Mountain City Twilight, also known in Chinese as Shan Cheng Mu Se created by artist Ren Jianguo Photo: Courtesy of Ren

Mountain City Twilight, also known in Chinese as Shan Cheng Mu Se, by Chinese ink wash painting artist Ren Jianguo sold for 3.1 million yuan ($444,200) at the Yongle Auction on Tuesday.

The work is a landscape painting Ren created in Hunan Province in 2014. It is one of the most prominent paintings of the last 10 years showing Ren's unique and expressive ink washing painting style. 

In order to create this magnificent landscape work, Ren completed many exquisite sketches in the local area, carefully observing the structural features of the mountains and the relationship between the lines of pedestrians passing by on small bridges and the direction of the mountain.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Ren has been exploring a new style that combines traditional Chinese figure and landscape painting. This was inspired by his past experience as a  realist painter when he was young. Growing tired of the genre, Ren later moved on to become a freehanded painter who focuses on abstractionism. 

Born in Beijing, Ren made a name for himself in the industry as early as 1985, when his work showed up at the national art exhibition of Chinese contemporary art China Youth in Progress. The exhibition was seen by many art industry insiders as a prelude to Chinese contemporary art. 

Global Times