Artist paints a picture of hope

During a visit near his hometown, he was attracted by the patterns on the stones in the mountains. It inspired him to scatter the hairs of his brush for drawing, which can create similar patterns on the paper. The skill is called sanfeng in Chinese. Combining another skill pomo, which means splashing ink on the paper, Shen developed the sanfeng pomo technique as a main part of his methods of teaching how to draw landscape paintings.

He also developed some other detailed skills for drawing landscape paintings, including wet painting method. It refers to splashing ink on a piece of paper, making it wet, and then using a dry brush to draw. It can give full play to the ink, and form misted and illusory effects.

According to Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum of China, "Shen's landscape paintings show a distinctive vastness of the mountains and clouds. It comes from his observation of the nature, and his intensive study on traditional Chinese paintings. His works give the viewers an artistic feast."

One of the works at the exhibition, which shows Langya Mountain in Baoding, Hebei province, will be kept in the permanent collection of the National Art Museum of China.