So what's the real value in a painting? Is it merely in presenting an image on a canvass according to the artist's perception, or is it mostly in the artist's ability to choose the object of the painting and then painting it well?

Does the real value of a Picasso, a Monet, or a Van Gogh, for example, reside mainly in the fact that those painters were the first to come up with such techniques, or does it resided in their ability for conceiving such innovative forms of expression?

There's only one answer to the last two questions: YES. Originality is the trait that most characterizes the best possible art. A good technique, of course, is necessary for expressing any original artistic idea with the quality it deserves, but, in my view, a good technique by itself does not produce the best possible art, unless it's a very innovative one.

Naturalist paintings, for example, can indeed be awesome in the way they reproduce nature, but those are mostly samples of sheer technique, regardless of how wonderful that technique may be.

Creativity is the heart of art. A painter with a fantastic and versatile technique may never cast any innovative form on canvas unless they're endowed with the creative spark. A good painter that lacks creativity can in a way be comparable to a camera or a photocopy machine, although, in the eyes of many, such art may have the human touch as a precious value added.

Along the latter line, watching some of the paintings on display in the streets and shops of the village of Dafen, in the city of Shenzhen, China, can at times be an impressive experience. Those guys and girls can really imitate the master painters in an extraordinary way, although not all the paintings on display there are copies.

There are also some sculptures in Dafen, but none of that impressed me as much as some rather original architecture I saw there (please see pictures 74 through 95) In a nutshell, visiting Dafen was a nice way to spend my last afternoon in Shenzhen.

If you'd like to know more about Dafen Art Village, please click on the following link:

http://www.dafenart.com/index.html