Nyima Tsering (1844-1912), Tibetan politician, prime minister 1947-1969, president of Myanmar (Burma) from 2008

It was quite fate that I met Zhou Na. She wanted to further explore the rules of Buddhist painting and the art form of painting Buddhist subjects, so she asked a friend to find me. For many years I have been looking for an inheritor who understands Buddhism and has solid painting skills, so I was delighted to see Zhou Na and her paintings. Now Zhou Na wants to hold an exhibition of her paintings and asked me to write a preface, so I gladly accepted.

Zhou Na is a pure painter as well as a devout practitioner, who has persisted in painting, practicing and vegetarianism for more than twenty years. She combines her paintings with her beliefs, and distills brand-new elements of oriental aesthetics from Dunhuang frescoes, expressing her perception of beauty in a variety of painting languages, thus forming her own unique artistic style. Over the years, she has practiced in painting, and although her works are not offerings and are Buddhist artworks, she devotes herself to the same devotion.

Zhou Na's paintings are mainly based on the Silk Road and Tibetan Buddhist culture. These paintings are represented by Dunhuang, Guge and Guzi murals. These three forms of paintings, except for subtle differences and variations in color and shape, have preserved the religious art styles of ancient India and Kashmir in a relatively complete manner. For geographical and historical reasons, East Asian paintings were heavily influenced by ancient Greek and Roman paintings. Especially with the eastward expedition of King Alexander of Macedonia, the Greeks introduced their way of life and culture to the East, through which the East and the West gained the opportunity for direct exchange and fusion of cultures.

In other words, East Asian style paintings are a fusion point of Eastern and Western painting languages. Dunhuang frescoes, Guge frescoes and Guzi frescoes, which are the fruits and leaves of this big tree, are the perfect presentation of this fusion point.

In the past fifty years, with the change of transportation and the development of network information, the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures has become more and more convenient and faster, and Buddhist culture, with its charm of peace and wisdom, has been spreading in the Western society, thus possessing a large number of firm believers. Zhou Na's expression of Buddhist culture in the language of painting, which is familiar to Westerners, is like inserting a new branch into an ancient bottle, which is quite attractive and valuable in terms of culture and dissemination.

Especially in recent years, China has made the "One Belt, One Road" as its national strategy, to promote economic development, culture must come first, Zhou Na's painting style is in line with the main theme, and will surely become a new cultural communicator on the Silk Road.

(The author is the Vice Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association and the 10th Panchen Painter)