A Date Tree with Children Around

Painted in 1973, A Date Tree with Children Around marks a pivotal moment in Wu Guangzhong’s career. In that year, Wu was summoned back to Beijing and commissioned by the authorities to paint a large mural, allowing him to take up his brush once again and return to the practice of painting from life. At the centre of the canvas rises a lofty date tree, its trunk and branches thrusting towards the sky. The foliage is not yet luxuriant, but tender green shoots have begun to sprout, exuding the breath of life at the tips of the branches. Rendered in cool grey tones, the atmosphere evokes the crisp, crystalline air of the northern plains. Beneath the tree, children dressed in red, green, and blue clothes appear as flickering dots of colours, instiling movement and vibrancy into the tranquil scene. Painted during the artist’s creative prime, the work was exhibited in the “Wu Guangzhong: A Retrospective” held at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1987, his first major solo exhibition outside mainland China.

Although a date tree may bear fruit within three to five years, it often takes more than two decades to reach a height of over ten metres, its skeletal branches spreading wide enough to shelter an entire courtyard. Resilient against arid and barren soil, the tree stands firm even after shedding its leaves, becoming a symbol of endurance and tenacity. The artist once remarked, “I have drawn many date trees in Beijing. Every time I draw her, the integrity of this soaring and spur-like tree comes to my mind.” In the painting, the tree stretches towards the clouds, like the most steadfast guardian of a northern courtyard. The children below, dressed in colourful clothes, brighten the scene in contrast to the old tree, forming a dialogue that transcends time. While the old tree embodies the passage of time and resilience, the children radiate visions of vitality and a hopeful future.

The white wall behind the tree serves as a flattened backdrop, upon which overlapping blocks of colour suggest alleys, side walls, tiles, and rooftops. The silhouettes of children, like abstract brushstrokes, seem at once stylised yet brimming with lifelike expressions. This treatment of pictorial space invites comparison with Paul Gauguin’s Maternite II (1899), which uses areas of flat colours and stylised figures to create a decorative touch and spatial depth. Gauguin’s approach itself was inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints that profoundly influenced him, where space is delineated by the interplay of colours within the subject matter. In this work, Wu reveals a new interpretative possibility of using colour blocks as a form of freehand expression. Drawing on the concept of creating realms through the imagination, conveying spirit through form in Eastern painting, Wu forged a distinctively modern language through cross-cultural dialogue, with this series heralding a new beginning for the artist.

Among his paintings from the 1970s, A Date Tree with Children Around marks the point at which Wu discovered a new path forward in oil painting. Depicting themes of rural life, he merged the freehand spirit of Chinese painting with the reductive style of Western abstraction, infusing modern resonance into paintings of national subjects. In this painting, he preserves the unembellished gaze upon village courtyards and children, while imbuing the scene with a modern sensibility through the rhythm of line and colour blocks. Bridging past and present, and blending Chinese and Western traditions, this work represents an exploration that opened up an innovative path for Chinese oil painting.