There are thousands of celebrities in the art world, including Leng Jun, a master of hyper-realism, Chen Danqing, a "hooligan painter", Jin Shangyi, a master of oil painting, and so on.
Compared with these well-known painters all over the world, the name Xie Chuyu may not be known to many people, but they have definitely seen his paintings, and his works are far more well-known than himself.
He is famous for painting "naked women", and has even been forced to wear clothes because his paintings are too straightforward and sexy.
The picture of a half-naked exotic girl holding a clay pot is believed to be seen in many elegant restaurants or study rooms, and even in northern bathhouses.
And this painting is Xie Chuyu's most famous human portrait "Tao", it is said that the painting was auctioned for 7 million yuan as soon as it came out.
What's even more incredible is that this painting is so beautiful and sexy that it has become the most stolen painting in the history of Chinese oil painting, with more than 1 million times in the world.
Why is Xie Chuyu, who is famous for his "pirated and beautiful women", so obsessed with painting "naked women"? What is the charm of this half-naked and confused hugging pottery girl?
"Nude Woman"
From elegant and high-end restaurants, hazy bathrooms, hotel rooms, to street vendors selling retro mirror decals, etc., you can almost see this painting of a pottery girl.
In the hazy and illusory painting, a woman half-naked and holding a clay pot attracts people's attention, and the woman in the painting is tall and graceful, and her deep eyes are full of melancholy.
The whole painting looks as if it is frozen in a vast world like a real person.
This sexy and innocent painting is Xie Chuyu's most proud work, and it is also the one that gives him the most headaches.
The painting "Tao" was created by Xie Chuyu in 1997, and the woman in the painting has picturesque eyebrows, and her beautiful face exudes a touch of melancholy, which is not as beautiful as a real person.
It is said that the painting was auctioned in London that year, and the first bid was 800,000 pounds, nearly 7 million yuan.
The figure of the pottery girl is slender, the black hair pulled up sets off his better face, and the illusory waves and clouds in the depths make countless viewers unable to take their eyes off, and it is precisely because this painting is too close to reality that it has become the object of everyone's scramble.
"Sea Charm"
According to incomplete statistics, from domestic to foreign countries, from European art galleries to African streets, etc., this painting has been stolen nearly 1 million times around the world in just a few years.
All kinds of pirated "pottery girls" on the market gave Xie Chuyu a headache, and what he didn't expect was that there were still manufacturers who used them as image spokespersons.
"Green Field"
Because the woman's posture in the painting is too graceful and close to reality, in many pirated paintings, some people intimately put on clothes for the "naked woman" to cover the originally bare breasts.
Xie Chuyu was angry and hated about this, he felt that the use of clothes or various mosaics to cover these pirated paintings was completely adding to the painting, and it was also a distortion and desecration of art.
"Pleasant Garden"
You must know that as a painter, from the beginning of a painting to the final appearance, every stroke embodies the countless efforts of the painter, and it is also their expression and reverence for art.
However, it was wantonly used for the dissemination of commercial value, and countless pirated productions suffered a heavy loss to Xie Chuyu, and the original value of the painting would become worthless as the piracy increased.
"Akino"
The deadliest case was Xie Chuyu's lawsuit with an oral liquid merchant in 1998, when Xie Chuyu participated in the Guangzhou International Art Fair with his painting "Tao".
At the meeting, a friend told him whether his painting "Tao" was a reference to a certain oral liquid, because it was such a girl holding pottery as the image lady in the oral liquid advertisement.
Xie Chuyu was very angry about this, he stood in front of the painting and angrily accused, "I took out this painting to tell the world that I am the author of this painting!"
In order to seek justice, Xie Chuyu began a long lawsuit with the oral liquid manufacturer, and in 6 years, Xie Chuyu completely ended the lawsuit with 80,000 yuan in compensation.
Although Xie Chuyu only received 80,000 yuan in compensation, this incident made him famous in the art world, and this painting of a pottery girl resounded all over the country.
As the paintings gradually became famous, everyone began to pay attention to Xie Chuyu, and it is not difficult to find that all of Xie Chuyu's paintings are all beautiful women, which is very attractive.
As a result, he was dubbed "a painter surrounded by pirated and beautiful women", and a closer look at his paintings shows that all the women in the paintings show a unique oriental female charm, which is combined with strong pigments to give people a surreal feeling.
And this unique way and style of painting also benefits from his study experience when he was young and his desire for beauty.
Painter surrounded by beautiful women
In 1962, Xie Chuyu was born in an ordinary family in Shantou, Guangdong, unlike other children who love to play and make trouble, Xie Chuyu likes to sit quietly when he is a child, he loves to read, and prefers those illustrated books with strong colors.
