Shen Zicheng is good at poetry, calligraphy and meticulous painting. His figures, landscapes, flowers, fruits and vegetables are all capable of writing, vigorous and delicate. Among them, figure painting is also a creative field of Shen Zicheng. His figure painting creation does not type, but draws lines casually. The figure modeling does not follow the predecessors and breaks through the traditional figure program. Ladies and children are naive and have a lofty atmosphere. His works, such as Children's Fun Picture and Little Makeup Picture, are full of life flavor, accurate modeling and strong sense of movement, which vividly depict the facial expressions and psychological characteristics of the characters. 1947, when introducing Shen Zicheng, the Art Yearbook published in Shanghai said: "Being good at figure painting, taking the old lotus as a stroke, taking the new method as a new one, is quaint and lovely, different from the times, and occasionally making small scenes for children, which is interesting.
Hero vs Huang Tiandang is one of the most important representative works of Shen Zicheng's figure painting. This 10-meter-long picture depicts thousands of young intellectuals who participated in Huang Tiandang's reclamation movement in the early 1960s. There are as many as 1998 people and more than a thousand ships in the picture. In the creation of this work, the lines used by Shen Zicheng combine the stone flavor on the basis of 18 strokes of traditional figure painting. The figures are accurate in modeling, different in posture and rich in expressions, which are both independent and harmonious with the environment. Heroes vs. Huang Tiandang is not only Shen Zicheng's masterpiece on the road of Chinese painting innovation, but also one of the highest-level masterpieces of China painters in Chinese painting creation after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The reason why Shen Zicheng painted figures to this extent is also the result of his long-term unremitting efforts. As early as 16 years old, Shen Zicheng studied the painting of ladies from the old painter Pan Yasheng. He spent five or six years copying a large number of traditional masterpieces with the theme of ladies' paintings. After the age of 60, he also copied Tang Yin's Beauty Picture, Gu's Han Xizai's Banquet Picture, Li's Wei Mohism Picture and other meticulous figure paintings. Shen Zicheng traveled all his life and paid attention to drawing creative nutrition from nature. In the mid-1970s, Shen Zicheng, who was over 70 years old, spent more than a month traveling around Huangshan, Taishan, Luoyang, Huashan, Xi 'an and Chengyu, passing through the Three Gorges to Lushan, and created a large number of sketches. 1980, Shen Zicheng worked in Beijing Chinese Painting Research Association for three months at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture. In the early 1990s, Shen Zicheng was invited to Singapore twice to hold an art exhibition, and more than 200 works on display were all sold out.
In his later years, Shen Zicheng's works are not only landscapes, flowers and fruits, but also vigorous Gu Zhuo, with bold and unrestrained brushwork and vivid interest. The combination of wet pen, dry pen, thick ink and light ink is vivid and unique, giving people a unique artistic enjoyment. He has published Collection of Famous Paintings in Past Dynasties and Collection of Paintings and Calligraphy by Shen Zicheng. 1June 1996, Shen Zicheng died in Suzhou at the age of 93.