The local and ethnic specifics of Yunnan in the work of modern Chinese artists: an "inside" and "outside" view

Lai Fei PhD in Art History Postgraduate student; Department of Art and Design; Far Eastern Federal University 690922, Russia, Vladivostok, Fefu Campus str., building 5, sq. 704 lai.2023@mail.ru

Fedorovskaya Natal'ya Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-8789-7994 Doctor of Art History Professor; Department of the Department of Arts and Design; School of Arts and Humanities of the Far Eastern Federal University 690922, Russia, Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok, Russian Island, 10 fedorovskaya.na@dvfu.ru

Relevance. There are two phenomena in Yunnan Province that set it apart from other regions of China and even the whole world. The first is the exceptional ethnic diversity (26 of the 56 officially registered Chinese ethnic groups) and the high preservation of ethnic traditions. The second is the disproportionately high contribution of Yunnan to the fine arts of the People's Republic of China in the 20th century, which does not correspond to either the small number and density of the province's population or the relatively low level of its economic development. The Yunnan art school and the Yunnan style of painting are known far beyond the province and the People's Republic of China, and the innovative impulse in fine art came from Yunnan not once (which could be an accident), but several times in the XX century.

There is a clear connection between these two phenomena at the level of common sense, since it is the image of ethnic minorities of Yunnan against the background of a unique natural landscape that is the "calling card" of the Yunnan school, and the use of ethnic plots and symbols of traditional culture is the specificity of the Yunnan style. However, establishing the nature of the connection between the actual natural and ethnocultural specifics of the region and their representation in the works of artists of different generations and creative directions is a non–trivial scientific task. At the turn of the XX―XXI century, the artists of Yunnan province made the image of this province and its peoples the property of modern global culture, which makes the study of this "Yunnan aesthetic miracle" even more interesting and relevant.

The study of the realization of a unique local (ethno-local) experience in contemporary art is an urgent scientific direction in cultural studies and art criticism. L.I. Nekhvyadovich notes that ethnoartology, as a special discipline studying ethnic art, is in the process of formation, and its conceptual apparatus is still insufficiently precise and unambiguous^[1]. The content of the concept of "ethnic painting", as well as the ratio of the ethnic content of the artist's work and its artistic form (genre and stylistic) is revealed by A.N. Sokolova^[2]. The correlation of local and ethnic specifics can be interpreted in different ways. In the works on the semantics of space in works of art (M.A. Bakhtin^[3], Yu. M. Lotman^[4]), emphasis is placed on the inseparable connection of the historical landscape (chronotope) and the culture of an ethnic group. Yu. A. Vedenin introduced the term cultural landscape^[5], which was further developed by H.A. Tomilov, who presented the experience of studying integrated economic-cultural types formed at the junction of various natural zones and their connection with ethnic processes^[6].

At the same time, ethnic art can be considered as part of a broader integral phenomenon – regional, national and global art, which is created in the process of interethnic dialogue and the development of a more universal language of art. For example, in this paradigm of ethnographic art studies, L.I. Nekhvyadovich wrote a dissertation and a number of articles devoted to the reflection of ethnic traditions in the work of contemporary artists of the Altai region^[7]. It is being developed by researchers of ethnic art in certain multiethnic regions of Russia – Siberia, Altai (G. V. Golynets^[8], M. V. Moskalyuk)^[9], Kazakhstan (R. A. Ergalieva^[10], etc.). The works of A.A. Pelipenko^[11], A.G. Kichigina^[12] and others are devoted to the specifics of displaying ethnic tradition and archaism in modern painting.

Chinese researchers have contributed to the study of the work of contemporary Yunnan artists, including the peculiarities of perception of ethnic material among aboriginal, local and visiting artists, i.e. those who understand its cultural specifics "from the inside" and see "from the outside". The most interesting cases of "double vision" are those artists who were born and raised in Yunnan, then received education and work experience abroad, and then returned to Yunnan and create their works there. The works of Wang Yi^[13], Li Xianfan ^[14], Wu Yining and others are devoted to this problem^[15].

