Paeonia Lactiflora

One of the first generation of Chinese artists and art educators to study in Europe, Li Ruinian combined the rigorous modeling of Realism and the light and color techniques of Impressionism with the poetics of Chinese painting to create a naturalistic style of oil painting. Xu Beihong described Li’s work as “simple, timeless, and rigorous, a naturalism that is extremely pleasing, a lyrical poem.” Li’s love of flowers and meticulous artistic practice throughout the years made Paeonia Lactiflora an especially agile and lively painting.