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The horror of book burning and the burial of ancient Confucian scholars is depicted in a huge awe-inspiring canvas. It's part of a project by a Chicago-based Chinese painter, writes Wang Jie.
In an epic scene from hell, a vast fiery pit swallows piles of precious ancient bamboo books. Scholars roar and wail in despair, helpless as China's first emperor orders the burning of "dangerous ideas." Confucian scholars are buried alive, a sacrifice to unity.
A colossal canvas "Heads, Books, Pit" by Tu Zhiwei, depicts the high price of stability in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) after the tumult of the Warring States Period (476-221 BC).
That third century BC "cleansing" in all its horror is rendered on a canvas stretching eight meters in length and two meters in width. It's like a mural of an inferno.
Tu depicts the scene as though he had witnessed it himself. The oil painting is one of six huge works on exhibit at the Liu Haisu Art Museum, a major museum of contemporary art. The exhibition runs until January 16.
Tu, who lives in Chicago, is president of Oil Painters of America, a major association dedicated to the preservation of representational art. He is its first Asian president.
The canvas is part of his project to create 10 more colossal canvases on 10 epic topics from China's history, in 10 years. "Heads, Books, Pit" was created over 18 years.
"Sounds incredible?" asks Tu. "Even today when I look back, I can hardly believe it myself."
Born in 1951 in a poor village in Guangdong Province, Tu became passionately interested in art when he was very young. He learned painting on his own and was admitted to the oil painting department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. In 1987 Tu entered Drake University in the US state of Iowa.
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