Portraits of Ba and Shu ​Civilization Ancestors

Description

Text: Dr. Sophia Kidd

Zhu Cheng’s preoccupation with collecting, archiving, and exhibiting the legacy of the ancient Chuanyu 川渝 Ba 巴 and Shu 蜀 civilizational roots reveals itself in this multi-media rendering of the Ba and Shu ancestors. Shu is traditionally known as the civilizational core of present-day Sichuan (Chuan), while the Ba people resided further east, in the area where we find Chongqing (Yu) today.

The word Chuanyu, then, is a composite word signifying the Sichuan-Chongqing area. The revival of this area is an agenda for China today, as it develops what is known as the ‘Twin-Cities’ project involving economic and cultural revitalization of this area.

Zhu Cheng’s devotion to the cultivation of cultural memory extends back to the earliest known roots of Chuanyu culture, to the Ba and Shu ancestors. 

Here, the artist renders portraits of these elders in an abstract way somewhat akin to the xieyi 写意 method of Chinese ink-wash painting, evoking the spiritual essence of these elders which is still rooted in the soil of Zhu Cheng’s native region, and kept very much alive in his private museum, the ZHU CHENG STONE CARVING ART MUSUEM, where spiritual icons of China’s three doctrines (Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism) are protected and preserved for posterity.