Studio one

Years ago in Shenzshen, my friend talked to me about Yang Fuyin, who I got to know in my youth. It was when I, as an urban youth, went to work in the countryside of Lianyuan, Hunan. A numberof painting students, me included, were required to take a one-month art training class in Shaodong County. Half of us studies Chinese painting but were not very good at it. It happened that the instructor was majored in oil painting. When all of us were worried about the teaching and learning, one day, an old man and a young man were sent to our class to instruct. The old man, with his brush into the ink bowl only once, drew in one gulp a painting, on which, vividly, seven hairy chicks were fighting for a worm. We were astonished. ?When it was the young man’s turn, he drew in an easy manner a Miao girl with a back basket full of flowers. The lines were of lasting appeal, the colors matched well, and the girl was good-looking. We applauded. The old man’s name was Wang Hanshan, and the young man, Yang Fuyin. I felt amazed to watch for the first time in my 20 years how good painters painted, and from then on, these two names and the scene they painted were impressed for ever upon my mind. This story must have been told to Wang Hanshan and Yang Fuyin by my friends, because both of them called me or wrote me to continue the connections between us. But when later I told them this story face to face, neither could remember it. This March, in the National Art Museum in Beijing, Yang Fuyin exhibited over a hundred of his figure paintings and mountain-and-water paintings accomplished in recent years. That day it was sunny and the exhibit hall was unusually quiet, unlike the noisy scene on the first day in most art exhibits, which coincided very well with his painting style. I couldn’t help recalling my experience of going astray into the greenhouse on the Yuelu Mountain many years ago. The feeling was so special that I felt as if I smelled the fragrance of flowers from within the paintings. Among the exhibits, the Taoist story-telling paintings and the mountain-and-water paintings were not large in size. The former were filled with interesting stories and appealing calligraphy. The latter were simple and plain, and, like the painting style in the Tang Dynasty and the Six Dynasties, adopted simply outlining and color application, making the audience feel as if they were watching the moon or a great mountain. But in terms of their effect, these two kinds of paintings are better to be exhibited at home over the bamboo tea table with the incense. Among all, the body paintings, no matter the blue-and-white or the red vitriol, achieved the best effect. They are refreshing and not bound by conventions, as if they were girls living in another world and living a simple life. As for the structure and the skills, I think, even Matisse and Lin Fengmian would not change anything on the paintings. After the exhibit, over ten artists got together and started chatting about Yang Fuyin and his paintings. I remember I talked about his free spirit and the taste of life displayed by his paintings. I thought it was perfect to title the exhibit “Days”, and it would be better to exhibit Yang Fuyin’s essays and his life pictures. How should we spend our days? In totally different ways. Some expects a spectacular life, while some others prefer a quiet life. Some intentionally make stimulating news, while some others make their life as even and transparent as a pond. Some reach for what does not belong to them, while some are totally unaware the meaning of life. Some are always ready to pop up for their own interests even at the cost of others’ interests but finally get nothing, while some others live a free and casual life but end up in a fruitful life. A poet once wrote, “I’m alive, but I’m not living my life”. The essence of life is not about the fame or wealth, but whether you are living your own life. Yang Fuyin said he was born to be awake and needs little sleep, so he has a longer day than most others. Longer days are burdens and generate troubles like questions about the unbearable lightness or heaviness of being, which one has to forget by making himself busy. Yang Fuyin is not good at personal relationship, or sports, or playing cards, or stocks, so if he has no other way out but to read. ?He read literature and philosophy both at home and abroad, but days were still too long, so he turned to painting. He painted at an amazing speed that his paintings were all over his house in several hours. He could do nothing but write essays about whatever he thinks. Those essays were no more than one thousand words, so he still had much time to go. He lives his life, free and casual, and never feels burdened by his work or feels life is empty. Not until staying in such a state for some time did he realize that his spirit and taste have promoted greatly in the free and casual life, and his days are now full of uncasual casualness. These days are themselves paintings. Uncasual casualness is everywhere in his paintings. Just take a look at his body paintings? Aren’t the lines extremely casual and extremely dainty? The starting lines start from nowhere and the ending lines end in nowhere. The outlined bodies look plump and soft, as if the breath of the skin can be felt, and the blank parts arouse much imagination. The outlines parts are the body and flesh. The blank parts are the spirit, the gesture, the expressions, the blinks, and the body movement, which are full of freedom and casualness. Yang Fuyin’s lines are said to have learned from the folk blue-and-white porcelain paintings, which, certainly, is true to some degree, but I attribute his lines to his thorough studies on the painting history dating back to thousands of years ago. He mix perfectly the casualness of the folk painting with the dainty of the traditional painting to form his own fresh, vigorous and elegant style, which looks casual and unattended, but are in essence extremely refined. His state of experiencing life and enjoying himself while painting, I’m afraid, may even dwarf the gods. “I heard that pretty flowers are not fragrant, and fragrant flowers are not pretty. The only flower that gets both is lotus. Lotus is elegant, not dazzling. Its fragrance is slight, not strong. ” This is from Yang Fuyin’s essay Talent. It is also a very vivid description of his paintings，and fits his own talent, his artistic taste and emotional appeal exactly.