It was on a summer day two years ago when I first stepped into Mr. Tong Jian Ying’s studio, after passing hours over talking and appreciating his paintings, the concept of Abstract painting began germinating deeply in my mind. The writer who had engaged in art for years did not spark her feelings of novelty that the painter presented the language in his abstract way, but when facing these fresh and pure visual melodies, there arose a gush of cheerful and soul-stirring sentiment that shortened my distance to Beauty. From then on, I began approaching to Mr. Tong Jian Ying’s Abstract Art, and gradually understood an artist who is sincere and shows great perseverance in his art career.The experiences of Mr. Tong’s painting-study were much like the social condition of China then situated — a period full of disasters and adversities, but it richly bore with dramatic features, just by dint of his being absorbed in art with assiduity, so that he has acquired his present attainments. In 1969, when 17 years old, he was sent to the countryside in Jiang Xi Province, where he stayed for 18 years, during which he worked as a soil-tiller, then a railway worker, and then a student of Literary and Art school(run at the provincial level) from which he graduated and was chosen to be a teacher by the school authorities….It is since his boyhood that he has taken great interest in painting, so that he could find out his life’s interesting point at a village far from home, it lasted for 30 years plus, during which he was cemented by art. As he invariably kept on his painstaking study, in the winter of 1980, he obtained the 3rd Prize (oil painting ‘Self – Reliance’) in the 2nd National Youth Art Exhibition; no doubt, this meant a great stimulus to him. In 1984, he was recommended by an art teacher, Mr. Quan Shan Shi, through whom he could attend a refresher course at Zhe Jiang Academy of Fine Arts, where he happened to meet Mr. Zao Wou-Ki, the top oversea Chinese artist, who returned from abroad to deliver lectures, this greatly developed the artistic visual field for our Chinese art students. Mr. Tong Jian Ying was especially attracted by Mr. Zao’s high-principled and superior concept of art. Mr. Tong’s experiences of that period and the way of Abstract Painting he chose later were most likely related.Those early abstract works of Mr. Tong’s were not merely the exploration in language form, they also reflected certain characteristics in Chinese art practice in the 80s—through art media to effect the appraisement of reality. In the period of his experiences studying in the Zhe Jiang Academy of Fine Arts, Mr. Tong Jian Ying’s creations have not merely unshackled the forms of painting; meanwhile, reflected the circumstances he was in, and being uncertain of his own art orientation in attribution and exploration. During the fission of social reality and ideology, he tried to rebuild a new acquaintanceship with art. In 1978, Mr. Tong Jian Ying was transferred from Jiang Xi Province to Shanghai, in the following year, his first Solo Exhibition was held at Shanghai Art Museum, where the exhibits of his, were all abstract paintings, which could be counted as a ‘Summary of his early abstract works’. And in that very year, he embarked on his creation ‘Inscriptional Series’, since then, no brake whatever has been able to cheek his operation. This was the first art adventure of his, in his abstract world ‘The Chinese Ideograms’, which were endowed with a leading role. As one of the earliest paintings in the 80s, he practiced the Abstract Inscriptional Paintings, which are possessed of a strong experimental nature, the real visual-contrast sentiments of traditional culture,. His vast areas of coloring and meticulously specking and dyeing, and are pregnant with a beautiful tincture sprinkling in the infinite firmament. His first work ‘ Colored Inscription Rubbing ‘, stately and delicate are the Chinese Ideograms dipped in the phantom of colors, looming and looming, are they the memorabilia of history, or the illusion of the present world? Perhaps, the painter himself failed to understand that the creative power he exerted accidentally, but now, while touching upon the sense of sight, we have already been led into a world filled with surprise and unknown. Shanghai ( after being reformed and opened ) has become a hub concentrating a good many artists of young generation ; especially, a group of abstract artists, who have formed an art atmosphere of looking forward to the future, so it may be counted as under a banner of their own. Mr. Tong Jian Ying’s Abstract Ideograms, no doubt, have been the solely practical representative in the field of Shanghai’s Abstract Painting. Let’s look at it reversely, these abstract-ideographic creations also reflect that Shanghai was once a city with marked characteristics of colonial culture. The character elements of the Orient combine with those of the Occident, within the visual field of open culture, artists keep trying a vast variety of measurements and principles. When entering into the years of the 90s, it was also the period that Mr. Tong Jian Ying’s creation was at its peak. The painter has explored lots of