Xu Xiaoping has an elegant interest in painting and began his drawing study with his elder brother Xu Xiaohong since his childhood. He went to the Cultural Palace of Yumen City to carry out the professional training of painting as a boy. When he was in his twenties, he cut a striking figure in Jiuquan’s circle of painting. Later, he was active in the Dunhuang Art Schools Research Workshop by Jiuquan Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Jiuquan People’s Gallery. He had been copying frescoes of Dunhuang’s Mogao Grotto and painting from life in the surrounding mountains of Yumen city for years. At the beginning of 1980s, Xu had the luck to encounter Wang Wenfang, a famous artist, and followed him to learn Chinese landscape painting in Wang’s studio at Beijing Fine Art Academy. Wang Wenfang is good at painting landscapes of western regions of China. He is humble, honest and frank and treats Xu, the initiated disciple, as his own child and passes on all the ways of painting and personal conducts without any reservation. Xu Xiaoping has an extensive reading of ancient classic essays of landscapes and tries his best to appreciate the beauty of artistic mood and forms, the essence of beauty of brushes and inks that are presented in his tutor’s Chinese landscape paintings. He takes the initiative to absorb the spiritual essence displayed in the traditional landscape paintings of masters such as Shen Zhou, Zhang Daqian and Huang Binhong. He is concerned with the aesthetic taste of contemporary landscape paintings, and adopts and distills the representation forms of language that are the most suitable to express oneself in structure, brush and ink. The little streams of talents accumulated for years come to converge silently and pour out the vigorous momentum out of his blood, which leads to Xu’s enlightenment within an instant and fosters his own style.
Addicted to landscapes and verse in its rhythms, Xu Xiaoping is pure, kind, honest and true. He attaches importance to the sentiments instead of material things and has a love of life as well. Whenever he gets the rare and delicious food materials, he will cook it himself elaborately and invite his friends to enjoy them together while drinking. His paintings are just like him, the generosity, passion and lofty sentiments of this western man could be glimpsed in the overall composition of magnificent landscape. He has been living at the foot of Qilian Mountain for years. When summer comes, the vast white snows on the mountain tops will melt down to form clear streams and secluded pools. The luxuriant grass, verdant trees in mountains and strange stones and steep cliffs could be seen everywhere. All of these seem to constitute a fairyland away from this mortal life. Those engravings on the cliffs and frescoes in the grottoes since Tang Dynasty share the same root of Mogao Grotto. No matter in the severe winter or the hot summer, the morning dawn and clouds and the setting sun on the horizon of river quietly accompany him to make countless drawings from life and copying. Whenever he gets inspiration, he will totally forget himself and be intoxicated with his finding, dancing and singing. By his brushes, the beautiful landscape among the hills has become his originally obsessed memory towards his hometown in his painting. The emotional experiences originating from life have enlightened his landscape’s creation. Both of them have been blended in harmony and brought out tranquility in mood of harmony between nature and human beings.