The purpose of the article is to show the specifics of the perception and display of the cultural landscape and ethnic culture of the Yunnan population in the work of contemporary artists of various fields with experience both in Yunnan and abroad (including abroad). It is supposed to solve the following tasks: 1. To identify the various cultural codes within which ethnic and local (ethno-local) culture is interpreted in painting; 2. To establish which of these cultural codes prevail in the work of visiting and local artists; 3. To show how ethnospecific elements of Yunnan are displayed in the work of the modern generation of local artists educated abroad.

The analysis of the works of contemporary artists, the subjects of which are related to Yunnan province, allowed us to identify three main cultural codes, according to which its ethnic and local specifics are interpreted and represented. We have conditionally designated these types of coding as exotic, archaic and esoteric. It should be noted that these cultural codes are ideal types, that is, a specific picture is always a combination of them, where one type of interpretation dominates.

The exotic type of encoding makes the ultimate difference between the depicted place and the people living there from the viewer's everyday experience a dominant feature. Local specificity is depicted in the key of "terra incognita" or "utopia" in literal translation ("nowhere"), ethnic – literally as people-antipodes, any aspects of whose life are completely incomprehensible to either the artist or the viewer. It is precisely due to this complete misunderstanding of the empirical "content" that the phenomenon of enjoying "form" in its purest form arises.

The depiction of distant lands and ethnic groups living there in exotic images, as happy "children of nature" and "virtuous savages" or, conversely, interest in the tragic and negative sides of their lives – danger, cruelty, brutality of their existence – is a long-standing tradition, both in European and Chinese art, usually defined as "romanticism." These trends also exist in the work of modern Chinese artists.

The romantic approach to the ethnic theme has two dimensions: the exotic with a plus sign (utopia) and the exotic with a minus sign (dystopia). An example of the first type is the classic work of Jin Shangyi (born 1934) "Tajik Woman" (1984) (Fig. 1). The artist was a student of the Soviet classic of socialist realism K.M. Maksimov and created his work in the USSR, it is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery. Jin Shangyi is currently the chairman of the All-China Association of Artists^[16].

Fig. 1. Jin Shangyi. "Tajik woman". 1984

Some artists using the "exotic code" openly show that a specific ethnicity and chronotope (place and time) do not matter for their paintings. For example, Wang Yidong's painting (Fig. 2) is called "Scenic Area" (2009), without specifying a geographical location. Moreover, the terrain in the picture is very ordinary, and all the "picturesqueness" is contained in the pose and the red suit of the girl, as well as the bright ornament of the scarf.

Fig. 2. Wang Yidong. The picturesque area. Canvas, oil. 2009.

Conventionally, "ethnic" paintings in the genre of academic realism by artists such as Wang Yidong and Chen Yifei are successfully sold both in the domestic Chinese and foreign markets at the highest prices (hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Among the provinces of China, whose images are most often used in paintings of an exotic type, Yunnan ranks second after Tibet, and Tibetans also live in the Tibeto-Yunnan border area and become the object of artists' creativity. An example of an exotic interpretation of Tibetan ethnolocal specifics in the genre of academic realism is the artist Zhang Jian Jun (born 1931), also a student of K.M. Maksimov, one of the founders and leading figures in Chinese oil painting [Source: Qian Zhu "Oil Painting Lesson" for China. How Russian painting influenced the culture of China. URL: https://iz.ru/887586/tcian-chzhu/urok-risovaniia-maslom-dlia-kitaia ]. His interpretation of the Tibetan ethnic theme fully corresponds to the exotic code (and at the same time is very beautiful): a beautiful Tibetan girl (Fig. 3) in an extremely generalized "folk costume" riding an extremely generalized animal (either a yak, bull, or tur) among extremely generalized flowers at sunset (or sunrise) the sun^[17]. This is a painting in the realistic genre, but it is obvious that if this painting was renamed, say, "Pocahontas on the Bison," few people would notice the substitution, and its aesthetic impact would not weaken one iota.

Fig. 3. Zhang Jian Jun. "Tibet".

The most outstanding artist who interprets Yunnan ethnolocal specifics through an exotic code is Yuan Yunsheng (born1937). His work "The Feast of Pouring Water - An Ode to Life" (Fig. 4) is a monumental mural created in 1979 for the newly opened Beijing Airport.

Fig. 4. Yuan Yunsheng. A fragment of the fresco "The feast of pouring water - An ode to life." 1979.

Compared to the works written during the ten-year period of the Cultural Revolution, this work was innovative in its form, style and artistic techniques. It is no coincidence that it was later recognized as the most outstanding work of art in the modern history of China, along with several other paintings that decorated the airport (artists Li Huaji, Dong Xiwen, etc.)^[18].

Among other things, the painting depicted three bathing girls of the Dai people (Fig. 5), whose naked images immediately became the subject of heated debate among members of the public. The intensity of passions was so strong that for 10 years this part of the painting was covered with a wooden panel, and only in 1990 it was opened to the public.

The plot of the "Water Pouring Festival" is based on a religious holiday common in the culture of the Dai people, dating back to Hinayana (Theravada) Buddhism, where cleansing rituals are performed, bathed and doused with water^[19].

Fig. 5. Yuan Yunsheng. A fragment of the fresco "The feast of pouring water - An ode to life." 1979.

In 1978, a year before the creation of the painting at the airport, Yuan Yunsheng, planning to publish an album of paintings, went to Yunnan Province, the homeland of the Dai people, for 8 months. Therefore, the painting contains many authentic authentic elements inherent in the Yunnan cultural landscape and decorative details existing in the Dai folklore art. However, the interpretation of these elements has built them into a new semiotic order ― an exotic cultural code. The images of the fresco have no connection with modern everyday life and work. The artistic language peculiar to oil painting and the exotic interpretation of ethnic themes are much more universal, it is fully a "language of interethnic communication", like Latin, a language that is no longer spoken by any living ethnic group, but which is used by specialists around the world.

In form and composition, Yuan Yunsheng's work evokes associations not with the folklore art of the Dais, but with ancient frescoes on mythological subjects (naiads, dryads, nymphs) and Western European examples of monumental and easel painting from the Renaissance to the present day.

The success of the painting at the airport was so great that Li Huaji and Yuan Yunsheng are called the founders of a new trend in Chinese art − the "current of aestheticism", along with "scar painting" and "rustic realism"[Source: The Era of the Post-cultural Revolution in Chinese Painting. URL: https://www.referat911.ru/Iskusstvo/jepoha-postkulturnoj-revoljucii-v-zhivopisi/398668-2908348-place1.html].

The negative (dystopian) interpretation of the ethnolocal specifics of Tibet and the Tibetan borderlands (Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan) in an exotic code is presented in the works of the artist Ai Xuan (born 1947). In China, this style is called "rude" or rather "brutal": "Ai Xuan's work is always shocking… Whenever people see his work, they can feel loneliness, desolation, Tibetan characters, Tibetan character" ^[20]. The shock is caused by the contrast between the harsh reality and the fragility of the character, his absolute inability to adapt to the environment (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. A painting by the artist Ai Xuan from the Tibetan cycle. 2009

The artist has visited Tibet and the borderlands more than 20 times, his paintings are dominated by snow-capped peaks and sad, early-matured children (mostly girls). Despite the emphasized severity of the situation, children's and women's characters are distinguished by a specific "glamor", pretty, big-eyed faces with delicate skin (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. A painting by the artist Ai Xuan from the Tibetan cycle. 1992

Ai Xuan's Tibetan cycle has gained recognition in China and abroad, he is one of the most expensive contemporary artists, for example, his painting "Distant Singing". (2010) was sold for 1,201,329 American dollars^[21].

Thus, the exotic approach to the perception and display of the local and ethnic specifics of Yunnan is a view not just "from the outside", but from an extremely remote distance. At the same time, any really existing ethno-local elements do not play the role of signs accurately indicating the place and circumstances of the action of the characters in the work, but, on the contrary, abstracted symbols – hieroglyphs of space and ethnic culture, which are fundamentally unreadable and indicate precisely the "strangeness" and exclusivity of what is happening. The realistic potential of oil painting in this case is fully realized in the display of the beauty of form: the rich texture of stone and wood, fur and fabrics, the beauty of chiaroscuro. The content, i.e. the specifics of the ethno-local "life world", is fundamentally of no interest to either the artist or the viewer.

