Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Lawva and I'm Alice Irasari. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world did they live. Jiao si how young dips his brush into a patch of oil paint. Then he takes the brush and carefully touches it to the surface of the painting. The painting is of a group of yellow flowers. Normally, these sunflowers are a symbol of happy things,
but here the flowers hang down. It is as if they are as saddened as the painter himself. Siow Young is not making his own work. Instead, he is copying a painting. It is by the famous artist Vincent Van Goh. Copying Van Go has become Siou Yong's life work. It is his business. Together he and his family have made thousands of Van Go paintings. They sell them to people all over the world. Siao Yong's work may seem unusual, but he and his family live in Daifan oil painting village in China.
In Daifan, thousands of other painters copy work by famous artists as well. They spend much of their lives with Western artists who are not famous in China. Today's spotlight is on Daifan oil painting village. Dauphin Village is a small part of the city of Shenzen, China. It is less than half a kilometer wide, but it is home to over eight thousand painters. At one point, it was responsible for sixty percent of the world's painting reproductions.
But Daifen was not always known for its art. For a long time, Daifen was mostly farmland. The village itself did not have many people. It was near Shensen, but there was not much there. Wang Jiung was a businessman and painter from Hong Kong. In nineteen eighty nine, he visited Shenjen and he visited Dafen. He recognized that Dauphin would be a good place to set up his business, so he bought several buildings there and he employed several
people to make rep productions for him. These people were not trained artists, many were farmers or laborers. Jung had to teach them how to paint. As time went by, more people came to Dayphen looking for jobs. Jong's business expanded, and other painters like him began to travel to Dayfan. They were trying to follow his example. Joe Jung Ju is another painter from Daphen. He came to the village in those early years. He spoke about his
experiences in the documentary China's Van Goes in nineteen ninety one. There were many people painting in Dafen. I also wanted a job, so I came. But we have never seen oil painting in our hometown. We also did not know how to paint it. Every day we painted these things van God money, but we did not know these painters. At the time. We had a lot of orders we had to work on paintings. There were three lines with seven people in a line. Everyone painted a part of the painting.
In those years, we finished nearly three hundred thousand copies. As time went by, more and more people came to the village. It soon became known for its oil paintings. Almost everyone living there had something to do with making art, but painting copies was not an easy life. Jao Ziyo Jung also came to Dafen early. He learned to paint and even started his own business. But even and then he worked in difficult conditions. He would receive many
large orders from foreign businesses. They would use these paintings to put in hotels or in homes. They would sell them in other countries at a higher price. Ciao Jung and his family would work very long hours to finish the orders. They lived, slept, and ate together in their art studio. They even raised their children there. They worked through heat and sickness for very little pay. Then in two thousand and eight, something changed. The world economy
went into recession. People all over the world lost jobs or had a hard time finding them. They had less money to spend on things like paintings. Before, most sales came from outside of China. Afterwards, these sales fell off. This was a difficult time for many of Dafen's painters. Work was sometimes hard to find. There was much less demand for Western copies. But this was not always a bad thing. Many of these painters had been copying
other people's work for years. They had the skills to make their own work, but making copies had brought them more money. Now they had time to be creative, they could start making original pieces of art. Jiao Ciao Young was one painter who began making his own work during this time. He began by painting a version of his first studio. Then he painted portraits of people
in his hometown. Siow Young had copied Van Go for years, so his paintings were in that style, but soon he began to develop his own images and goals. Before as Yao Yung began painting his originals, he was unsure if he would be successful. He did not know if anyone would buy his work. He spoke in the documentary China's Van Goes about his hope and his fears. My life is my art just like this, not now, but maybe in fifty or one hundred years time, people will like our paintings.
Now people might say these people's paintings are not good. But if we wait fifty to one hundred years, then there will be a generation that understands us. They will like our paintings. But Sioo Yong did not need to wait that long. For many years, people knew Daphan for its copies, but soon people in China began to go there for original works too. They wanted to buy work that was about their own country. Former farmers were now opening
their own galleries. They were not just painters now they were artists. For some people, these changes may be surprising. Copying paintings does not seem creative, but it may be the best way to learn. Eddie Kala is an American artist who has worked with people in Daphin. For him, this development makes a lot of sense. He spoke about Daphin on the podcast ninety nine
percent Invisible. We always start copying. That is how learning works. If you learn to play an instrument, they teach you how to play existing songs. They do not say, well, write an original song. And so I think that is how all things grow. Today, there are still many copy shops in Daphon. Reproductions of Western artists still hang in shops. Still these paintings sell across the world, but now Daphen has many galleries of original
artists as well. It is still a place where people work long hours for little pay, but Dayphon is also a place where people can grow and become more than what they were. What do you think is copying a painting art? If not? What makes art art? You can leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from
the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called the ten Thousand Masterpieces of Daiphen Village. You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,