They say the camera changed forever the need for portrait painters to paint realistically, since man is incapable of matching the technology. But, when I saw this art work from Chinese painter, Leng Jun, I realized that man can indeed imitate nature as far as the eye can see. Just look at these pictures and try to imagine the deftness of touch and the incredible skill needed to produce them.
Jun, born in 1963 in Sichuan, China, is a modern day master at shadowing. Just like I fondly picture the ultimate creator having done, it seems Jun can create darkness and light from his paintbrush.
How he achieves such perfection in showing this melancholy young lady’s skin is quite beyond me, but it moves me incomprehensibly.
The detail in the wool is simply amazing.
A supremely skilled draughtsman, Jun here creates a stylish black-and-white effect. Instead of life imitating art, due to Jun’s understanding of the achievements of the camera and his ability to reduplicate its effects, we now have one art imitating another art.
This glass reflection effect, coupled with the dazzling burst of light through the window reflecting the young woman’s body, makes a sensational portrait that you will be drawn to again and again.
In this painting Jun even manages to reproduce chance motion in the lady’s hair. It really beggars belief.
Jun graduated from Wuhan Normal College in 1984, since which time he has been living in Beijing. It is from here that he operates his magisterial studio, bringing these young ladies’ images to life like a real historical Pygmalion.
There is no part of his subject which does not receive his most minute and patient attention.
Introducing the master himself, Leng Jun. Well done, sir. Encore!
