The eternity of art is based on the perfect unity between its form and content.
Chao is regarded as one of the key founders and the most influential figure of the Great Northern Wilderness School, which was initiated in Heilongjiang province in the late 1950s by a cultural section of the army. As an agricultural worker and later an editor and printmaker for The Beidahuang Pictorial, Chao has used non-key block techniques with dense and rich colours to depict the vigorous beauty of the northern land. His style has changed over the years from realism showing the influence of Soviet socialism, to romanticism, with Chinese calligraphic inspiration, to semi-abstraction and simplicity. He has been Director of the Chinese Artists’ Association and Chairman of the Heilongjiang Artists’ Association. Two galleries have been founded in his name, in Harbin and in his hometown, Heze.
This work presents a sorghum harvest scene in the Great Northern Wilderness state farm in northeast China, where the artist worked as an agricultural worker, an editor, and an artist. It shows how, after a few years hard reclamation, the wasteland has been transformed into a fertile agricultural resource. Over the years Chao has been using non-key block techniques with dense and rich colours to depict the wild beauty of the northern land.