NEW YORK, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Nearly every visitor to his home is convinced the art collection before their eyes is the priceless work of Chinese masters. But people are more than amazed when they learn that many of these "masterpieces" are in fact the creation of their American host, Allan Ermann, a professor of non-western arts at the University of Connecticut.

Born and raised in the United States, Ermann is hundred percent American without any ethnic link with China. If there is anything unusual that binds him with the country, then it has to be his strong love for traditional Chinese painting.

"I just love traditional Chinese paintings so much and sometimes I think I must have been Chinese in another life," he said.

Visitors to his home at Westchester, New York,* will find themselves in a virtual traditional Chinese art gallery, with paintings of landscape, trees and flowers decorating each room. Bigstocks of Xuan paper and brushes of different sizes and function take up much of the room that serves as his studio.

Ermann's first encounter with Chinese art came during his college years when he took a graduate course in Chinese poetry, but that curiosity soon fizzled out. But his interest was rekindled when he bought a traditional Chinese painting. He loved it so much that he decided to learn more about Chinese art and how to paint.

photo credit: Xinhua News

He logged on to the website of China's Artists Association and browsed carefully the biographical notes of all the artists listed there, learning about their strong points and comparing their works. Then he concluded that Yu Xining, professor and honorary dean of Shandong College of Arts, was the best contemporary artist of traditional Chinese painting and he should turn to Yu for guidance.

Over the ensuing years, Ermann made seven trips to China, with the longest stay lasting seven months. He took his second choice job to be in Jinan and to support his studies with the excellent, renowned artist Professor Shen Guangwei. Professor Shen was able to arrange a valuable session of critique with his own teacher who is one of the premier Chinese painters of recent times, his uncle Professor Yu Xining.

He also spent two years practicing nothing but how to execute Chinese character strokes with a Chinese brush, a feat inconceivable even for some Chinese art students.

"I'm the type of person who once decided to do something would try to do it better," he said.

He observed that Western painters might or might not make their brushwork visible but rather take the presentation of something in a certain way as their ultimate goal, while in traditional Chinese painting, the use of brushwork has become part of the finished work.

The classes he took with his Chinese teachers in Shandong, though brief, gave him a good start. His teachers' suggestions of adding something here and there, or using the brush differently often instantly turned an otherwise mediocre painting into a much better piece of art.

Little by little, he has improved his skills in brushwork, composition and has better understood the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of traditional Chinese painting.

Over the past years, Ermann has devoted much of his money, time and energy to his fervent art pursuit. Looking back on it, he said it had been worthwhile, for he had gained a deeper satisfaction from it, a satisfaction that went far beyond painting itself.

He said he was led to think over the dialectics of traditional Chinese painting, over the contrast between the strong and soft strokes, the dark and light colors, emphasis and emptiness. Such philosophical contemplation helps him to gain a deeper understanding of himself and the world around him.

Ermann still practices with his brush and is improving his skills. He sought help from a few teachers at the China Institute in Manhattan, a group devoted to the spread of Chinese culture, but after taking some classes, he was told he was good enough to work on his own.

While hunting for teachers, news came that his wife, a senior executive at Citigroup, was assigned to work in the corporation's branch office in Hong Kong. Ermann said he would seize the opportunity to improve his skills in traditional Chinese painting with the help of competent teachers in Hong Kong and China's mainland, and learn more about China and its people from the vantage point of Hong Kong.