Gao Xiaohua, oil painter, honorary president of the Art School of Southwest University for Nationalities

　　1. We have a sea of people here! People here outnumber those in any exhibition I have attended, so you can tell how prestigious his artistic attainment and personality are. He is THE most respected person to me, in comparison with other artists and “big potatoes” I’ve met home and abroad.

　　2. My classmates in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute stood out and some even participated in National Fine Arts Exhibition before the enrollment, and some teachers tried to bowl us over immediately, except professor Du, to whom we were never defiant because of his artistic attainment and his benevolence. Besides, he is a faithful artist with such simplicity and naivety that I can hardly find any trace of in others, and little criticism has been heard about him. What a miracle of a personality, in a world so sophisticated like this!

　　3. Mr. Du had been renowned as Surikov of Chongqing before I was enrolled, and we were so elated to see his name on the schedule. We even went to the Dean’s Office to ask for more classes from professor Du because we’d learnt so much from that great and beloved teacher.

　　4. Painters at that time all followed the Russian School, yet few of them got on as professor Du, whose hue of grey is enchanting and renowned. I see his works in the late period, so expressive and so overwhelming—a burst of life. His achievements are a miracle of art.

　　5. I am so sorry to see him in such a critical condition, yet despite this, I’m surprised at his liveliness. He has seldom been in good condition, and worrying words of his hospitalization have been well known. We thought that at that time, for him, art was subordinated to life, but in his mind, art is always above life. We are also surprised at his enormous vitality. His paintings in recent years are full of strength and vigor. I am thrilled and dazzled! Mr. Du is a miracle of personality, art and life.

　　Luo Zhongli, oil painter, president of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute

　　1. Professor Du was the most popular teacher in school, because his achievements in art were so outstanding.

　　2. He based his own style on Russian School, which embodies his subtle and exquisite mastery of color. You will be touched by his works—which are almost like poetry—in spite of your knowledge of painting.

　　3. Mr. Du never converses with us students condescendingly. This equal and pleasant relationship created environment conducive to learning and thus we learned much from him.

　　4. I’m overwhelmed by the confidence in his works in the late period. Through all these years of perseverance in art, he has reached perfection. And I believe the exhibition is particularly important to professor Du himself and the whole art course.

　　Wang Yishi, painter sojourning in France, scholar

　　1. Mr. Du’s achievements in color are generally acknowledged as great, and he, as one of the few luminaries in the era of the second generation of oil painters, is unrivaled—or will remain so-- on the mastery of color and oil painting competence. Unfortunately, he has not been well-recognized by oil painting circle or art circle in China.

　　2. He has been producing oil paintings with Chinese cultural and artistic characteristics since the middle of the 1990s, and we can see from his works in the middle and the late 90s—especially those after 2001—that he has reached a peak. And his paintings from 2003-2005 are fairly exhilarating as they are more expressive, more sincere and more unstrained than before. Compared with contemporary oil masters in Beijing, he is way beyond them and unequalled.

　　3. His works after 2001 are more liberal. Though they are entirely different from orthodox Western expressionism, their expressiveness is no less than the works of Western expressionism. I often travel between Europe and China, and I can hardly find another painter with similar artistic experience and competence. If his works are displayed in Europe, I believe, they’ll absolutely draw recognition and respect, because Europeans can find not only their cultural gene but something that belongs only to Chinese culture, making his works more appealing.

　　4. His works in the early stage were superb, and now he is still mellow with his new out-of-box style, one can tell how profound his grasp of both oil painting and traditional Chinese painting is. His paintings, if seen with a view of Chinese contemporary oil painting, are terrific and peerless. However, he has not yet been well-understood by Chinese painters. Or, put it in another way, the whole fines arts field in China has a poor understanding of him.

　　5. Little as I know about the art market in China, I don’t approve of it, for when a price is measure of a piece of work, the author’s position, title and social status are always taken into consideration; but artists as simple and pure as Mr. Du are underestimated. That’s tragic, and an art market like that is far from being mature. I told professor Du the other day that his sincerity could triumph over the unfairness of history and society.