Leroy's Art Blog

Hutongs were the classic living quarters in Chinese cities, especially in Beijing.  They are communities that are fenced in by a high wall on all four sides, with small doorways that are usually in the middle of a block.  So from the outside, all you see is a high grey wall with small openings here and there.  Inside, they are warrens of narrow paths with a multitude of small living quarters.  Because the living quarters are so small, much of the cooking, washing, and living goes on in the community space.

These hutongs are rapidly disappearing as Beijing replaces them with huge faceless high-rise apartments, in the name of Progress.  There is a lot of hand wringing over this loss of community and history, especially by foreigners and people who do not actually live in them (although it has to be admitted that some hutongs have been taken over and the living quarters consolidated, allowing the creation of marvelous living spaces for those who can afford to do this).

All this introduction is simply to create a background for the two paintings I did in the hutongs near where my son lives, in the Chaoyang District of Beijing, between the 2^nd and 3^rd Ring Roads.  Of course, painting in a dense hutong quickly becomes a center of interest and a crowd forms.  The attitude is a mixture of confusion as to why this strange person would want to paint a scene in a hutong, and pleasure at seeing what is coming to life on the canvas.

So I made a painting of a pathway through a hutong, and another painting of one of the “houses” there.  While I was painting the house, a little boy came out of the house to see what I was doing.  He painted with me for a time, then went back and tried to clean up the house a bit.  Hopeless task, but touching in its innocence.

After we had visited temple after temple at the sacred mountains at Wutai Shan, I certainly felt I should at least paint some temple or other.  So, I took an afternoon to pack my painting stuff off to the Confucian Temple in Beijing.  Still didn’t feel moved by a temple, so ended up painting the groundskeepers there. 

 I wasn’t finished painting by closing time when they chase out the tourists, so I just kept on working.  Guards would come rushing over to me, look at what I was doing, stay to watch me for a while, then smile, wave and leave.  It was great - quiet, and birds came back and were singing...   I finally finished as the sun was going down, and by then I had to find a small side gate to get out of the temple grounds.  All the guards were there at the gate, smiling and wishing me a friendly good-by as I left.  The painting:

I also did some sketching and a painting of street vendors in Beijing.  That painting earned me a commission from a Chinese university professor, who wanted me to paint her portrait.  We went to a coffee shop, and I did paint her portrait.  Then when I gave it to her, there was the issue of what it should cost.  I put that back on her – “Give me what you feel it is worth.”  That caused a long discussion between her and her friends.  Finally she suggested 50 Reminbi.  “OK, Done.”