Beauty is human perception of the objective world. Without the objective world or human perception, therewould be nothing that exists as beauty.
　　Hundred of definitions of beauty can be found in the history of fine arts. It is described in diverse oppositeterms such as largeness or smallness, truthfulness or goodness, existence or non-existence, medium orextremity, health or illness, harmony or tension, masculinity or feminity, integrity or deficiency, usefulnessor uselessness, sensuousness or practicability, here to name just only a few.
　　Some people hold that beauty is something difficult. That is because it’s not easy to look into its nature,perceive its presence, exalt its level, embody its spirit and create beautiful things.Here we  only discuss the embodiment of beauty rather than the other aspects of it mentioned above.
　　Beauty can be expressed by such vehicles as language, action, color, line, sound, and smell, each ofwhich posesses its own features and expressive forces.
　　To express beauty through colors and lines is painting. Despite that Chinese painting and western oneboth are painting, they adopt different techniques in pursuit of different artistic moods. The former puts emphasis upon the attainment of spiritual charm before it tries to achieve formal resemblance, while the oppoiste applies to the latter. Spiritual charm is The Meaning and emotions embraced in the object. The mountain or the water in the painting is something abstract in the mind instead of being concrete, which it is impossible to identify. Formal resemblance means being true to life and identical with the real thing. The mountain or the water in the painting is something concrete and easy to identify. Besides, different expressive methods are adopted in order to reach different aims. Chinese painting aims at attaining spiritual charm, thus paying no attention to perspective, dissecting and coloring which are essential for western painting to achieve formal resemblance. How can the third dimension of an object be created without the knowledge of perspective? How can the texture of a character be presented without the employment of dessecting? How can the multi-colored world be reproduced without the mastery of coloring? Western painting reveals the scientific spirit whereas Chinese painting embodies romantic sentiment. In contrast to Chinese painting, western painting presents beauty by means of truthfulness which itself contains goodness. The truthfulness depicted in western painting can be located by followingup a clue, while the goodness presented in Chinese painting is indescribable in words and hence can only be sensed. The former features standard and classicism while the latter pictures freedom and unrestraint.
　　The reason that Chinese painting and western painting seek for different ideal realms derives from thefact that China and western countries differ in philosophic thinking, mindset and cognitive patterns.According to Chinese philosophy, the universe and the human are a unified whole, that is, the universeis the human and the law of the universe is the way of humans. However, western philosophy argues fordichotomy- separation and opposition of the universe and the human. Hence, unlike Chinese philosophywhich advocates perceiving and understanding the world as a whole, western philosophy approaches theworld in terms of its individual components. In this sense, the former lays more emphasis on integrationand harmony, thus giving priority to the command of way or law, while the latter stresses analysis, thusseeking for the utilization of techniques. As a result of this difference, more importance is attached to image and macrocosm in Chinese philophy than in western philosophy which highly regards reason andmicrocosm. For those in favor of image or macrocosm, imaginal thinking plays a more important role;for those giving preference to reason and microcosm, logical thinking tends to be employed more often.Logical thinking leads to science and imaginal thinking to humanity.
　　What if the different Chinese culture and western one are blended with each other? What if the opposing Chinese philosophy and western one are conciliated? What if the Chinese art and western one begin to learn from each other by absorbing good nutrition from the other? Their differences are real, but to blend them is desirable. To blend their differences is to produce a new difference so that a new mixture can be generated; to plant ideal into reality is to make a new reality so that a new ideal can realized. This is an endless circle and should be the only way to the development of Chinese and western culture, philosophy and art. It is necessary for painters to take this road for an epoch-making  breakthrough in painting.
　　Mr. Yang has been practicing oil painting for years. With strong will and perseverence, he is not onlyskilled in oil painting but grasps its quintessence. In comparison with western painting, Mr. Yang’s works are matchable in content, form, technique as well as spirit. Judged by the degree of being true to life or formal resemblance, the paintings he produced have reached such a high level that his masterpieces are believed to be marvelous, although they can not claim to have reached the peak of perfection. Nevertheless, never content with himself in the least, he often quotes the ancient sage’s saying thatthose who imitate others will be trapped in a blind alley. Even if you can imitate perfectly the previousmasterpieces, the paintings are not yours but sheer worthless imitations. Unwilling to remain out of thelimelight by nature, Mr. Yang adheres to the basic principles of western painting, meanwhile he turnsto chinese painting, absorbing nutrition from Chinese culture. In recent years, he has been strolling inthe edifice of the techniques and skills of Chinese paintings, and roaming the great palace of Chineseculture. He studied ancient Chinese classics such as Lao tzu, Zhuang tzu, Confucius, Mencius, scriptureof Buddhism, Chan, etc. Through reading these books, he has taken nourishment from the the traditionalChinese culture to ensoul his paintings. We maintain that the foundation of oil paintings by Chinese lies inwestern techniques but their soul depends upon traditional Chinese culture. A painting can not claim to beoil painting without the employment of western techniques; a painting cannot claim to have soul withouttraditional culture. The development of Chinese oil painting should take the way of presenting the soul oftraditional Chinese culture by using western painting techniques. That is the right road Mr. Yang is taking.He has read Gu Kaizhi, Zong Bing, A Narration of Painting, Appreciation of Painting, which equippedhim with a theoretical knowledge of painting to grasp the spirit ofChinese painting. He also read ZhangDaqian and Qi Baishi, which armed him with the knowledge of painting techniques to master the tasteof Chinese painting. Based on western techniques, coupled withChinese skills, making full use of themerits of Chinese and western painting, Yang’s works are endowed with both form and soul, emotion andreason.
　　This is only kind of theoretical perception and understanding of Yang’s paintings.
　　Please refer to A Collection of Yang Zhijian’s Works of Painting for practical considerations.
　　By Jiang Jicheng
　　Post-doctorate Supervisor in Chinese Language and Literature
　　Editor-in-chief of the Journal Ancient Chinese Research
　　On June 23, 2008