Wu Guanzhong's two paintings, both titled Twin Swallows, will be auctioned in Beijing on Thursday by Poly International Auction. The oil on canvas was completed in 1994, and a classic Chinese ink piece in 1988. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In many people's minds, there exist two ways to discover picturesque Jiangnan, on the southern bank of Yangtze River. One is to view the landscape in real life and the other is to view the paintings of the late modern master Wu Guanzhong.

Wu, a native of Yixing, Jiangsu province, in the heart Jiangnan, recreated the natural beauty of the region he had been familiar with since childhood in such a way that it evokes a poetic resonance in a viewer, rendering his works with a classic charm.

Two paintings from Wu's Jiangnan landscape series will go under the hammer in Beijing on Thursday as part of a sale by Poly International Auction. Both titled Twin Swallows, the paintings are of the same size and present the same composition, but in different mediums: one is a classic Chinese ink piece completed in 1988 and the other is oil on canvas, and was completed six years later.

The two works, both 70 by 140 centimeters, depict the same serene scene, in which a couple of swallows fly over a stretch of riverside and houses built in a typical Jiangnan architectural style.

The composition looks as simple as one can find in many landscapes of Wu's oeuvre. It is divided into three parts, the reflective water, the rectangular residential buildings and the gloomy sky-in which one could easily miss the two flying swallows whose size is relatively small compared with the paintings' other subjects.

The color palette of the two pictures is light. Wu smeared the river and the sky with a subtle degree of gray and, at the center of the paintings, he outlined several conjunctive white walls, a distinctive feature of the Jiangnan architecture. He only dabbed some green, red and yellow on a tree standing by the river, bringing about the only vibrant aspect to an overall sad or serene effect that engulfs the two paintings.