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The Art of Song Ruxin
 Song Ruxin developed an interest in art as a young child. He was accepted and went
to art school but when his father, a boat maker, passed away he dropped out
to work clearing land and collecting wood. After he saved 180 RMB he gave that
money to his mother to support her and left once again at age sixteen for the
Xi’an Art Academy where he attended from 1964-1968.
His work and ambition suffered during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution,
1966-1970. In 1966 all classes were closed due to the Cultural Revolution,
and Song was selected as a student representative from the Xi’an Art
Academy and sent to Tianamin Square to see Mao. However, Song continues to
work with exhibits and consequently is given a degree in 1968. In 1968
Song is sent to work at the Mao propaganda station in Yan’an, Fu county. His
job was to paint large watercolor murals of Mao in watercolors on walls throughout
the county. The nature of his work was temporary as weather and the elements
continually eroded his work.
Also after 1968, Song started painting with oils in 1968 and was a key contributor
with Jin Zhilin on a watercolor or Waterchalk (Schweifen) series in 1977. He
also never lost his interest in woodcuts and began working in that medium again
in 1973. In 1976 Li Xi Qing (Dean of Woodcut Painting Department at the Xi’an
Art Academy) comes to Yan’an to work with Song Ruxin.
Song notes that during the Cultural Revolution all his work was in the service
of politics until 1976 when there is a shift to peasant art. Still Song
was actively engaged in the political art of the immediate post Cultural Revolution,
painting images portraying periods like the Four Modernizations Campaign.
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