Zhang Shaoxia is one of the famous scholars in contemporary China who studies the history of Western art. In 1979, he enrolled in the Fine Arts Department of Nanjing University of the Arts as one of the first batch of graduate students in art history and theory in China, under the guidance of renowned foreign history expert Professor Liu Ruli. During his three-year graduate studies, he completed over a million words of reading notes on European art history, which were later compiled into six major textbooks. In 1982, Zhang Shaoxia graduated and stayed at school to teach. 

Zhang Shaoxia was devoted to the research and compilation of foreign arts and crafts history. In the 1980s, he published a series of academic monographs such as "Outline of European Arts and Crafts History", "Asian Arts and Crafts History", and "African and American Arts and Crafts". Afterwards, Zhang Shaoxia and his student Li Xiaoshan wrote a monograph titled "History of Modern Chinese Painting". In the early 1990s, Zhang Shaoxia published representative academic monographs "History of Western Art Development" (volumes one and two) and "World Painting Collection Series". 

In 1988, at the age of 35, Zhang Shaoxia went to Hainan Special Economic Zone and became the first dean of the School of Arts at Hainan University. Three years later, he resigned and went into business. Despite the complexity of the business during this period, he never forgot the instructions of his mentors Liu Ruli and Zhang Daoyi, and did not dare to slack off in his studies. It has been nearly 35 years now. During his more than thirty years in business, he never forgot about painting and began to devote himself to sketching and oil painting golf course landscapes around the world in 2018. After playing golf for thirty years, he left behind hundreds or even thousands of views of golf courses. 

Recently, the "Golf Scenery: Zhang Shaoxia's Oil Painting Exhibition" was exhibited at the Art Museum of Nanjing Academy of Arts. This exhibition consists of works and literature, showcasing 40 landscape paintings by Zhang Shaoxia. The literature section includes Zhang Shaoxia's works and manuscripts from the 1980s. 

When Zhang Shaoxia was admitted to the School of Fine Arts at Nanjing Normal University, Zuo Zhuangwei taught there and the two formed a teacher-student relationship. During an interview, Professor Zuo Zhuangwei from the School of Fine Arts at Nanjing Normal University talked about several important characteristics of Zhang Shaoxia's oil paintings: 

Firstly, the choice of theme. Most oil painters paint a wide range of subjects, while Zhang Shaoxia only focuses on depicting golf courses. He enjoys playing golf and uses this theme to depict the relationship between humans and nature. His artistic philosophy combines traditional realism and freehand brushwork, as well as the image shaping and color application of Western oil painting, while also preserving the familiar natural visual changes in light and color. He respects nature without being limited to it, and also incorporates the expression of traditional Chinese imagery. By choosing golf courses as the main theme, he absorbed the artistic style and expression of Chinese painters who shaped themselves in society with a specific theme. 

Secondly, the colors in Zhang Shaoxia's oil paintings are a combination of Eastern and Western styles. The relationship between Chinese painters and nature is the unity of heaven and man, embodying the painter's thoughts, emotions, social ideals, and aesthetic ideals in their paintings, which is a combination of the painter's subjectivity and objectivity. Zhang Shaoxia's paintings unify subject and object, containing personal thoughts and emotions. There is no secular utilitarianism in his paintings, and it is very refreshing and satisfying to see them. Zhang Shaoxia is a successful person, and his paintings also reflect his inner spirit and temperament of success. 

Whatever you do, you must do it well, be pure, and be dedicated to your work, no matter what the future results may be. "Gao Minglu and Zhang Shaoxia are close friends. At the exhibition, Zhang Shaoxia introduced his experience of transitioning from teaching to business. Famous curator and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Gao Minglu, said, "Listening to him share his experiences and looking at his paintings, I feel that the golf course in his eyes is no longer just a landscape painting with a specific theme. These works must be combined with Zhang Shaoxia's personal experiences. In Zhang Shaoxia's view, every golf course is different, and he does not express a concept or idea through these works. More importantly, he combines his observations with the emotions of the time to create. His paintings are quite pure. 

"Smart people can do anything well." Chen Chuanxi, a professor and doctoral supervisor of Renmin University of China, said in an interview: Zhang Shaoxia is a smart person with great talent. He is both a historian and an oil painter. To become a true master of painting in China, one must understand art theory, poetry, calligraphy, and the same goes for oil painting. Zhang Shaoxia has studied art history, so he is also unique in his choice of creative themes. He enjoys playing golf and specializes in painting golf course landscapes. Meanwhile, Chen Chuanxi stated, "Painting is a human ideology. Oil painters need to study art history, philosophy, literature, and other fields seriously. Only with broad mindedness and broad mindedness can they paint well. The holding of this exhibition by Zhang Shaoxia is also a good inspiration for domestic oil painters. 