The inspiration from his early childhood also laid a solid foundation for his later artistic creation.
In 1984, Xie Chuyu, who had ideals and love, was admitted to the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and after graduating from university, he stayed on to become a professor of oil painting.
In 1993, he went to the California Institute of Design in the United States for further study, and his later paintings were full of both oriental charm and Western compound charm.
A small retro house, a table full of paints filled his Xie Chuyu's life, a secluded and dimly lit room full of all kinds of decorative paintings and nude women.
These are Xie Chuyu's works, he likes to draw women, likes all kinds of beautiful women's faces, when he was a teenager, he saw a photo of Hollywood movie star Greta Garbo in a magazine, and his bright beauty gave him great inspiration.
Later, when he was keen to paint women's faces, he would draw on the influence of Greta Garbo, who believed that everyone has different aesthetics and different people.
And what he loves is not only women who are born with a sense of beauty, but also women who are full of art.
Just like when she created the work "Tao", he spent a whole year, she believes that beauty is not static, and the final completion of a painting must incorporate the characteristics of all beautiful women.
Therefore, he likes to stitch together the best parts of a woman's body to create a perfect painting of his ideals.
Famous all over the world, stolen thousands of times
From an artistic point of view, this "Pottery Girl" is somewhat similar to the oil painting "Spring" by the French painter Ingres, and there are some similarities in terms of the composition of the painting, the painting technique and the things embodied.
"Fountain"
They are also naked women holding a clay pot in their arms, but compared to Ingres's paintings, this hazy and bright clay woman seems to show more beauty that belongs to oriental women.
Some people call this painting the "Venus of the East", and the upper body of the woman in the painting is naked and bare-chested, and the delicate facial features do not show any shyness, but reveal a faint melancholy.
According to his own account, he drew this painting with reference to three models, one from Qingdao and one from Shantou and a mixed-race woman, and he created a fusion of three women from different places with different looks.
The combination of Chinese and Western art gives people endless visual enjoyment, which not only reflects the charm of Chinese women, but also faintly reveals the romantic and noble beauty of the West.
"Kiyone"
And this is Xie Chuyu's unique way of creation, if you look closely at his other paintings, almost all the women are beautiful-looking but bare-chested.
He loves beautiful women, everything he pursues is a beauty with its own characteristics, he is strict with models, and almost every year he goes on a search for beautiful women from all over the country.
Summer Rose
The women he selected were all 18 to 30 years old, with good figures, white skin, beautiful appearances, and tall beauties.
Among these women, he especially likes women in the western part of Guangdong, he thinks that these southern girls have delicate and deep facial features, and their beauty is more like a simple beauty out of the mud than the gentle appearance of the northern people.
Being surrounded by countless beauties is a dream that is coveted by a man who overcharges him, but for Xie Chuyu, this is his daily life, and some of his paintings have commented that his paintings "make men feel excited and women are intoxicated".
However, some people find it difficult to understand his creative style of liking to be naked, thinking that his paintings are "difficult to get into the hall of elegance", so that in many pirated copies later, everyone consciously dressed the characters in the paintings.
Xie Chuyu was very helpless about this, just like he said that these pirated "consciously" dressed women, but such paintings are difficult to reflect beauty, and the poor color distortion and occlusion make the characters lose their own artistic life.
Xie Chuyu's paintings themselves are famous for their reality and naked beauty, and forcibly putting on clothes and changing the image of the woman in the painting is not a kind of embarrassment of forcibly acting on beauty and beauty?
The original painting stands in front of the virtual hazy Beijing, and the contrast between the delicate figures and the rough background can make countless men feel excited, and forcibly putting on clothes seems to be another feeling, which is not a kind of "forcibly pretending to be ugly".
However, even if Xie Chuyu painted more nude women later, this "Tao" still became his regret, because this painting was collected by a real estate boss in Hong Kong back then, and until now Xie Chuyu has been rejected many times when he wants to buy it back at a high price.
The beauty that is popular with the public is not the real beauty, not following the crowd, and pursuing the unique ultimate is what Xie Chuyu really loves, and it is also the characteristic of all the naked women in his pen.
Resources:
1. Yangcheng Evening News: "The Beauty of the Human Body and the Poetry of Beauty", 2012-7-27
2. China News Network: "Xie Chuyu: Thai People Say "Tao" Was Painted by Thai Painters, Don't Believe I'm the Author", 2019-6-28
3. Dahua.com: "Famous Painter Xie Chuyu - Behind the Beauty is the Result of Meticulous Crafting", 2018-3-7
4. People's Art Network: The Story of Xie Chuyu's Oil Painting "Hugging the Pottery Girl", 2012-9-16
5. Xie Chuyu: Baidu Encyclopedia