The archaic code of perception and representation of ethnolocal specificity represents an "inside view", however, this does not mean a simple naturalistic reproduction of ethno-local elements or copying of traditional plots. The ethnic culture and the state of the natural and cultural landscape in their modern form does not satisfy the artists. They direct their creative imagination to return to the "roots", to their original state, truer, deeper and more perfect. Thus, if the exotic code in painting requires traveling in space to the "edge of the earth", where people-antipodes live, then the archaic code expresses the desire to travel back in time far back to the beginning of time (that is, literally to the "arche"), to the earth and the customs of the ancestors.

The archaic code in art is based on several positions: 1) The real elements of the natural and cultural landscape are transformed through the actualization of ancient cosmogonic representations from local mythology; 2) the ethnic image is modeled on the basis of immersion in the ethnic picture of the world, studying the stylistics of folklore art (geometric ornaments, zoomorphic and plant motifs, anthropomorphic and plot compositions) ^[22]; 3) an "inside view" It involves the reproduction of the "life world" − ethnolocal everyday work and everyday context. In contrast to the external exotic view, when viewed "from the inside", the people consist not only of charming children and young beauties, there are also elderly women and men, and they work, eat, and are engaged in everyday activities; 4) the artistic language of the archaic code tends to metaphoricity, expressivity, pronounced associativity, deliberate stylization under the forms of primitive or "primitive" art.

Let's consider the archaic code of ethnic painting using the example of local Yunnan artists.

Zeng Xiaofeng, a native of Yunnan, started out as a production designer, and in the early 1980s he entered the Yunnan Institute of Painting, where he began a long-term study of folk art, Dian bronze casting, miniplastics (Fig. 8) and Yunnan folk frescoes^[23]. This is what contributed to the emergence of mythological motifs and primitivist tendencies in Tseng's subsequent works.

Fig. 8. Ancient Yunnan bronze decoration, Western Han Dynasty, Yunnan Provincial Museum. Photo.

Zeng Xiaofeng said that his many years of artistic practice had given him a deeper understanding of the living conditions and way of life of ethnic minorities. In the early stages of his work, he resorted more to sensory perception, instinct, than to rationality, which often gave his oil paintings, created in the early 1980s, a sense of archaism and exuberant vitality^[24].

For example, in his oil painting "Village Road" (Fig. 9), a woman in ethnic clothes is depicted walking along the road, carrying a huge basket on her head, and on both sides of the road there is a wooden fence made of logs as tall as a man. The image, starting with a heavy basket, large wooden stakes and ending with disproportionately large arms and legs, evokes a feeling of solid force tending to the ground. The volumes are large and rounded, similar to the depiction of figures on ancient Chinese bronze products, and exaggerated proportions add simplicity to the image. The colors of the painting are mostly earthy brown and yellow, which gives the painting an atmosphere of antiquity and gloom.

Figure 9. Zeng Xiaofeng. "Village road". Canvas, oil. 1983.

A similar form of expression is also found in Tseng's works "Building a House" (Fig. 10) and "Banana Tree" (Fig. 11), which depicts the daily work of minorities, but it is actually given religious or ceremonial significance. A group of ethnic minorities dressed in a Tibetan cloth suit drink from white bowls in front of a tall frame house. Their images resemble ancient bronze figurines in shape, and when depicting costumes, Zeng Xiaofeng was probably inspired by local folk art. The whole picture is designed in yellow tones associated with the color of the earth.

Figure 10. Zeng Xiaofeng. Building a house. Canvas, oil. 1984.

The painting "Banana Tree" depicts representatives of ethnic minorities. This is a very realistic work, which depicts semi-naked villagers picking bananas. The unusual shapes of people and objects in the painting are of interest, as well as the feeling of antiquity and heaviness created by the overall color palette. The simplicity of these people's lives touched the artist's heart and prompted him to instinctively create such works, accurate and authentic in content and primitive in form.

