PARIS.- On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Gustave Courbet’s birth, French-Chinese painter Yan Pei-Ming has drawn inspiration from A Burial at Ornans, the masterpiece of Realism, in order to create A Burial in Shanghai, a work conceived especially for the Musée d’Orsay. Upon arriving in France in 1980, 20-year-old Yan Pei-Ming immediately went to Paris to discover the works of Gustave Courbet, then displayed at the Musée du Louvre.

He contemplated A Burial at Ornans, a depiction of a funeral set in Gustave Courbet’s hometown. Courbet remained deeply attached to it, and he painted the landscapes of the region in numerous works.

According to Yan Pei-Ming, "In A Burial at Ornans, Courbet depicts his landscape, his story, his people. At the time when I began working on this project, my mother passed. She lived in Shanghai, and all her friends and family gathered. I understood that the best way to pay a tribute to Courbet was to paint my story. That’s what he made possible."

On the occasion of this anniversary, Yan Pei-Ming has realized A Burial in Shanghai (Celestial Mountain, My Mother, The Farewell), a work consisting of three paintings, in three different styles, from the most minute to the most expressionistic. His mother's funeral is painted on exactly the same scale as A Burial at Ornans (1849-1850): the scene is no longer set in Ornans, but in Shanghai, birthplace of the artist. Here, every detail is meticulously depicted, while the portrait of his late mother is monumental. "My mother was an ordinary person," he says, "but I painted her on the same scale as icons of political power." The third piece features mountains painted in an expressionistic style, verging on abstraction: "It is an idealized landscape, heavenly perhaps, where I would hope for my mother to reside.”

Yan Pei-Ming was born in Shanghai in 1960. He lives and works in Dijon. His contribution to the 2003 Venice Biennale established him as a leading figure on the international art scene. Six years later, the Louvre welcomed him for a confrontation with the Monna Lisa in a series of paintings titled The Funerals of Monna Lisa.

Across recent years, solo exhibitions have been dedicated to the artist at the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines (IA), 2008; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2009; Beijing Center for the Arts, Beijing, 2014; CAC Málaga, 2015; Villa Medici, Roma, 2016; Belvedere Museum, Vienna, 2016. His most recent exhibitions reflect his interest in history painting, evoking timeless scenes where the tragic fate of humankind is to be seen.