What is the Bashu School?

"Bashu" joins two ancient names: Ba, the land of today's Chongqing, and Shu, the land of today's Sichuan. For centuries this region of western China has nurtured a distinctive lineage of painting and calligraphy. The Bashu School is its modern name.

The school is understood broadly. It gathers native masters born and working in Sichuan and Chongqing; artists of Ba-Shu origin who rose to prominence elsewhere in China and abroad; and notable painters from outside the region whose work portrays the Ba-Shu land. Together they give the school its breadth.

Its visual language is often described as lucid and moist in ink, rich in colour, tender and finely wrought, at once weathered and free. In spirit it prizes understated atmosphere, cultivated elegance and quiet strength.

The tradition spans many media — Chinese ink painting, calligraphy, oil, printmaking, watercolour and gouache. Rooted in the ancient Shu civilisation, it has shaped Chinese art and reached audiences far beyond China.

Since 2011, support for the Bashu School has been written into successive five-year development plans of Sichuan Province as part of its cultural-heritage strategy — a measure of the school's standing within China.

At Bashu Art Realm we represent these artists' original work for collectors worldwide, sourced directly from the artists and their institution, honestly described and shipped with care.