Figure 11. Zeng Xiaofeng. Banana tree. Canvas, oil. 1985.

Ma Yun (also known as Jack Ma) studied oil painting at the Central University of Nationalities and returned to Kunming after graduation. Being a native of Yunnan, the artist could not leave this beautiful red land.

The Yao Mountains are located in Honghe, Yunnan, where the Miao and Yao peoples have lived for many generations, and it was here that Ma Yun found the key to unraveling his soul. In the painting "Impression of Mount Yaoshan -1" (Fig. 12), Ma shows a picture of the distant past. The black—robed Yao are a group of people living on the tops of mountains. He creates a very primitive and surreal feeling, as some South American artists did in those days. He awakens primal feelings because "every artist needs an appropriate entry point, and this is something that some artists may not be able to find in their entire lives"[Source: Personal archive of the author. An interview with Ma Yun (Jack Ma). July 2, 2019].

Figure 12. Ma Yun. "Impression of Yaoshan Mountain" (1). Oil on canvas. 1985

In the foreground is a figure occupying almost half of the painting, her face with grotesquely simple features resembling a frozen bronze figure. The women in the background are depicted very generally, in identical costumes, they are all painted on large flat areas and consist of several simple color blocks. In the background there is an intertwined mass of cacti and many green plants. Upon closer examination, one can see many animals hidden inside, including peacocks and pheasants, and especially the large totemic figure of a hedgehog at the very top, adding links to the mythology of the picture.

Ma's paintings contain ethnic symbols, but they also reflect signs of real life, for example, representatives of the Yao people in the painting "Impression of the Yao Mountains (2)" are dressed in national costume, but they have sneakers on their feet (Fig. 13)

Figure 13. Ma Yun. "Impressions of Yaoshan Mountain" (2). Oil on canvas. 1985.

Ma Yun's works reflect his knowledge of the ethnic culture of the Yao, Miao and other minorities of Yunnan, but this local knowledge is expressed in the universal language of oil painting. In his works, there is a connection with the ideas of Picasso, who spoke about "drawing like a child", images reminiscent of the works of Paul Klee (1879-1940).

The artist also has more abstract works, for example, "Impressions of Mount Yaoshan (3)". "My teachers were not exclusively realists, they were more interested in form and loved the modernist language of the West, so I was influenced by it. At that time, we heard about Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and even the more avant-garde Klee, Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) and others."[Source: Personal archive of the author. An interview with Ma Yun (Jack Ma). July 2, 2019].

Ma's paintings combine a rather mature understanding of two aspects of the "search for one's roots": comprehension of the secrets of the ancient tribes of the deep mountains and the universal, abstract language of primitivism. "This is what we were looking for at the time. The content is important, it highlights the details, and through the details you evoke in yourself the desire for self-expression, this spirituality, this primordial plot"[Source: The author's personal Archive. An interview with Ma Yun (Jack Ma). July 2, 2019].

The esoteric code of perception and transmission of local and ethnic specifics consists in searching and finding a place where divine harmony is most embodied – truth, goodness and beauty. The life of the people living there is also filled with higher meanings, it is beautiful and authentic. Having found such a place, the artist finds himself, inner harmony, inspiration, a spring of creative energy.

Several generations of Chinese artists have found such a place in Yunnan, mainly in its "hinterland". Pan Dehai went to Tulin, which, according to him, was the place where his soul found peace. In 1979, Mao Xuhui, Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Yongqing and Yang Yijiang first came to Guishan, located more than 100 kilometers southeast of the Yunnan capital of Kunming, where the village of the Sani people called Nohei is located.

For Mao Xuhui, Guishan is a place that preserves memories of his creative path, an ideal place filled with the spirit of Provencal landscapes and helps to escape from the hustle and bustle of the world. The artist considers Guishan to be a paradise where he was able to find answers to many creative questions.^[25]

Mao Xuhui is one of the most famous artists of the People's Republic of China, since the 1980s, now lives and works permanently in Yunnan. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, he entered the Faculty of Fine Arts of the former Kunming Pedagogical University (now the Faculty of Oil Painting of the Yunnan Academy of Arts) and began to take a basic training course^[26]. Mao Xuhui's early works of the 1980s, for example, the cycles of paintings "Guishan" and "Mother of the Red Earth" are a reflection of his thoughts about nature and his inner spiritual needs, with saturated colors and a craving for primitivism.

