Li Langqing is a famous Chinese politician as former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee and former vice premier of the State Council. In charge of fields of trade, commerce, education, technology and sports then, the politician boasts profound cultural and artistic qualification. After retirement, he was engaged in creating and promoting culture and art especially the publicity of the traditional Chinese seal cutting and noble music. In the past decade, Li Langqing has created more than 1,000 pieces of seal cuttings and a large number of calligraphic artworks and also published more than 10 monographs related with economy, education, seal cutting and music. He made some innovations based on the tradition of the seal cutting in the following aspects:
Ⅰ. Content development: Given with brand-new meaning, the content of the artworks reflects extraordinary process and huge changes of the country’s social development since the reform and opening up. The artworks make records of real feeling originated from realistic life and passionately sing an ode to beautiful rivers and mountains of the motherland and colorful civilization of the world.
Ⅱ. Form creation: Li Lanqing gives into full play the pictograph feature of the Chinese characters, and make ingenious deliberation according to the creation content and forms novel ideas, fresh style and elegant feature. His calligraphic artworks are also focused on the development of the tradition and new innovation and also boast unique artistic appeal.
Ⅲ. Material and tool innovation: Li Lanqing has made breakthrough on the stone often used for seal-cutting. Different materials are included as his attempt, such as bronze, pottery, wood, purple porcelain and tiles. Especially his lacquer seal cutting feature relatively low-priced wood as its background, with modern lacquer crafts as decoration. Inexpensive and durable materials are developed for more people to participate in seal cutting creation.
The exhibition at the Seoul Arts Center of Republic of Korea showcases a total of 327 pieces of seal cutting and a number of calligraphic artworks by the artist. It consists of five parts, namely, China seal cutting, China culture, modern China, world culture and life passion. The exhibits fully reflect the latest achievements of Li Lanqing in the field of seal cutting.