On November 11th, 2015, “Silk Road Painting and Tea Horse Ancient Rhyme---Shu Jianxin Chinese Painting Works Exhibition” jointly hosted by Chinese Artists Association, China National Academy of Painting, Pu'er municipal people's government was unveiled in National Art Museum of China (NAMOC).

In the Silk Road, there is an ancient commercial road starting from Yunnan and communicating trade contacts of continents of Europe and Asia--- the Ancient Tea Horse Road, which wriggles in the southwest frontier and is the folk channel for international businesses where the main transportation means is caravan. It has the same historical value and status with the Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. The Ancient Tea Horse Road that has lasted for thousands of years is the road for Yunnan to make external exchanges, bearing the long-standing historic culture and religious beliefs of all nationalities in Yunnan. The 117 works were selected for this exhibition out of Shu Jianxin’s new creations and are all themed with the Ancient Tea Horse Road, including landscape paintings showing that people and the nature live together as well as figure paintings fully showing national customs.

Among all these works, some show gorgeous sceneries of the tea source place, some show the caravans on the move between high mountains and deep gullies while others show the customs and habits along the road; in Shu Jianxin’s opinion, all the sceneries, figures and events along the Ancient Tea Horse Road might become creative themes that touch his emotions and he hopes that these paintings can guide the viewers to “pass through” the thousand-year-old ancient road to feel the mysterious Tea Horse Culture and know about the wonderful Pu’er in Yunnan.

Since 2007, Shu Jianxin has successively taken a temporary post for six years here, lasting for eight years. Such experience helps him to come up with the idea of further deeply exploring Yunnan’s culture from the angle of art so as to seek for new breakthroughs for his creations. During this period, he has walked around Yunnan’s mountains and rivers and the villages. He has walked along the Ancient Tea Horse Road for several tens of thousands of kilometers in Chu Xiong and Pu’er to make investigation and survey. He has gone deep into the Ancient Tea Horse Road in the view of an artist to know about its historical origin, investigate its ethnic culture as well as religions and customs. During the past eight years, he has recorded various visions of the natural landscape along the Ancient Tea Horse Road by means of the paintbrush in his hand, which, in Shu Jianxin’s view, is the soul of culture of all nationalities in Yunnan. The Ancient Road exactly covers the diversity of Yunnan’s landscape and national customs.

In revisiting the Ancient Tea Horse Road, Shu Jianxin realized that it is not only an old commercial road, but also a large channel for national integration and cultural exchange, linking the historic culture of each nationality.