Springtime Opera

In my memory, the greatest joy of my youth was none other than watching the grand operas in the village. By the late 1970s, the temple fairs at villages began to revive, along with that, the ancient entertainment of grand opera started to resurge in villages. It was then that I have developed a continuous affection for the old opera. The lively and colorful scenes on the stage sparked my interests in painting and initiated my lifelong, inseparable pursuit of art. It’s around the age of 10, my father took me to Yangying Village, six miles away, to watch my first grand opera. The joy I felt at that time was truly beyond description; the only thing I remembered about the first opera I watch was about the story of Fan Lihua(a female marshal from a fiction) chopped Yang Fan(a male marshal) with her sword, which I later learned the title was 'Counterattack against Western Tang.' I was amazed by the bright and intricate costumes, as well as the peculiar and vivid facial makeup. The clanging gongs and drums, the hoopla crowd, the excited expressions, and the unfamiliar gazes—all were so novel. Since then on, an impulse to express myself began to surge inside, I tried to make-up and to imitate those images in my heart, also yearning for the enthusiasm of standing in front of the stage. My love for the opera grew day by day, and sometimes I even felt the urge to learn to sing opera, but more often, I preferred to watch the plots and scenes on the stage. Creating this artwork is a restoration of my memories of the rural opera and also a deep affectionate retrospect at my distant hometown. The painting features 108 people, perhaps because I am from Liangshan! Today, the rural opera has lost its former popularity, gradually fading away due to the impact of diversified popular cultures, the once excitements subdued, and the once nurturing soil deprived.