Born in Chongqing, China in 1948, Luo Zhongli learned how to paint while he was young under the influence of his father. He graduated from Senior High School of Sichuan Fin Arts Institute and lived in the rural regions of the Daba Mountains for 10 years. In 1978, he returned to Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. With his hyperrealistic work, “Father”, Luo won the first prize at the 2nd National Art Exhibition in 1981. This prize brought him a huge honor, making him widely known in China. It also gave him the confidence to establish farmers as the central focus of his art career. With a grand composition, akin to a plaque or a monument, Luo sentimentally depicts the typical image of a Chinese farmer in “Father”, which has also been praised as a guiding banner for the Chinese painting sphere in the 1980s.

Luo believes that he should focus on the daily lives of farmers in Daba Mountains, the subject he is most familiar with. He wants to depict their sadness and happiness, their joy and anger, their love and hate, and ultimately their death. He said, “I think works of art should be human. They should build on a kind of emotional communication and resonance with most viewers. To do this, the artist should have true emotions and a solid foundation in life.”

In 1982, Luo graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and began to work as a teacher at his alma mater in Sichuan. From 1983 to 1986, he went to Belgium to study oil painting at Antwerp Royal Art Institute and received a master’s degree. As an expert in oil painting, Luo is one of the most important and famous realist and landscape painters in China. His works are collected by The National Art Museum of China and the Hefner Collection. He is now a professor and dean of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and syndic of China Artists Association.

Luo is skilled at capturing an ordinary scene in rural life and depicting people who have endured years of heavy labor. He uses his simple brush strokes to depict them without any modification, showing an atmosphere that is natural, real, and intimate. This work is not focused on the story but the depiction, outlining, and atmosphere of the characters and the environment.

The painting shows a vivid contrast in its tone. Human bodies are sculptural with rough, strong, and vigorous images. In the painting, a woman quietly and happily lies on a man’s lap while he is smoking comfortably under the moonlight. It is a contrast between the dynamic and the static. The man’s big limbs and rough hands, the result of heavy labor, bring out the plumpness of the woman’s body, which is vivid and distinctive. Although the background is still a barren land, viewers do not feel any sense of heaviness. The whole picture highlights the couple and the dim moonlight afar, rendering the background almost invisible. The strong contrast between the foreground and the background gives the picture greater visual depth, displaying a little happy moment of an ordinary rural couple.