“Dream of Mountains and Waters” of Yuan Jinhua (2009)

Ma Qinzhong
Aestheticism of Chinese paintings values the connections with nature. If the mainstream of Chinese literature stresses drawing ideological source more from Confucianism than enlightenment and pristine customs, Chinese paintings stresses more drawing ideological source from Lao Tse and Zhuang Tse, the so-called “in the time of success, one should make perfect the whole empire, and in the time of hardships, one should seek self-development through efforts of his own.” Painting is a small branch of “self-development through efforts of his own,” but this small branch cannot lose its honour. In manifesting morality and nobility, scholars wander in the mountains and waters, find pleasant moments from seeing flowers and birds, and express feelings through painting of worldly things. The following are the descriptions of the best landscape paintings, which ultimately express the philosophy of “returning to nature for life of dependence”: “Spring grass grows on the pond” in Xie Lingyun’s “Climbing the Pavilion on the Pond;” “The evening glow disperses into rosy cloud and the river is shiny like a ribbon” in Xie Tiao’s “Climbing Three Mountains at Night and Looking Back at the Capital;” and “White stones stand out from the clear stream and red leaves fall when the weather gets chilly” and “It is strange that clothes are wet despite of no rain along the mountain road” in Wang Wei’s “In the Mountain.” Painting transforms dream into “joyful” existence.

One may experience the same feeling at the sight of Yuan Jinhua’s works. It is no doubt that such an expression of the concept of life and feeling has been availed of by ancient people to the extreme, and that too little space is left for future generations. Only a few masters could “break away from the old track and create new patterns.” Today, most Chinese paintings simply repeat old patterns and serve as low-level game of ink by scholars. Chinese culture undoubtedly regards painting as a way to enjoy life, but such an act is quite far from the intent of finding freedom from mountains, waters, trees, dangerous peaks, and ancient temples upheld by Chinese classic painting. Yuan Jinhua must have strong feelings about this aspect. He attempted at finding a way out of the dilemma and embarking on the journey of arts that belongs to this era and himself.

These works of Yuan Jinhua cannot absolutely be classified as painting or not. They are a dream, a philosophical expression, and unconscious cry from a contemporary intellectual’s conscience on confusion about existence. It is the sound unuttered but echoes in the valley, in the sense and sensibility of human beings. It echoes the questions “Where are we?” and “Can we find the home of our life?” Such straightforward explanation might weaken pleasure and imagination resulting from the richness and ambiguity that may be gotten from unuttered expression in reading his works. Below is an analysis of his works.

From a technical perspective, his works do not have the striking features nor the simplicity and straightforwardness that modern arts commonly adopt. His works make one understand them at first sight and remember them afterward. A large piece of painting expresses only either one sentence or one word, or repeats one sign. However, Yuan Jinhua’s painting is too complicated, too literary, and has many decorations that are fore-shadowing and rendering. He inherits skills from the realistic ink painting, i.e., he draws stroke by stroke, fills with colour layer by layer, and fully illustrates details. His work definitely does not depict traditionally realistic painting. Landscapes are symbolized, and structures are geometrized, being the common constitutional methods in modern arts. Although he follows the traditional shaping and has skills for landscape painting, his works are not rhythm or metrics, but are symbolized and conceptualized.

From the perspective of artistic scene creation, the rigorous landscape bears free strokes. These could be regarded as free-style trees, or as having traces of symbolization or disintegration of regular forms of landscape. If other elements are disregarded, they may still be considered “plain” landscape painting.

The last element is quite important. Among big mountains, waters, and forests, one may see tiny figures or objects, a female or a male, in water or on mountains that are either performing or suggestive. Moreover, the works depict birds as people and vice versa, show conversation with other people and with oneself, and show birds that are twittering with each other.

The image created by Yuan Jinhua is somewhat dreamlike; dreams and hopes of people being depicted in ancient rock paintings. We could examine the works of Yuan Jinhua from two aspects.
The first aspect is the social responsibility of Yuan Jinhua as an artist, and his attitude towards the meaning and value of arts. Such a concept of Chinese painting has become a reason that constrains the development of Chinese painting. Your painting doesn’t look like Chinese painting. Do you still follow the traditional pattern of Chinese painting? Actually, history is the superposition of all unknowns, and is never a ready answer made up by predecessors. Tradition and learning history are not meant to bind, but to liberate people’s hands and feet, and shape more liberal and future-oriented life realm. Although many theorists find solid arguments for the significance of avant-garde and experimental ink painting in the history of arts, their significance actually relies on strategies proposed against the inrush of modern-art thoughts and practices from the west. It has been proven that they may be achieved through ink painting, but did not result in revolutionary achievement of artistic language. In other words, its significance will be greatly reduced if experimental and avant-garde paintings are put into the contemporary international cultural horizon. The practice of simulating, repeating, and demonstrating the modernist and post-modernist schema creation by learning is an important means to find a way out for Chinese paintings. Similarly, it is also feasible to explore the modern concept of Chinese painting by returning to the philosophical aspect of the traditional visual arts by self-reflection. The work of Yuan Jinhua could prove it. His work may be highly spoken of because of that.

The second aspect is to examine the work of Yuan Jinhua using the language system of Chinese painting itself. Experiment vs. exploration is actually the contrast between containing new liquor in an old bottle and containing it in a new bottle. Yuan Jinhua walks between them. He is not completely an old bottle but looks like an old outfit. He is neither completely a new bottle. We might use a professional term: could we use exclusively traditional elements to create a method of artistic expression suitable to the new concept? It shall be his thinking and exploration on his language elements.

The standardized and schema type of expression in Chinese paintings bears the historical burden, making it quite difficult for the paintings to progress. Yuan Jinhua attempts to prove that when all traditional elements are kept on rice paper, but for reformed usages, mountains are still mountains; waters are still waters, and figures are still related to environment. However, mountains are symbolized mountains, waters are also symbolized waters, figures are not in nature, and figures and animals just question and query the nature.

The artistic conception of traditional Chinese painting with harmony of nature turns into inspiration from nature and worries away from nature. The following are the questions that may be elicited: “When we walk into mountains and rivers, could we harmonize with the nature?”; “Have we already been expelled from Eden?”; “Will returning to nature just be a dream?”; “Are all roads of returning to nature in modern culture just virtual shows?”; “Is there anything interesting?”; and “Does Yuan Jinhua ask himself or ask us?”