I spent all day Saturday with my colleagues and on Sunday I took Brien out to Da Fen Cun, a “village” (really a little neighborhood on the outskirts of Shenzhen) of artists. He was looking for something distinctly Chinese but complaining that most of the stuff he’d seen was either fake or he could get in the US. Greg, who unfortunately moved back to the US, had told me of this community of artists where he and his family had their portrait painted for an excellent price. He also told me about how many ‘real’ copies (of course) of famous artworks were there, like the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Starry Night, etc. Well, that was certainly true, but what impressed me the most was the quantity of artwork to choose from and the very cheap prices.

Xiao Liu drove us out there and wandered around with us while we admired all the variety. I’m sure it was boring for him, but my attempts at speaking Chinese to the artists kept him entertained I hope. Almost immediately, I was impressed by some of the Romantic landscapes of Guilin. Having visited there, those especially attracted me. I found one that I liked, but it was quite big – over five feet wide and three feet high! I asked the price and thought I’d heard wrong when he quoted me 450 RMB. That’s like 50 bucks! It also came mounted in a gorgeous wood frame:

Well, I didn’t end up buying that picture. It was so big, plus I wondered if I really liked the Romantic depiction of it. I still may come back and pick it up one day, we’ll see. Brien, on the other hand, negotiated and purchased three nice works of art, two of them being a bendable steel ‘painting’ whose shapes were filled with a hard lacquer which formed the picture, plus a very nice landscape picture created with detailed silk threads. I saw one that I liked very much too but, always avoiding the impulse buying, I passed on it. It was a lot pricier though. At 1800 RMB, it reflected a very high level of detail.

What excited me most though was seeing various artists at work at creating lifelike portraits from small 3×5 or 4×6 photographs. I asked several if they could copy the picture on my cellphone. “Sure, no problem…how big do you want it?” (in Chinese) I kind of measured with my hands the dimensions I wanted and all pretty much answered in the same ballpark: “si bai wu shi”, or 450 RMB. I’d be willing to take a gamble with that price. After all, their portraits were proof enough for me that they were all quite talented. Not every shop had artists working in them, in fact very few. This made me wonder, “Is there a factory of highly talented and skilled artists cranking out Mona Lisas somewhere?” Only in China, I guess.

(above) “Yeah, we can do this photo.”

I took a panorama of one of the shops that indicated that they’d be happy to paint a picture of me. This shot looks a little desolate; there’s not to much art on display or people sauntering about, but this isn’t typical. I took it so that I’d remember the location. Of course, I just now noticed the name in English (or PinYin), so I guess I didn’t need the picture, but here…enjoy: