A group of women seen from behind (and naked on the back and breasts) push a boat returning from a pearl-diving trip. They have a scarf covering their hair and know they will have to face the sea again the next day. And yet they have so much hope because they have faith and believe in the simplicity of life. This is the synthesis of a magnificent oil on canvas (“The Rite of the Pearl Fishers”, 2019, the only triptych in the exhibition) by the Chinese painter Cen Long, on display in Bologna, in the eighteenth-century rooms of Palazzo Cavazza Isolani, curated by Metra Lin and Laura Villani and open until January 12, 2025.

“Sowing Hope – Cen Long The Follower of the Light”, installation view at Palazzo Cavazza Isolani, Bologna, ph. credits Michele Crosera, courtesy Crux Art Foundation

Born in 1957 in Guangzhou (a metropolis that we Europeans have long called Canton), Cen Long is the son of two intellectuals persecuted by the fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution and has nourished himself over time with a lot of Western culture that he has been able to personalize with the distinctive traits of an identity that believes in the virtues of faith. His pictorial project, with the emblematic title “Sowing Hope – Cen Long The Follower of the Light” is in its third Italian stage, after Florence and Venice (here coinciding with the recent Biennale). The light of the title is transmitted onto canvas (about twenty of them are exhibited, all medium and large-sized oils) by a painting impregnated with blacks, whites, grays and beiges, through a stratification on canvas that proceeds from the darkest to the lightest color to then end with the white parts. Although the colours are cold, the effect on the observer is powerful and warm, placing Cen Long’s art between the expressive canons of Macchiaioli and Expressionism, while the sign and figuration are Verghian, representing fishermen, shepherds, the underclass and nature linked to the rhythms of time, the sky, the seas, the constellations and the winds on material surfaces and the result of vigorous pictorial strokes.

Cen Long, “The Rite of the Pearl Fishers”, 2019, oil on canvas, 200 x 360 cm, courtesy Crux Art Foundation

An example of this is another significant canvas entitled “In Search of Light” (2021), in which there is a reference to the frontal scene of “Quarto Stato” by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, with the peculiarity of showing a crowd marching in search of a light that seems to be the one that Dante and Virgil had just after leaving Hell (“Sowing Hope: Purgatory in the Paintings of Cen Long” was the title of the Florentine exhibition). The constant presence of animals (especially sheep and cattle) is a further figurative feature of the Chinese artist who often also depicts children and a nature that, in the line of the horizon, always flows into dawn lights that symbolize the trust of individuals in a better future.

Cen Long, “In Search of Light”, 2021, oil on canvas, 200 x 240 cm, courtesy Crux Art Foundation

“Costellations”, a 2021 work showing a shepherdess in the act of leading a flock during the night, is the cover painting of the exhibition and brings to mind Leopardi’s “Night Song of a Wandering Asian Shepherd”, in which the shepherd’s life is made up of a simple gesture such as leading “the flock beyond the field”. The shepherdess has well-defined eyes, an element that is not so present in the works of Cen Long who preferred to portray characters with an undefined gaze, seen from behind, tired from work, in the act of plowing and pushing work animals, fighting against winds and storms in order to maintain the course towards hope. This humanity – it is a clear message from the artist – does not need eyes to recognize the light, like the wise man who can be blind because he is able to see better (“The Blind Poet”, 2016).

Cen Long, “The Blind Poet”, 2016, oil on canvas, 120 x 200 cm, courtesy Crux Art Foundation

As already stated, nature plays a central role in Cen Long’s poetics, even if it is also linked to the harmony of the creative hand. This is also demonstrated by the only painting without human figures, “Life” (2023), a very old tree that transcends the landscape and finds its strength in the very intense experience that has crossed its bark. Cen Long’s art imposes itself as a placid stream in the din of contemporaneity imbued with an apparent meditative halo that is actually a reservoir of hope and secular faith. The humanity portrayed by the artist includes all peoples, even those discovered by his father, Cen Jia Wu, an anthropologist in Yunnan, the Chinese province with the richest ethnic diversity, an element confirmed centuries earlier by Marco Polo who, among the many peoples, also met Nestorian Christians here (the cross is also a recurring element in Cen Long’s canvases).

Cen Long, “Life”, 2023, oil on canvas, 120 x 120 cm, courtesy Crux Art Foundation

Alongside the exhibition, a selection of the “Sowing Hope” Award is also visible, with the finalist works resulting from the creativity of students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. The anthology is completed by a video that alternates impressions of insiders visiting the two previous stages with a delicate interview portrait of the artist, made within his home, surrounded by his vast library and the imposing symphonic, opera and popular disco (as well as embellished by the presence of a white-orange cat which is another element characterizing the Chinese tradition…).

Info:

“Sowing Hope – Cen Long The Follower of the Light”
15/12/2024 – 12/01/2025
Palazzo Cavazza Isolani
Piazza Santo Stefano, 16 – Bologna
www.cenlong.cc

Giovanni Crotti

I am Giovanni Crotti and I was born in June 1968 in Reggio Calabria to be reborn in June 2014 in Piacenza, the city where I live. My income is guaranteed by digital consultancy, and I then spend it largely on art and letterature: I have been and am a content curator and organizer of cultural events for artists, galleries and institutional spaces, as well as a writer of exhibition reviews, creatives of every era and books.