When the hiding clouds pass, the cold moon is in sight, where everything is in silver.

　　Zhou Hongyi, the young artist who spares no efforts pursuing the spirits of  Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting, has come to a brand new stage of this artistic style. For decades, he devoted all his energy to trying every means of painting techniques which he could get self-improvement from the masters over the past. Finally, he mastered All complex skills ,acquiring his own personal style. He analyzed and copied the masterworks from early artists such as Li Cheng & Fan Kuan of Northern Chinese Landscape Painting to earlier anonymities, dating back to Song Dynasty 1000 years ago. Among all the painting topics, Mountain Scenery is the one in which he can literally show off. In his Mountain Scenery Painting, people can see titanic peaks and gorges between which there are soaring rivers. All the pictures in one, there is a word best describing for it-Majestic.

　　When Zhou graduated from the Department of Traditional Chinese Painting, Xi'an Fine Arts Institute, he enjoys his life as a lecturer of Applied Arts in the Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an. Besides his daily teaching works, he never forgets he is still an artist. His mind awakes when he is walking in famous great mountains and rivers. Spiritual old folks and fishermen are common highlights in his works, which represents the ever lasting traditional Chinese gentry's dream-live the rest of his life like a wild goose floating in the forgotten pond and in the blue sky. Zhou Respects for the ancient techniques, but he never satisfy it. He wants some breakthrough. After years of hard work, Zhou finds ways deducing many new meanings of the life, expressing the voice of the artist. Zhou's masterpieces are tunes of positive spiritual music of human nature.

　　Quoting Wang Guowei's famous saying in his <On Poets> to illustrate the impact Zhou's masterpieces make to the world, "Where there is 'me', everything is 'me'. Where there isn't 'me', everything is nothing. "   That's the spirit of Zen. Chinese culture values highly of the people who has great wisdom appearing slow-witted. Therefore people think the capacity of the artists not only expresses in the creative process, it depends more on the knowledge of life, the ability of detecting things. Just like "Still water runs deep", it is a positive accomplishment in life that making the artists different.

　　To a Chinese landscape painter, the classic of his work is always expressed by the means of creating a special environment. In this way, the painting is not just a  painting , it shows the spiritual world of the painter. Here the painter is not copying the scenery, he is trying to seek a best way of his heart. All the work is to find self-adapt subjects and personal style, understand more comprehensive about the meaning of the life. That is how it works. The environment created has a unique artistic charm, it shows what the painter want to express. And it judges the quality of the work.

　　For decades, Zhou travels numerous plates of interest all over the country. The landscape painting , the happiness go together. Zhou has accumulated a large amount of material , he has a more profound understanding of the Natural's law , a more profound understanding of the truth of the art . Therefore his work has a natural flavor and a Majestic vision. Just as Zong bin says ，"In his spare time he enjoys looking at flowers blossom and fade away. Stay or leave, he does not care much, just to let the heaven decide his destiny."Zhou has this state of mind. Zhou pays more attention on the life care. There are no better sentences can describe his works.

　　Besides painting, Zhou spares lots of time on calligraphy and Chinese seal. He seizes every opportunity exploring different art form, from which he gains some valuable experience. He analyzed and copied the masterworks from early artists such as Su Dongpo, Huang Tingjian ,Mi FU & Cai Xiang of most famous 4 Calligraphers in Song Dynasty , researching again and again about the most classic works of the Wang Xizhi & Wang Xianzhi, the most famous 2 Calligraphers in Chinese history. Absorbing the distillates of many masters, blending with his own characteristic, Zhou is finding his own unique artistic style.

　　This book is a collection of Zhou's Chinese landscape Painting masterpieces, at the same time a collection of Zhou's Traditional Chinese calligraphy. I strongly recommend it.

Autumn 2008

Written in Xi'an

（Zhao Nong, Dean and  Doctorate Professor of Department of Art History, Xi'an Fine Arts Institute）