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A 10 million yuan (US$1.25 million) fund has been set up for farmer-painters in Shanghai's Jinshan District.

The Jinshan district government and the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation jointly set up the fund to encourage and promote the rural painters, who were showing off their works at a three-day exhibition held at the Bund 18 Creative Centre last week.

Nearly 80 noted works of farmers in the Jinshan District made over the past 30 years attracted urban and overseas visitors to the exhibition.

A 15-metre long painting scroll entitled "Happy Farmers' Families" was especially eye-catching. Young painter Lu Yongzhong spent four years on the 5,000 figures in the painting, which portrays the local Spring Festival celebrations.

A total of 18 rural painters were nominated "Masters of Farmers' Paintings" following the opening of an exhibition.

Jinshan has been famous for folk arts in history with wood-carving, brick-carving, paper-cuts, embroidery and many other traditional arts which have been passed down over the generations.

In the early 1970s, some painters visited Jinshan and discovered the local farmers' talent, which the painters were eager to cultivate. In January 1977, the first exhibition of rural paintings from Jinshan was held at the Shanghai Art Museum and the term "Jinshan Farmers' Paintings" became known throughout the country.

Since the 1980s, more than 100 farmers have joined in the painting. Many have little education but they are good at portraying the rural life with distinctive features.

Among the 18 masters nominated, Zhang Xinying, 73, has a different experience than other farmers. Zhang was born in the countryside of Fengxian County in Shanghai and entered a local textile factory at 19. She began learning painting at 47 and some critiques have hailed her as "Chinese Henri Matise" with the vitality and harmony of colours.

Zhang began painting by accident. One day, her husband Wu Tongzhang brought home some farmers' paintings and Zhang wondered if she could model on them. Two weeks later, Zhang finished her first work.

Wu has been learning painting since childhood and worked at the Cultural Centre of Jinshan for many years. He was one of the leading painters who have been guiding the local farmers on the road of art.

Farmers' paintings appeared in the country in the 1950s and became an element of the era's political movements. The oversimplified patterns limited the farmers' expressions and they were asked to follow academic practices, which proved to be far away from their daily lives.

The stagnant situation changed in the 1970s with the appearance of Jinshan Farmers' Paintings. Over the years, tens of thousands of rural paintings from Jinshan have been exhibited at home and abroad. The National Art Museum of China has collected some 200 Jinshan Farmers' Paintings.

(China Daily October 26, 2006)