Shan hai jing children professional#
Shan hai jing children series#

Since Shan Hai Jing covers an extensive range of contents, Zhu chose those most easy to convert into images and those he was personally interested in.

Shan hai jing children series#

As far as I know, my series of the 100 Chinese paintings of Shan Hai Jing was the first in the nation,' Zhu told the Global Times. Some recreations of the book are in the form of pictures printed from engraved plates. 'It is uncommon to illustrate Shan Hai Jing with Chinese paintings.

Shan hai jing children professional#

After he became a professional Chinese painting artist, he has always been thinking about illustrating the mythology in the book. He first heard the stories of Shan Hai Jing told by his parents when he was young and has always been greatly interested in this classic. Zhu spent two years creating the 100 paintings, each which took him two or three days to complete. 'I'd like to turn these frightening creatures into ugly but lovable creations, instead of simply beautifying them,' said Zhu, who wanted to create something more than what was conveyed in the text. He designed bigger eyes for the Heluo like those in cartoons and designed brows and eyes for a giant named Xingtian, which he learned from Peking Opera masks. In order to cater to young people's aesthetic tastes, Zhu uses cartoon elements in his artworks, such as exaggerations and distortions. Such creatures might sound horrible at first, but Zhu hopes these legendary mythical creatures will be adored by young viewers.

Shan Hai Jing describes gods, goddesses and frightening monsters, such as Tianwu which has a human's face, eight heads, eight feet and eight tails, and Heluo, a fish which has one head and 10 bodies. But different from other artists who merely adopt the myths as a source of inspiration, Zhu hopes his new artwork will become popular among young people and help spread Chinese traditional culture and values among them. Zhu was not the first artist to visualize the Chinese myth compilation. Zhu Xinchang, a national first-level artist from the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy, recently finished creating 100 Chinese paintings of the myths in Shan Hai Jing or The Classic Of Mountains and Seas, a Chinese classic book and a compilation of mythic geography and myths which have existed since the Warring States (475BC-221BC). In response, many Chinese artists and educators have created more works conveying Chinese traditional culture and catering to modern Chinese children to spread and popularize the culture. However, this phenomenon has been changing since the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress, when the county's top leadership attached greater importance to the inheritance and development of China's own traditional culture. And a variety of English language qualifications and certificates were once a stepping stone for job applicants to obtain a good job. In the article, the interviewee saw that a little girl declined to be friends with a boy because he has no English name.Ĭram schools targeting English competitions were once prevalent among Chinese students. The article described the multi-layered prejudices amongst Chinese middle class parents when it comes to whether their children were brought up and educated in an English-language environment. Last year, an article titled 'Middle class chain of contempt about education' reported by Phoenix Weekly went viral on Chinese social media.