Midday (Zhengwu)

Here, Qijia Dawa depicted a Tibetan child peacefully taking a nap next to his sheepdog on a pile of hay. Qijia used simplified lines to create the idyllic background, making it appear as a vignette of the boy’s dream.

Qijia grew up as an orphan in a Tibetan community in Sichuan, China, along the historic border between Tibet and China where there the two peoples overlap. Tibetan sovereignty has been contested for centuries; most recently, the People’s Republic of China took control of Tibet in 1951, during Qijia’s childhood. After the People’s Liberation Army reached his hometown, he received a Chinese education. Although some Tibetans fought for their autonomy, Qijia remained aligned with the Chinese state throughout his career, creating idealized depictions of the lives of Tibetans and other ethnic minorities.