Portraits for the People—The Humanist Spirit of Jiang Zhaohe

The “Xu-Jiang System” is a concept created by art historians after the 1990s, and the soil for the generation of this concept is the teaching concept and practice of Xu Beihong and Jiang Zhaohe in the 1950s and 1960s and their inheritance. During the exhibition In the Vast Expanse of Heaven and Earth: Jiang Zhaohe Art Document Exhibition, held by Taikang Art Museum, an academic lecture will be held to discuss the connotations and extensions of the “Xu-Jiang System.” This session specially invites Mr. Ma Zhensheng, a senior researcher of the Central Research Museum of Culture and History and President of the Jiang Zhaohe Art Research Association, to be the keynote speaker. In 1964, Ma Zhensheng enrolled as Jiang Zhaohe’s first and only graduate student, receiving direct instruction from him. As a direct witness to the formative period of the “Xu-Jiang System,” he will explore this topic through three lenses: the era inevitability of the Xu-Jiang System, Jiang Zhaohe’s humanistic feelings of writing for the people, and the outlook for the future development of the Xu-Jiang System.