Jin Shangyi, born in 1934, is from Jiaozuo, Henan Province, and graduated from the Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1953. In 1957, he graduated from Maximov's oil painting training class, and stayed in the school to teach sketching in the printmaking department, transferred to the first painting room of the Oil Painting Department in 1962; became the Dean of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1987 and the President of the China Artists Association in 1998; 5th and 6th President of the Chinese Artists Association; member of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, honorary President of the China Artists Association, and honorary member of the 10th China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.

Jin Shangyi is a painter with a Chinese literati sensibility, and while he studies the Western oil painting language, he intends to express the artistic conception of Chinese literati paintings. But no matter what techniques he uses, the noble, elegant and light classical spiritual beauty of Jin's artworks is still the core of his artworks. He believes that Chinese oil painting should be rooted in traditional Chinese national culture, and that his oil painting art must be based on the mastery of Western oil painting techniques and the combination of Chinese ink and wash with oil painting to create a Chinese style of painting, thus giving oil painting a Chinese style. It is on the basis of this understanding that Jin's artworks are full of the beauty of the artistic language of oil painting, and at the same time reflect the unique spirit of Chinese oil painting. (from Studies of Third Generation of Chinese Oil Painters, reviewed by Lin Xiaochu)