It was in the area of Mount Guishan that the artist began work on the "Dream of the Red Earth". In fact, Guishan is an ordinary mountain 100 kilometers from Kunming, where there are quite modest villages untouched by civilization, where the Sani people, belonging to the Yi people, have been living for many generations, raising cattle and sheep, cultivating red earth and erecting stone houses.

The departure of artists to the Yunnan hinterland was a peculiar form of "return", because this generation of artists from the period of Reform and openness initially sought to get away from the old techniques of painting, both socialist realism and Chinese traditions, and sought new forms in Western art.

Mao Xuhui said that when creating his early works, he drew inspiration from the works of C. Corot (1796-1875), although the general style and shape of the paintings were still closer to the style of J. Millet (1814-1875) and P. Cezanne (1814-1875). The artist said: "I was interested in Cezanne as a student, I was inspired by his manner of creating paintings to focus on volume, composition, some conceptual compositional solutions, how you can create your own paintings, how you can compose fragments of impressions and some sketches; as well as Cezanne's unique way of noticing that nature in fact, she is very rich. We artists can create a world in harmony with nature based on our long-term observations. Studying Cezanne helped me become more confident in choosing the composition of my paintings and understand that the artist has the right to compose them subjectively."[Source: Personal archive of the author. An interview with Mao Xuhui. Not published. October 27, 2020]. In some paintings of the Guishan cycle, the influence of A. Rousseau (1844-1910) can also be traced (Fig. 14).

Fig. 14. Mao Xuhui. "Guishan women". Canvas, oil. 1984

Mao Xuhui's 1987 painting "The Gift of the Red Earth − the Sounds of Summer" (Fig. 15) is a joyful and romantic summer fairy tale, a departure from the mysterious and static style of his previous paintings. Mao Xuhui paints with a childish desire to show on canvas everything he saw, using clean, bright colors, but at the same time applying a primitive approach to modeling. Figures, animals and plants are depicted simply and restrainedly, and the rigid lines of the composition divide each object into several parts located close to each other, but not interconnected. The artist here appears as a person who does not know how to draw, trying to complete his work and with great effort finishing each image, which is a primitive way of drawing, and the superposition of several objects is very similar to the images left by primitive people. The overall atmosphere of the painting is dreamy, giving rise to associations with the Garden of Eden.

Fig. 15. Mao Xuhui. "The gift of the red earth − The sounds of summer." Canvas, oil. 1987

Zhang Xiaogang (born 1958) is also an example of a spiritual "return", who found a spiritual homeland in Yunnan after a period of fascination with Western trends, including extremely modernist ones. He was born in Kunming, Yunnan Province in 1958, studied painting in his early years and was a member of the "Southwestern Art Research Group", whose works are a unique visual expression of modern Chinese art^[27]. In 1979, after returning home from summer vacation, Zhang Xiaogang and Mao Xuhui went to Mount Guishan to make sketches together, hoping to find in them a reflection of the religious sentiments of Millet's paintings. In fact, Millet's influence was still evident in his subsequent graduate works: heavy shapes, lilac tones and religious motifs were noticeable.

One of Zhang Xiaogang's paintings "Tibetan Women on Vacation" (Fig. 16) depicts several Tibetan women sitting on the side of the road and drinking tea, mugs are scattered in front of them, on the right is a woman with a baby in her arms, breastfeeding. Zhang's approach to figures is based on highlighting the main features of the characters for their subsequent depiction. Noting that they all have swarthy, healthy skin, he paints them brown, and shapes their facial features according to the same pattern, with the rigidity and severity inherent in frozen masks. The bodies seem to be divided into separate elements, and the disproportionate arms and legs only enhance the clumsiness of the figures. The elaboration of the details of the clothes is careless and simple, the artist is more interested in showing the "reality" of what is in his head, instead of what he saw. A simple modeling technique does not violate the general feeling of the integrity of the painting, a simple method of depicting lines and a flat image of figures give his paintings a certain original idea.

