For Xu, the realistic approach was not only something he had learned from oil painting and sculpture in the Parisian school but also an important tool to reform the look of Chinese painting. For example, in Fisherman, an ink painting from the 1920s on show in Chongqing, the way Xu detailed the leg muscles of the old fisherman and his grandson shows Xu's adoption of Western painting techniques to reinforce an energetic feeling, and a physical feature unique to laborers, but not to scholars or ladies that recurred in classic Chinese paintings.

Realism was an attitude that Xu stuck to in his creation "to present the everyday hardships of people with a concern for their emotions and the future", says Wu Chuan, deputy director of the collection department at the Xu Beihong Memorial Museum. Part of the paintings on show are from this Beijing museum.