Professor Zhu Qingsheng from the Department of History at Peking University and rotating chairman of the International Society of Art History discussed the rise of the Chinese economy and the development of contemporary art around Zhang Shaoxia's golf series. Zhu Qingsheng recalled that in 1986, he, together with Shui Tianzhong and Gao Minglu, gave relevant reports on Western contemporary art, the centenary of Chinese oil painting, and the 85 New Wave of art at the China Artists Association conference. This represents a subtle era for contemporary Chinese art. Zhu Qingsheng particularly mentioned the artists born after the 1950s, whose abilities, achievements, and share of ideas have become dominant in the world. This is the result of everyone's efforts and also the result of China's reform and opening up. 

When it comes to the present, Zhu Qingsheng believes that the emergence of new media has brought us tremendous pressure and fear. Artificial intelligence and machine replicated materials and images cover most of the art, and humans have substitutability. In terms of painting creation, Zhu Qingsheng said, "Only by 'gazing' at a scene and calmly looking at it for more than three seconds, can all the memories and history in the human brain be returned to the picture. At this time, people can express their own discoveries and differences in perception, and the last gap of human dignity - difference - will not be filled or blocked. Therefore, in the era of new media, we have an urgent need for our own dignity and expression of our own differences, which is to express ourselves and others, inspire everyone to realize that they can be so different. Therefore, art has the requirement of returning to painting to solve the coverage and control of modern media on people. 

At the same time, he believes that "what Zhang Shaoxia is exhibiting is not just revealing a few paintings, such painting techniques and skills should be said to be commonplace. What is important is finding a way to express differences on the golf course, which has always been captured and recorded by new media - especially since the emergence of photography in 1839, film in 1895, and computer art in 1995. It is also a place that has been completely ignored and ignored by human craftsmanship and unique gaze. Here, the revival of painting has emerged, which is a human liberation of contemporary art entering the era of new media. 

In my opinion, his works are not so much about scenery as they are about memories, art, and loyalty to the heart. Liu Weidong, a professor of art history at Nanjing University of the Arts, and Zhang Shaoxia both studied graduate under the same teacher. Liu Weidong stated that Zhang Shaoxia has made tremendous contributions to the construction of the discipline and textbooks of Southern Arts. On the one hand, Zhang Shaoxia, with his persistence and sensitivity to academia, used the sample book "Ancient Egyptian Art" to enable Nanyi to complete the application for the second batch of art doctoral programs; On the other hand, the encyclopedia style European art history completed by Zhang Shaoxia greatly improved the level of Southern Art textbook construction. Therefore, returning to his alma mater where he once worked and studied to hold an exhibition is a very meaningful thing. 

When talking about the works exhibited by Zhang Shaoxia this time, Liu Weidong believes that Zhang Shaoxia's landscape paintings have the atmosphere of French rural painting. He drew the beautiful scenery he saw through his knowledge of art history and personal experience, and the images were very vivid and had a strong sense of immersion. Zhang Shaoxia's painting language is influenced by the French 19th-century realism style and incorporates the expressive techniques of Impressionism. The colors are vibrant, the sense of light is strong, and it is also very bold. 

The theme of this exhibition, Zhang Shaoxia, is the golf course. On the surface, it appears to depict a golf course that has not been specifically focused on in art history, but I believe that the deeper aspect is to showcase the relationship between humans and nature in today's urbanization process. "Shang Hui, Director of the Art Theory Committee of the China Artists Association, said that the reason why golf courses can attract urban people to exercise is not only because they have the nature of leisure sports, but also because they are different from our traditional concept of parks, pursuing natural scenery in the wilderness. Zhang Shaoxia reflects the modernization process of China and the spiritual life of people in cities by depicting the scenery of golf courses. His works are a creation between classical landscape oil painting and impressionist oil painting. In his works, one can also feel the historical process of moving from Dutch landscape painting to picturesque scenery in England, and at the same time, one can also see Hirschkin's portrayal of the feeling of mountains and forests. 

Shang Hui stated that as an art historian, Zhang Shaoxia has a deeper understanding of art history than his creative time. He presents the historical concepts of art history and the landscapes established by art history in his paintings through oil painting art practice, with classical beauty and nobility. The picturesque scenery not only represents nature, but also carries a strong humanistic concept. What I see in Zhang Shaoxia's works is the combination of classical landscape oil painting and picturesque scenery, reflecting a description of landscape in Impressionist painting. The golf course scenery in his works includes both sketching and indoor creations. The sketch creation of golf courses reflects a concern for nature in urban life, and the creation in the studio carries a classical aesthetic, which is the creation and expression of naturalistic landscapes. The positioning of Zhang Shaoxia's landscape paintings carries the meaning of art history, from which we can read about the understanding of landscapes in various stages of Western art history. Zhang Shaoxia's exhibition is not entirely an artist's exhibition, but a Western art historian's exhibition. His previous research on Chinese modern art history, European arts and crafts history, and Western art history is based on his creative practice, which is more solid, emotional, and persuasive.