Dafen Oil Painting Village and Van Gogh Reproductions: The Gap Between Craft and Art

“My life is my art.”

Zhao Xiaoyong’s path from the countryside to the city was made possible through reproducing Van Gogh. Copying Van Gogh gave him a foothold in urban life, yet it also bound him to a shadow he could never escape. For Zhao, Van Gogh became almost a belief, a part of his own life—but he remained, in the end, only an attachment to Van Gogh’s greatness.

He painted for twenty years. Still, the value of a single Van Gogh original outweighed decades of his work. His paintings traveled across the world, but when he finally saw where they ended up, it wasn’t in galleries he had imagined. They were sold in souvenir shops—far from the art world he dreamed of entering.

Between countryside and city, between Dafen and Amsterdam, between reality and ideal, there is always a long, deep trench. Zhao stands beside this trench, smoking, thinking about Van Gogh—someone who quietly seeped into his life—and asking what his own life means. After twenty years of painting, he still had no painting that was truly his.

In his heart, Zhao wanted to be an artist. But Van Gogh’s presence hung over him like a ceiling he could not break through. Craftsman, painter, artist—these words seem close, yet the distance between them can be enormous. The trip to Amsterdam became a turning point. It helped him understand what it means to be an artist, and what “self” is after two decades of searching.

Van Gogh was ignored in life and revered after death. His power came from refusing to be trapped by worldly standards: no academies, no obsession with technique—only the self. That spirit inspired Zhao and many painters like him in Dafen Oil Painting Village. Whether fifty years from now or a hundred, they may still be remembered. And perhaps the first person an artist must be recognized by is himself.

Beyond sympathy for their lives, the story forces us to think about how art is viewed in China today. People honor the classics, yet real artistic desire often has nowhere to land. What is art, after all? Is it only what history has polished into “masterpieces,” or is it also the blueprint of the human spirit?

One unforgettable scene shows the paint-stained tables after they finish working. The camera lingers on the long surface filled with messy colors, almost declaring to us: this isn’t art—this is life.