows a hard and industrious life of a farmer through his use of color, light, and texture.

In his oil canvas, this is a male figure. His head is wrapped in a white cloth. His bronzed and rough face with wrinkles throughout his skin. His dry lip is slightly opening and he has only one tooth. A pair of stubborn and helpless eyes are looking at the viewer while the sun shines on the subject’s face. His rough hands are holding a broken bowl filled with water. The sweat on his face, as well as the sparse beard, are all marked by his hard life.         

Zhongli used colors to direct the viewer’s eyes around the artwork. The color emphasizes this painting’s focal point, which is the main figure’s dark brown face. Zhongli implements complementary color harmony in the dark brown hue of the main figure’s face and the yellow hue of the land which is behind the main figure. The background of this painting has a stronger intensity in comparison to the main figure’s face. This contrast creates a sense of hardship since the main figure is the focal point and does not contain the highest intensity of color in the painting. The yellow background represents land, the color of the Chinese nation. He also hinted at the farmers’ original skin color, which is yellow. Zhongli uses dark brown as the main figure’s skin color that reflects a farmer’s hard and industrious life. The harsh natural environment and the oppression and the suffering of life have caused farmer’s original yellow skin to become dark brown. In addition, the color of the background also represents sunlight. This gives viewers an insight of the hard farmer’s work under the sun. Overall, the color gives a sad mood that leaves a deep impression about a laborious farmer.                    

 Zhongli uses strong contrasts between light and dark that heightens this painting its realism. The light is distributed on the figure’s forehead, nose, cheekbones, and lower lip. However, his eyes, the underside of the nose and the body are dark. When the darkness contrasts with a limited amount of light shining on the subject, this causes the vantage point to be on this subject. Therefore, the lower lip is more prominent compared to the figure’s underside of the nose. The light puts emphasis on this figure’s lower lip that draws this into the viewer’s attention. The endless work under the sun causes farmer’s lower lip to become very dry. This emphasizes his hard work. In addition, the light reflects on his forehead that lets viewers can able to see wrinkles and sweats clearly on his forehead. The wrinkles and sweats are marks of hard work. By using chiaroscuro in the painting, it emphasizes the hardship through this figure’s life.

In this piece, texture is distributed throughout the entire artwork that creates a sense of realism. Zhongli used thick paint and subtle brushstrokes, which creates a rough and textured pattern in his painting. The main figure’s face is covered with wrinkles. Wrinkles in this painting form a beautiful texture. It looks like it has been cut with a knife. It gives viewers an insight of the hard work of life that seems to have been carved into his body with a knife. These wrinkles are the marks of hard work. In addition, the rough texture of his hand lets viewers see not only labor, but also time, not the exact time of his life, but the long hours of labor that have been deposited in him. Overall, the exquisite textural details emphasize the figure’s endless labor and the hardship that he experienced.

Father demonstrates how Zhongli used his thoughtfully chose visual elements to create a real life of a typical Chinese farmer. He uses color symbolically, strong contrasts between light and dark and exquisite textural details to reveal a farmer with tenacious struggle and hardship he experienced throughout his life. This figure represents millions of peasants of the Chinese nation. It is their hard work to raise generations of Chinese children.