creations on the theme of Abstract Ideograms, so that a new look was explored in the field of his Abstract Painting; this done, the confidence of his Abstract Art Creation becomes more confirmed.The miscellaneous experiences of daily or the concept of consciousness forms an invisible linkage net, just like a man roaming in town, on the one hand, he tries to find the way out; on the other hand, he still lingers the narrow streets there, just like a gradually unfolding-self-drawn map, which tells us to familiarize ourselves with the surroundings; simultaneously, it is also the way to understand the real situations, in the course of his continuous explorations, and the appreciation of those real feelings by degrees.In 1996, owing to the requirements of the art teaching program should be met, Mr. Tong Jian Ying made a long trip to Macao. Five years of his experiences sojourning at Macao, his native consciousness was strengthened in the language environment of colonial culture. We often say that excellent artists are also the ones who are masters of ingenuity, they are able to clearly judge the relationship between the environment of the times, and the artistic culture. It is in Macao that mirrors a strong colonial culture, which tugged at his heartstring by the special ‘Realness” in two ways. First, living in a colonial city with the blend of multi-cultures, he played a role in absorbing cultures from abroad; meanwhile, and an impromptu introducer of Chinese native culture. The multi-cultural environment in Macao, on the one hand, enriched Mr. Tong’s viewpoint of art creation, and above all, this situation, on the other hand, caused him to convert to native culture in the midst of the multi-ones. Maybe, only the one who deems it a personal favor, that special cultural environment can begin to make an artist seek for a strong cultural cognizance, which starts from the heart’s core, and ends in art’s form. This was the very period of experiences that galvanize Mr. Tong’s Abstract Painting into another realm. After engaging in his taster of colors and shapes for scores of years, he was made to commence a new way of thinking.After Mr. Tong experienced scores of years’ explorations, the linkage of various situations that form the net of human-life and art belongs to him. Weaving our way in it, we can see that the artist’s new stages of continuous innovations, wherein we are moved to ecstasies. Or perhaps, only the artist himself can really understand that the very net is exactly the myriad interwoven knots in his mind, which are the seeds that are pregnant with the infinite possibility of gemmating in the days to come. His experiences staying at Macao acted as an external cause for his important turning point in painting exploration. Tracing back to the internal cause, it is his unremitting reflections and explorations toward human-life and art, and the traditional literature was a great fascination for him in his childhood, or perhaps, he came into contact with those famous thread-bound classical works, which are the foundation of his present art development. He was born in the background of an intellectual family, while practicing penmanship or doing some reading, he had some early acquaintance with the Chinese purest art — Calligraphy. When the obscure memory in his childhood re-appears in his paintings, it will turn out to be weighty and solid. Those character signs congeal the cultural experience in his art creation, they also reflect the human-life experience of the artist himself.We can view the works created in the period of his being in Macao, Mr. Tong Jian Ying, standing on a still broader stage, created lots of Ideographic Inkwash Rubbings( attached paintings, 1997 ). The textures of those painting surfaces were brushed away by the strong native cultural consciousness, what they are appearing is a spread of hanging psyches moistened in these inkwashs. Let’s take a cautious look at his Ideographic Inkwash Rubbings — sparsely clear and thickly dense，glassily limpid and tastefully strong, elegant and free as air, they are the visual poetry swinging to and fro in the space, and also singing, chanting, and intoning to the native culture. We may say ‘Ideographic Inkwash Rubbing’ is the most telling witness that bears the form of its peculiar cultural environment. The Chinese Ideographs in his artistic world have not merely played the role of abstract signs, but are pregnant with psychic effects generated from the inner power. Standing in front of Mr. Tong’s paintings, I would have a feeling as if they were near and yet unreachable, this impact perhaps comes from the deep sentiments of national consciousness, it is the very reason that we should take care of our native cultural consciousness and make a response to it.If we say the abstract ideograms in the 80s were leading the artist into the realness of art ‘ Metaphysical Exploration ‘, then the ones carved after his sojourn at Macao have become his another channel to express the cultural experience through the realness of art. Whichsoever channel adopted, it would with no difference enhance the possibility of Mr. Tong’s abstract art being comprehended or the possible