Duan Jianwei depicts villagers as simple and honest people from a unique perspective with his own style. The Henan farmers in his works do not have too many body movements or rich expressions. They sit or stand in fields, facing the slightly-deserted world. The figures in Duan’s works are calm in disposition and honest in temperament. He describes each person rigorously and meticulously, and endows these ordinary farmers on the central plains with dignified, simple, honest and solemn innocence.

Migrant Wheat Reapers Arrive is one of Duan Jianwei’s landmark masterpieces and one of his most important works. Migrant wheat reapers refer to a popular way in northern China for farmers to migrate out to work. Each year when wheat ripens, farmers go to other villages to harvest wheat for payment. Migrant Wheat Reapers Arrive, created in September, 1994, presents the scene where the migrant wheat reapers appear to harvest wheat for people in rural areas during the wheat harvest. In addition to those reapers, figures in the works also include those who hire them, middlemen and innocent children. The background is the vast wheat fields, and busy reapers and farmers in the fields. The work is rigorous in composition. Through the use of scenography and the arrangement of the figures and scenes, we can see the painter’s solid painting foundation and the clear application of colors. Although a bustling scene, the atmosphere is quiet and restrained, calm and rational, like an Arcadia.

(Edited by Li Hanning & Yang Zhige, 2021)