The theme of this year's painting clearly states one - the makeup of desire. People's various desires are wrapped under various makeups. Desires are the intertwining of happiness and pain in life. Either straightforward or subtle, they will appear in makeup, forming a profound look of an era.
Inches: 15.7 x 15.7 in
Size without the frame: 40 x 40 cm
Country: China
Date: 2025
Materials: Oil paint on board
Condition: well preserved
Creative themes and style | My works revolve around the creative concept of "The land of humanity, People on the land".The people in the painting are people in nature, and the lines, shapes, and colors are close to nature. The nature in the painting is nature in the eyes of humans, existing in interaction with humans.I don’t pursue a series of works with a fixed and continuous style. I hope that the style of the pictures will synchronize with the changes in my life and always remain oscillating. The performance of the work must be in sync with the development of one's own life in order to be Sincere and powerful.Ideas are later.
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Artwork Interpretation
Subject and Direction
This is a half-length female nude, yet it avoids narrative realism and turns toward a self-portrait of mood and light. The title points to the “end of the blazing sun,” but the canvas is dominated by cool blues, forming a sense of “condensation after heat”—the body becomes a thermometer rather than a story vessel.
Form and Posture
The figure turns in a three-quarter pose, with the clavicle–shoulder–arm creating a slanted S-shaped motion line. The chest is shaped with circles, ellipses, and parabolas, emphasizing elastic volume rather than strict anatomy. The blue hair curls back like waves, acting as an echo of form and rhythm.
Composition and Square Format
The 40×40 cm square sets up a tension between stillness and motion. The figure leans to the right, while the left side opens into a large negative space fading into deep violet, like a curtain being drawn aside. The diagonal shoulder line and curling hair counter the rigidity of the square, guiding the eye from upper left to lower right in a diagonal flow.
Color and Light
The dominant tone lies in a blue–violet cold spectrum, while the skin interweaves lemon yellow, peach orange, mint green, and muted rose, creating complementary contrasts and chromatic shifts. Highlights are not pure white but cold blue accents, with a faint halation effect along the edges, making the figure emerge from the dark ground. The interlacing patches act more as optical mixtures than smooth tonal blending.
Brushwork and Texture
The painting alternates between wet-on-wet dragging strokes and short, broken touches. Hair is rendered with flowing curved strokes (almost like a legato phrase), while the torso is built up with interrupted overlapping marks that create faceted planes. Thicker paint at the shoulder and cheekbone provides tactile highlights, contrasting with the thinner washes in the background.
Symbols and Objects
The red bracelet on the right wrist is the only clear accessory, serving as a visible pulse, a drop of heat pulled from the cool environment—an “isolated point of body warmth in a cold field.”
Emotion and Thematic Expression
The lips are tinted rose, the eyes drifting—an expression neither welcoming nor rejecting. The body leans forward while the gaze turns aside, producing a contradictory stance of approach and withdrawal. The theme unfolds as desire paired with self-awareness: even after the blazing sun fades, the body still glows, but the mind shifts into cool detachment.
Time and Viewing Distance
The small format and alternating thick-thin textures invite close viewing. At that distance, the brushstrokes read like rhythm marks, allowing the viewer to experience a sense of “painterly time sealed in gesture”—heat preserved within the act of painting.
Summary: The work places a body of shifting color temperatures onto a square stage governed by cool blue, using brushstroke rhythm and complementary contrasts to express self-illumination after the retreat of heat.
Similar Works Reference
Henri Matisse – Blue Nude — Shares the dominance of blue and simplified form; here, however, oil’s layered wetness replaces the sharp flatness of cutouts.
Pierre Bonnard – The Bath — Comparable in intimate scale and color memory; this work uses a stronger cold–warm reversal to shape bodily temperature.
Willem de Kooning – Woman I — Resonates in brushwork aggression and fragmented anatomy; in contrast, this painting channels it into lyrical broken strokes and swirling hair.
Amedeo Modigliani – Portrait of Jeanne — Parallel in elongated, turned posture; this work substitutes layered color patches for linear contours.
Wu Dayu – Color Structure — A useful comparison for the method of using color as line; here adapted to define the contours and rhythms of the body.
Lin Fengmian – Lady — Provides a reference in Eastern simplification and blank space; in this work, the left-side negative space is dramatized more heavily.
Recommendation: These works connect with The End of the Blazing Sun 8 in their exploration of color dominance, square composition, brushstroke rhythm, and abstraction of the body, making them valuable for understanding its mechanism across temperature, emotion, and gesture.
Q1: What is unique about the color language in this painting?
A1: The work contrasts bright blue hair with the warmth of the skin tones. The figure’s body is not painted in plain flesh tones alone, but interwoven with pink, violet, and orange highlights, creating a layered flow of light and shadow across the surface. This expressive use of color brings the figure to life with a strong sense of dynamism.
Q2: How do the brushstrokes affect the character of the figure?
A2: The loose, rapid brushstrokes give the figure a sense of uncertainty and movement. The blurred facial features and fluid contours of the body suggest both feminine softness and an elusive, mysterious quality that is difficult to pin down.
Q3: What role does the background color play here?
A3: The deep violet background resonates with the interplay of warm and cool tones in the figure’s skin. It not only enhances the figure’s brightness but also adds a strong sense of drama. The diffused, almost stage-like background treatment makes the subject appear as though she is floating within the field of color.
Q4: What is the significance of this work in contemporary figurative painting?
A4: By reconstructing the body through color rather than anatomical precision, the piece demonstrates the language of expressionist portrait oil painting. Unlike traditional realism, this work emphasizes the psychological power of color over physical accuracy, making it a valuable study of how contemporary painting portrays the body as emotion.
Q5: What makes this painting valuable for display and collection?
A5: The painting embodies the qualities of a female abstract portrait with strong visual impact and expressive color. It is well-suited for modern art exhibitions, private art collections, or spaces that highlight experimental approaches to color. Its distinctive treatment of hue and its psychological undertones make it not just a decorative artwork, but also a piece with strong academic and collectible value.
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More paintings from this series:
End of the Blazing Sun 1 End of the Blazing Sun 2
End of the Blazing Sun 3 End of the Blazing Sun 4
End of the Blazing Sun 5 End of the Blazing Sun 6
End of the Blazing Sun 9 End of the Blazing Sun 10