Bamboo House, 1987, by Xu Dongdong. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Travelling through mountains and rivers

"Chinese landscape painting is different from Western landscape painting, and Chinese people have special favor and worship to the mountains", Xu said.

In his view, painters not only paint the mountain they have seen, but portray a fairy land people yearn for, as the mountain is always attached to divinity.

From 1984, Xu began to create works themed on China's mountains. He first did research of all the mountains and rivers in China and then categorized them, before finally making a list for his mountain hiking plan.

From the Great Khingan in China's far north, to the Wuzhishan Mountain in southernmost Hainan province, he visited more than 30 mountains in a couple of years. Besides, he also researched rivers and lakes related to mountains.

"The biggest contribution Chinese artists have made to landscape painting is that they paint life into landscape paintings, and the life and paintings keep in harmony", Xu said.

The Inner World of Xu Dongdong, a book published in 1997, recorded Xu's dialogue with nature, which also tells us how Xu views the traditional culture and how he exchanges with the external culture.