Fig. 16. Zhang Xiaogang. "Tibetan women on vacation." Canvas, oil. 1981.

In the cycle of paintings "Pasture: the approach of the storm", the influence of the work of Millet and post-Impressionist artists is noticeable. In the foreground, a sturdy woman from the Tibetan Kama nation is tying up a calf, and behind her, a woman with a rake is engaged in agricultural work. Zhang Xiaogang uses exaggerated means of expression, such as large three-dimensional shapes, dense black lines and uses brown tones to emphasize the strength and endurance of people, which allows the viewer to feel their inexhaustible vitality. The characters' clothes are quite simple, because Zhang Xiaogang does not pay much attention to details. He wants to express emotion, the true embodiment of the people, so the work contains motifs similar to those that we can see in Millet's works. The influence of post-Impressionist artists is also noticeable in the forms of expression, for example, in dark clouds coming from the horizon, clearly borrowed from their works by Van Gogh.

Fig. 17. Zhang Xiaogang. "Pasture: The approach of the storm." Paper, oil. 1981.

Zhang Xiaogang's use of brown and red colors gives the painting a symbolic character: brown is the color of the earth, and red symbolizes the warmth of life. The desert-like background enhances the mysterious atmosphere of the painting, and the appearance and image of the figures are far from the idea of civilization. The objects are so diverse and even unreal that they fill the whole picture and create an atmosphere of surrealism in the eyes of the viewer. In depicting the figures, Zhang Xiaogang uses a manner close to the style of early Renaissance frescoes, showing objects with obvious stiffness and a lack of smoothness and natural movement. In general, the picture looks quite simple due to the reduction of the image volume, the writing of large flat areas, as well as the omission and simplification of details.

For the esoteric code of perception of Yunnan ethnolocal specificity, the experience of artists who were educated abroad and then returned and developed their style in Yunnan is very interesting. Such artists are Liao Xinxue and Liu Ziming, who studied in France at a young age

Liao Xinxue was an important figure in the history of Yunnan landscape painting. In his oil paintings, the technique is simple, the palette of paintings is bright, and the use of color creates a sense of solemn grandeur. While studying in France, he studied traditional Western painting, absorbing the expressive techniques of Western Impressionists and post-Impressionists, especially the pointillism of Western neo-Impressionists, boldly using these techniques in his works. In Liao Xinxue's works, the oriental mood and charm is expressed in the use of the Western impressionist technique of pointillism in oil painting, and at the same time he expresses traditional Chinese humanistic and philosophical ideas.

Liao Xinxue's works often reflect the four seasons of spring in Kunming, which is also his most popular and most specialized theme. "Summer Beach" (fig. 18) is one of Liao Xinxue's masterpieces. The composition of this painting is well-proportioned, and the brushwork is smooth. The color palette follows the principle of unity, with harmonious variations of warm and cold tones in the use of color, and the natural landscapes of the ridge are artfully represented through the colors of oil painting.

Fig. 18. Liao Xinxue. "Summer beach". Canvas, oil.

After returning from her studies in France, Liu Ziming painted many paintings reflecting the landscapes of the Yunnan region. When Liu Ziming first started working, her oil paintings were usually drawn and quite bright. After 1980, Liu Ziming's landscape painting style changed dramatically as she combined Chinese and Western painting into a single whole, incorporating the essence of traditional Chinese calligraphy and ethnic folk patterns into her paintings. Her painting style is honest, simple and clean. She also uses Yunnan's unique geographical resources and ethnic landmarks as a theme for her work.

Thus, the work "Landscape of the Nujiang River" combines the features of Chinese and Western painting, and the overall style is characterized by minimalism. The most characteristic features of this painting are the simplicity of execution and the ability to generalize, and both of these qualities elevate the painting to an extremely high level. Liu Ziming's simple and minimalist expression of color, in which she focuses on the sophistication of simplicity and depth of meaning, gives the painting a stronger sense of Chinese style, although she studied in France, studying the Western use of color and style. Despite the fact that she studied in France to study Western colors and shapes, Liu Ziming adheres more to the Chinese aesthetic. Liu Ziming's technique includes not only mastering the art of chiaroscuro in Western modern painting, but also using empty white space to work with light and color, revealing the cornice of the house in strong light with just a few strokes, and all this is very natural and spontaneous, with a sense of immediacy.

