Beginning the late 1970s, Chinese artists gradually started taking a step back from creating art that was politicized, and redirected their focus back to the social reality of everyday life. At this critical turning point of culture, Luo Zhongli’s Father – an oil painting of a hardworking and honest peasant – shifted art from the political altar back to the people. This prompted the development and rise of Scar Art and Folk Art. As a sequel to Father, Luo Zhongli’s Spring Silkworm, created in the 1980s, conveys his love and gratitude towards his mother. Similarly, the painting delineates a traditional working woman from the rural villages, and exudes Luo’s unwavering nostalgia for folklife.

Different from a scrupulous display of facial details in Father, Spring Silkworm completely hides the face of the subject. An elderly woman is present, who looks down at the silk that is being harvested in her hands. Against the dark background, the light projects from the top down to the head of the woman, making the mother’s silky silver hair as the focal point, as the light delicately brings out the rich layers within the painting. This moment best fits the poem Luo Zongli once came across: “Like a candle that burns bright until it burns out, the silkworm doesn’t die until it spews out the last thread”. The artist symbolically compares the mother figure that dedicates tirelessly in her own quietness, to the hardworking silkworms. While moving the spectators emotionally, the painting also carries profound humanistic sentiments, displaying cultural consciousness and respect for individual beings of life.

(Edited by Lijie Wang & Miao Zijin, 2019)