Zhang Yongjiu was born in 1954. This year, he is 72 years old.

Yet it was precisely at an age commonly regarded as a time to slow down and conclude one’s life journey that he truly began learning oil painting.

This fact alone is already something unusual.

Beginning to Paint at 65 Is an Attitude in Itself

For most people, “learning to paint” is associated with childhood, youth, or at least a certain stage within an academic system.

Zhang Yongjiu, however, took the opposite path.

He did not formally enter the world of oil painting until after the age of 65.
He has no academic background, nor did he follow any “standard path” shaped by systematic training.

As a result, his painting practice avoided from the very beginning a framework centered on technique first and method above all.

He does not paint in order to become someone who “paints accurately.”
Rather, it is as if, late in life, he finally found a new way to look at the world.

Painting Like a Child Cannot Be Learned

When people first encounter Zhang Yongjiu’s work, many instinctively share the same reaction:

These paintings look as if they were made by a child.

The colors are direct, the forms simplified, and the subjects ordinary and unadorned.
There is no deliberate pursuit of precise perspective, nor any complex structural construction.

Yet this is precisely the crucial point.

“Painting like a child” is, in itself, something that cannot be imitated.

When an adult deliberately attempts to mimic childlike brushwork, the result often feels affected;
when technique is intentionally restrained, the traces of technique become even more visible.

True childlike quality is not a matter of “painting simply,”
but of retaining an unpolished capacity for perception deep within.

A Mature Worldview, and a Childlike Way of Feeling

It must be emphasized that Zhang Yongjiu’s painting is not equivalent to children’s drawings.

The subjects he chooses come from a mature adult’s observation of the world:
everyday scenes, human relationships, fragments of memory, and inner emotional states.

These matters are not simple in themselves.

The difference lies in this—
he does not attempt to “explain” them through complexity.

Instead, he uses an almost instinctive and direct mode of painting to present what he sees and feels.

Because he has already lived through life’s complexity,
he no longer needs to prove anything through technique.

After Picasso, Returning to the Child

In art history, Picasso’s late works are often cited in discussions of a recurring question:

Does a truly mature artist eventually return, in later life, to a state of painting like a child?

Picasso himself once said:

“It took me a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child.”

Zhang Yongjiu neither can nor needs to be compared with Picasso on the level of technical depth.

Yet in terms of creative attitude, there is a resonance worth noting between the two:

When technique is no longer the goal,
when expression no longer needs to be justified,
painting truly returns to a state of freedom.

Painting Without Displaying Technique Is the Rarest Thing

In today’s highly visual and stylistically driven world,
paintings that look “well made” are not rare,
nor is it difficult to find works that resemble a particular style.

What is truly rare is painting that:

• does not rush to display technique

• does not follow fashionable visual language

• does not deliberately construct an artistic posture

• yet remains sincere and alive

Zhang Yongjiu’s works belong precisely to this category.

They are not loud, nor do they seek to occupy the center of attention.
They are more like works whose value gradually reveals itself through long-term companionship.