In the works "Five Hundred Miles to Dianchi" and "Lijiang Old Street" (Fig. 19a), the use of color is mainly tonal, usually using the same type of color and adjacent colors, but in Liu Ziming's work uses the difference in strokes, thickness and direction of the same color to reflect the effect of tonal color, giving one color and adjacent colors.

Her works are extremely diverse. In the "Temple of the Three Pagodas" (Fig. 19b), white clouds in the distance and rocks in front of the lake echo each other, although this is an ordinary landscape, but thanks to the author's brush, a sense of movement is created. The interweaving of "lines" and "colors" gives the scene a rhythmic mood, and the rocks up close, although depicted in the style of Chinese painting, look realistic. Another masterpiece, "Bamboo House (fig. 19 c), is a work dedicated to the life of a Dai family, in which bamboo is like a beautiful girl, and the leaves sway differently in the wind, which helps to see a small bamboo house in the distance. The beautiful women of dai bask in the rays of the sun, and the painting conveys the flavor of this nation through processing, which reduces three-dimensional space to a flat image. The colors are bright, and the brush strokes are energetic and elastic. In Liu Ziming's paintings, subtle lines are often added to simple color blocks, imaginary or real, light and dark, creating a visual sense of color in a mixture of rigid and flexible variations.

Fig. Liu Zimin. a) "Old street. Likiang." Canvas, oil. 1987; b) "Temple of the Three Pagodas". Oil on canvas; c) "Bamboo building". Canvas, oil. 1984.

Liu Ziming's oil paintings focus on the harmony and tranquility of Yunnan's cultural landscape, and her landscape works have had a significant impact on the development of landscape painting in Yunnan and reflect the harmony in the artist's soul.

It can be said that the artists of the esoteric code of interpretation of Yunnan ethnolocal specificity use double optics: they are able to see it both "from the inside" and "from the outside" at the same time. They have experience of living and working in Yunnan, but are also familiar with world art culture, were educated in major cities of China or abroad, worked, participated in art exhibitions abroad. If an accurate reading of local specifics is available only to a small circle of initiates (just as very few locals and narrow orientalists can read a book in the language of one of the Yunnan ethnic groups), then the symbolic meaning of the painting, thanks to the universal language of painting, is accessible to fans of the artist's work around the world and is included in the world artistic process.

In general, reflecting the local and ethnic specifics of Yunnan in the work of modern artists, it was possible to identify three types of cultural coding: exotic, archaic and esoteric.

The exotic type consists in the fact that individual realistically depicted ethnic elements are included in the images of an extremely generalized artistic language. The principle is the installation of maximum distancing of the artist (and the viewer) from the "life world", i.e. the content of the daily life of its inhabitants (ethnos), it is due to this that the aesthetic effect of admiring the "pure form" is achieved. This type of coding is mainly found among visiting artists who are not immersed in local realities.

The archaic code consists in the "search for roots", i.e. the reconstruction of lost elements of tradition based on preserved archaeological and ethnographic (folklore) samples. In terms of content, these paintings reproduce many elements of work and everyday life, and in form they tend to the genre of primitivism. The re-creation of an authentic ethnolocal context is mainly inherent in local and aboriginal artists. This content itself is fully relevant only for a narrow circle of art consumers from native culture speakers, but the figurative and symbolic language of painting significantly expands the audience.

The esoteric cultural code forms the image of Yunnan as the "promised land", and the peoples living there, their daily work and subjects from local life become a source of creative energy for artists; personal self-expression determines a variety of artistic styles that can change over time, even for one author. Artists of this direction use "double optics": They see Yunnan specifics both "from the inside" and "from the outside", which is due to the ambivalence of their experience – they are locals with experience of living in modern megacities, including abroad.