angle of being comprehended. Isn’t that the exactly greatest comfort to the artist’s creation?Through over 10 years’ creation of ‘ Abstract Characters ‘, the Chinese Ideograms have not only served as the ‘ Image Signs ‘ in Mr. Tong Jian Ying’s painting art, but also worked as the personified ‘ Image Insignia ‘ of his own. Sure enough, no matter what color that produces fantasy, or the inkwash that bears connotations, what presents to our sense of sight is all the Chinese Ideograms, those elaborate characters wood-carved in Song Style, the bizarre bronze inscriptions, the potently robust style of Yan Zheng qing’s, the flowing and cursive handwriting…by rendering it possible that all these shapes and symbols of the Chinese Ideograms, and various styles of calligraphically emotional suggestions kneading themselves up with the purest points, lines, and surfaces, through expounding analyzing and re- marshalling, so that we can decipher the characters and re-savour the painting channel of aesthetics.Since the birth of abstract language, it has possessed a very strong exploration and experimentation, nearly any artist plying in this field of should not only have a dauntless spirit of innovation, and more requisite is to condense the grand conviction in art. Mr. Zao Wou-ki, the predecessor — initiated a road to Abstract Painting, now Mr. Tong always keeps the feeling-concept through his own painting exploration, and striving for realizing the maxim ‘ All roads lead to Rome ‘ in the sonorous atmosphere of visual art. In contrast with Mr. Zao’s Abstract Painting, which derives consciousness and sublimity from Nature, and acts as a flowing stream in the Chinese art; while Mr. Tong employs in his abstract paintings the shapes of Chinese Ideograms, from which he extracts his artistic concept and cultural experience, and catches the forms of beauty carrying with the feelings of history and culture, and expresses himself the experience of culture and cognition towards the native culture at a new visual angle.Mr. Tong’s art does not deal with any significant themes, while the gist of his is about what language is used to express the artistic conviction and cultural belief in his cognition, but it does not represent that he disregards the contemporary real environment of the society and artistic-cultural atmosphere. Since the beginning of the 80s, the field of the Chinese art has springing up like mushrooms, the Chinese artists have just spent only 20 years or so on practicing art exploration that lingered a century’s period in the West, especially, when entering into the 90s, the contemporary art practice became more and more animated brisk, in this grotesque world of art, most people inundate the newfangled styles of art in the manner of Igniting Tentatively—Switching-Off Immediately, in which we have felt a hidden pain caused by ‘ Over-Nourishment, Indigestion ‘. In this bustling environment, Mr. Tong’s art exploration reveals itself much purer. Different from those vanguard artists, what Mr. Tong emphasizes upon is the Elegancy of the language, not its Peculiarity. This might be exactly his original motive that he chose Abstract Painting 10 plus years ago, during which he commenced an unflagging exploration into Abstract Language, it was the need that he wished to express his art ‘Metaphysically’ also, it was the need that he was inclined to touch the realness of art in his inner man. Art is valued in its truth, and only truth does render people moved, any ecstasy with intent is all lividly void and of no use at all, no works are weighty but the real ones, no artists but the veracious ones, who can bear the brunt of not being flushed out by history. In the 20th century, Duchamp Marcel (1887-1968) said, ‘ Don’t believe Art, but the Artists ‘, which has been a maxim for modern art. Any accomplished artist, with no exception, is weaving consciously or unconsciously a net, in which is located his or her own real situation, and are settled each of their own coordinates, the best testimony is their works. Standing in front of Mr. Tong’s paintings, and musing upon them, we would realize the pure tincture in which conceals an infinite flowing expression, it is on this visible but unreachable plot of heaven and earth, where is located the embodiment of Calligraphy-Painting, which mirrors the artist’s lucid and clear frame of mind.Mr. Tong’s works originally belong to ‘ Calligraphy as well as Painting ‘, if taking them as ‘ Calligraphy—for their lucidity with condensation that deduces the beauty of Abstract Paintings; if taking them as ‘ Paintings ‘—for their touch of our sense of sight, and also their beams going directly through our minds. The Combination of Calligraphy-Painting world bears its purity and abundance, just like the painter himself, who cherishes a mind of pure art with which accompanies his copious artistic practice all the way—from Representationalism to Abstractionism，from Colored Rubbings to Inkwashes… He consistently believes: Art Creation offers people a possibility of approaching to esthetic appreciation. Entering into his world of art and listening mindfully, I’m sure that you will find this kind of possibility.