overtake's notebook entry: Mar 19, 2011 Comparing and contrasting paintings by Ding Fang and Shang Yang Wendy AS09101 I have decided to compare and contrast two Chinese modern oil paintings. The first one is Fighting Against The Drought, from the year 1983, and was painted by a famous Chinese artist Ding Fang who live in the northern part of China and had painted a lot of paintings about his hometown. The second one is Mother Of The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, from the same year 1983, by Chinese artist Shang Yang. The reason for me to choice these two oil paintings is that I’m inspired by their great symbolisms. Both of the two paintings are painted with only one to two kinds of colors. The difference their colors is that the dark brown of Fighting Against The Drought gives us the sense of power and tension while the light yellow of Mother Of The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau give us sense of softness and hope. In China, the northern part is much dryer than the southern part, people there lead a hard life because of frequent drought. Now, we can see from the painting Fighting Against The Drought that three strong men are working very hard to water their plants in dry weather. Look at the details of the men’s muscle, especially their hands, we can see that they are very healthy and active. In my opinion, the artist had it painted to encourage people living in bad environments to lead a healthy and active life. And call people never lose their hopes even in the worst situation. Besides, I think that the artist had tried his best to made people believe that hard-working can change everything. China has been facing the problem of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for years. Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is part of China, but the government there regard themselves as new government th