Chinese Van Goghs

Sept 08, 2026 Last Modified: Sept 08, 2026

Saw this absolutely beautiful documentary yesterday. It’s about a painter who has painted and sold thousands of Van Gogh replica paintings, despite having never actually seen the real Van Gogh’s in person. The documentary follows him as he eventually visits Amsterdam to see them in the museum.

Painter Zhao Xiaoyong looks at a self-potrait of Van Gogh while commenting that colours are different from his own replications — Probably no one appreciated the paintings on that day in the museum more than Xiaoyong

If a painter has painted replicas of an artist more times than the total number of paintings by the original artist, is the painter still just a painter and not an artist by himself? Zhao Xiaoyong though is now definitvely an artist with the production of his own works as can be seen from his gallery. I particularly liked the Metamorphosis series, which to my untrained eye, clearly seems like a marked progression from the style of the master that the artist admired and perfected in replicating.

The documentary also reminded me of Ekalavya a story of a pupil learning from an absent master.