Red Lady 

Ding Yanyong’s Red Lady is an oil on canvas, and presents a seated figure in a vibrant, almost unsettling red hue. The woman's contemplative posture and the painting's stark color scheme create a work full of symbolic potential. Yanyong was a Chinese artist influenced by Western modernist art, and his work often synthesizes these two traditions. Here we see the influence of European Expressionism, particularly in the bold colors. But the presence of calligraphic inscriptions and a stylized fish are markers of Yanyong's cultural roots. His engagement with the formal qualities of line and color and his use of traditional and modern motifs show how Yanyong explored cultural and aesthetic boundaries. When we look at artworks like this, the historian comes into play: considering what we know about the cultural context, the artist’s life, and the history of art institutions, the seemingly simple image starts to speak more clearly.