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Busy Painting the Future #WordlessWednesday #Snapshot

#WordlessWednesday #China #Modernisation

Partly painted mural with large faces and sketched buildings above a Beijing street, with tall ladders and passers-by
Busy Painting the Future — a large mural in Beijing, China, 1979. © Friedrich Zettl

A photograph for #WordlessWednesday. No words, just a picture. Let the image tell the story.

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11 responses to “Busy Painting the Future #WordlessWednesday #Snapshot”

  1. swabby429 avatar
    swabby429

    The faces of the painting face towards the right while the foreground people face the other direction or the camera provide dynamic contrast.

    Reply
    1. Zettl Fine Arts avatar
      Zettl Fine Arts

      Thank you! I am glad you noticed. That’s one of the reasons I like the photo. It is constructed like a traditional Chinese painting. The ladders also help.

      Reply
  2. Martha Kennedy avatar
    Martha Kennedy

    I think I have a photograph of that painting in my slides of Beijing — or one very similar. It was a moment, wasn’t it…

    Reply
    1. Martha Kennedy avatar
      Martha Kennedy

      P.S. I wonder if they are looking at you and thinking, “大鼻子”

      Reply
      1. Zettl Fine Arts avatar
        Zettl Fine Arts

        Definitely! Or even 洋鬼子

      2. Martha Kennedy avatar
        Martha Kennedy

        🤣 Probably! I only heard that in Guangzhouhua

      3. Zettl Fine Arts avatar
        Zettl Fine Arts

        It’s an advantage if you don’t understand all dialects :I

      4. Martha Kennedy avatar
        Martha Kennedy

        I’m pretty sure I was called worse in Hainanese. But I was also called “马老师” ❤️

      5. Zettl Fine Arts avatar
        Zettl Fine Arts

        “马老师” shows a lot of respect. You’re already an institution when you’re called that.

      6. Martha Kennedy avatar
        Martha Kennedy

        It always made me feel like the greatest teacher in the whole world, and I was just a baby working at my first real job as a teacher.

    2. Zettl Fine Arts avatar
      Zettl Fine Arts

      Sure, there were many such images. We probably all smiled at that, but these pictures had a great importance that should not be underestimated: you paint a vision, which then also manifested itself.

      Reply

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