Obsession with trains, this summarizes the lifestyle and artistic style, the fun of life and art for Han Juliang.

One whose life is merged with art is happy and admirable, for he deeply perceives the value and meaning of the artistic life and the art of life. This is both a realm of life and the charm of art. For Han Juliang, his charm lies in his integrating art with life.

Obsession is an emotional expression directing at possession: therefore, an obsessed person watches what he likes, talks about it, and even does it obsessively. Similarly, paintings of trains are the final step for painter Han Juliang to realize the possession in its true sense. As Preface to the Mao Poetry writes, with feelings in the heart, one expresses it with words; when words do not suffice, one sighs with regret; when sighing suffices not, one sings about it; when singing suffices not, one dances to express it. To express and relieve his feelings in movement, and to create and own his creations in movement, this is actually why Han’s painting art is sincere and joyful.

Amidst this sincere emotion is some contumacy, some obtrusion, and more persistent, just like the trains in his paintings, with giant body and vigorous power, which are ponderous but swift as wind and quick as lighting, and which is graceless but fearless. Looking at his paintings, one is strongly impressed with the youthful breath and the image of a big boy: sturdy and fearless.

The persistent of the big boy is staunch and even stubborn. His perseverance is a kind of daring youthful strength and a regretless passion, admirable, appreciable, eldritch and lovely. This is the image in Han’s eyes and in his heart; and this is the authenticity and profundity that Han strives to express: an authenticity and truthfulness that is the exposure of true feelings of people and the demonstration of true interest of painting.

This persistent pursuit of the true interest of art by Han Juliang originates from his unrelievable obsession. The true interest of art lies in the seeking of truth and relies on the depiction of the reality, which is a direct and instinctive esthetics.

In the paintings of Han Juliang, there is no contortion, exaggeration, or decoration, for in the depth of his heart, Han knows that the truest presentation is not only the most natural and direct expressions, but also the most effective expression. When the authentic image and the truthful feelings integrate, the sketching skill becomes the one and only choice. In this manner, Han does his paintings for years, meticulously and continuously, unfolding his joyful life and his innocent art through the images and colors.

In Han’s paintings, all he presents to the audiences is the rigorous and meticulous locomotive image. That is all. Therefore, we can never see any objective factors in Han’s paintings: not that he obscures himself, but that he extracts the image. Painstakingly Han cultivates this selfless realm in art, for the perfect symmetry between the natural substance and the painting image to enable the audience to directly retrieve, through sight, the intrinsic connection between the two without any disturbance—truthfulness, both of the natural substance and the painting image, and more importantly, a truthfulness between the two: the emotional truthfulness possessed by the painter and the emotional truthfulness perceived by the audiences. The authentic retrieval of the visual image revokes the experience of the emotional image on man’s instincts and the painting itself. Therefore, it is fundamental, basic, simple and pure, and, more importantly, direct. It is perhaps that absence of the subjective emotions of the painter that leaves sufficient room for the audiences to participate and recreate as a subject. The painter’s paintings, as an objective guideline, invoke the experiences and memories of the audiences, enabling them to re-experience the emotions and feelings—the emotional image-- of these experiences and memories. This is probably why Han’s paintings have become an art appreciable by both the elegant and the vulgar.

Such an esthetic ecstasy brought by this true interest is unparalleled and irreplaceable. Therefore, whoever is immerged in it is satisfied and delighted.

Indeed, this true interest characteristic of discovery makes one linger; but even more attractive is the rational interest characterized by disclosure. From discovery to disclosure, from true interest to the rational interest, this is the logic of fact of persistent pursuit and the rule of history of artistic development. Han’s new works, Power—Juliang, which resembles the engineering design diagram, symbolize the transition from the extreme pursuit of true interest to the disclosure of rational interest.

Created by Han Juliang, Power—Juliang is completely stylistic of Juliang. The return to innocence of Power—Juliang precisely denotes Han’s lasting, unsatisfied wish to become a locomotive designer.

The return to innocence is represented in two aspects: first, this is reflected in the characteristics of the painting: without virtually any color, shade, or perspective, all means of artistic exhibition is abandoned here, leaving only the tidy and clean lines. Therefore, if these can be called Han’s painting works, then they must be the return from luxuriance to innocence, to sketches; second, this return is shown in the image: the locomotives in the paintings are neither the visual illusion of the real substance nor the duplication of the design diagram of existing locomotives; in other words, they have never been produced or depicted before in reality. This is reasonable, for they are the original designs by Han Juliang according to the locomotive theories. Therefore, these works by Han are no longer the image imitation of the objective substance but an indispensable part of creation, which is called “design”.

In terms of sketch and design, Mr. Fan Jingzhong holds that, design, as a term of the fine arts, first showed up during the Literary Renaissance, with the original meaning of sketch. In the 15th century, the Italian theorist Francesco Lancilotti referred to it, as well as color, composition, and creativity, as the four elements of drawing. Giorgio Vasari also called Design and Creativity the parents of fine arts. In the 17th century, art historian Baldinucci especially emphasized that sketch includes the creative ideas of the artist. Thereby, design has become a symbol that differentiates the capability of different artists (Encyclopedia of China—Fine Arts). From this sense, the sketch works or design works by Han Juliang have their long traditions: people’s longing for and approval of creations, and yearning for and recognition of creations before human civilization entered into the modern labor division stage. Therefore, Han’s works can be regarded as a contemporary embodiment of the beauty and creation concepts back in the Literary Renaissance stage.

The age of beauty and rationality of creation combined is now gone. But this elegant and solid esthetics undistinguishing art and science has persistently been the ideal realm pursued by people, a realm that requires the exploration and accumulation of knowledge and the persevering and regretless passion before one could reach.

When science and art is combined, we see the rhythm of civilization, vibrant with the power of civilization. This is the joy of wisdom and the wisdom of joy, because Han Juliang knows, today in the 21st century, it is impossible, and unnecessary, to turn his design into reality; even more clearly does he know that the union of the scientific wisdom and the artistic skills is the most consummate and direct means of expressing his inner world that has formed since his childhood and grown increasingly mature with the passage of time.

Facing these seemingly age-old drawings by Han Juliang, one distinctly feels the finiteness of practical value and eternality of esthetical value of all substances and couldn’t help but taste some disconsolation and regret. However, amidst this faint melancholy, we see another kind of persistent: the reverence and worship for the creative spirit, the most fundamental creation of human beings.

In the face of the infinite future, we today may be in the age of the persistent big boy.

From depicting trains to designing trains, this is a process of transition from eulogy to creation, from admiration to possession. When these take the incarnation of paintings, we see the psychological process of a big boy’s growth from persistent to wisdom and the esthetic track of an artist from true interest to rational interest.