BEIJING, March 13 -- Once Shanghai life was lived in cozy stone-gated shikumen houses along longtang lanes. Artist Li Shoubai captures the bygone way of life - boys flying a kite, a lady taking a bath, a family sitting for a portrait, or a woman listening to a gramophone, writes Chen Qing.
Shanghai's fabled stone-gated houses, shikumen, and their enchanting lore are revived in exquisite detail and vivid colors in the works of Li Shoubai. As Eileen Chang depicted Shanghai in the early 20th century in her novels, so Li's evocative shikumen paintings provide another window onto the city and its past.
"This is our own culture and history, our own life. When talking about Shanghai, I hope people think of my shikumen paintings. That's my dream," Li says. "People not only see the colors and images, but also they will hear the sounds and get the smells of a moment of life."
Li, using Chinese paint on rice paper, tells the stories of nostalgic daily life of the 1930s and 40s in minute detail in the narrow houses in narrow lanes. There are fish being cooked, bonsai on the windowsills, birds singing in cages. Boys fly kites, a girl plays the cello, ladies step into rickshaws, they do needlework, take baths, primp before mirrors. Most of the subjects are highly stylized women in colorful qipao.
Li uses the "heavy color" Chinese style of vivid colors and large masses of color; his paintings are realistic, they tell us stories about old Shanghai before most of the shikumen houses were demolished, making way for modern highrise housing and new ways for people to relate to each other.
Li is well known and his shikumen paintings have been displayed at the Shanghai Art Exposition for three years. His paintings, drawings, paper cuts and other folk art, along with other displays, will be exhibited at Citic Square in May.
Li, 41, was born in Shanghai and grew up in the Luwan District in a shikumen house, in a neighborhood of such narrow, multi-story brick row houses with stone gate-like facades, some quite elaborate. Now they have become artifacts of a bygone age.
From the 1850s to 1940s, 60 percent of Shanghai's residential architecture was said to be shikumen. They were everywhere and many Shanghainese are nostalgic for their shikumen childhoods. The houses themselves are small and narrow. Today they are much sought-after by architects and designers.
Li focuses on the small things, the fleeting but memorable moments.
"I want to express in my work a feeling that lasts forever. Shikumen is a subject I cannot avoid," says Li.
"Walking alone down a shikumen lane, facing the old stone gateway, a familiar feeling broke into my heart and inspired my creativity," Li says. "I thought about where the stove was, the pattern of the window, every trivial detail brought back memories."
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