English philosopher Poper once pointed out that various contemporary artists have become victims of pessimistic cultural propaganda, believing that they are obliged to observe and reflect what they see as a dreadful world. Meanwhile, some intellectuals are telling people that they actually have to live in this hell, too. The result is that they not only make people feel discontented, but also unfortunate, and hence deprived of the happiness of life. He took Beethoven, who ended his life of symphonies with the “Ode to Joy”, as an example. We should perceive the progress of time, feeling blessed and thankful to be alive.
　　The paintings of Yan Bo remind me of the cultural optimism of Poper. The works of this young painter are full of bright sunshine. He expresses his appreciation of life through colours. We not only see the colours of life, but also understand life through his colours. Naturally, as an artist, Yan Bo’s spirit is not governed by knowledge and reason; his understanding of and expressions about life are more a result of his own particular feelings towards life. He relates sensitively to visual experiences and has a unique perspective on life. Yan Bo’s paintings are like the works of artists from some minor Dutch schools, full of self-contented satisfaction and happiness. What happiness is this? Is this real life? Maybe we can say that Yan Bo’s works are like the biography of an individual life, and the visual expression of the values of an ideal society.
　　Gonburich warns critics not to put words into the artist’s mouth when it comes to creating symbols of values. “It is important that critics know that for creative artists, the metaphors in their works are actually metaphors, produced to express themes central to their lives. Such things as the beautiful, clear, elegant, real, healthy and decent are only different aspects of non-interpretable experiences in the rich system of values.” Superficially therefore, we can say that, to some extent, Yan Bo’s paintings express the wishes of people for a beautiful, healthy and decent life. Like the diligent work of the white collared workers in the numerous office buildings, isn’t lying on a sunny beach, enjoying the wind from the sea just a different aspect of life? Viewing Yan Bo’s works from this perspective, we cannot simply dismiss the simple pleasures of life as being “bourgeois”.
　　Art should satisfy people’s common desires for the “beautiful, healthy and real”. It is man’s instinct to be attracted to happiness and to avoid bitterness. Due to the pressures of civilization and the need to conform, such human instincts have always been silently suppressed, hence Freud’s theory of the sub-conscious, where true desires can only fully be expressed in dreams and in art. Different cultures interpret man’s behaviour in different ways. All approaches to life need a creative outlet in order to relieve the pressures of civilization and to ease the tension between reality and desires. In Yan Bo’s works I have witnessed a blossoming of life. As Goethe portrays in “Faust”, “adults and children are both jubilating and exulting, I’m a man here, and I have the right to be a man here.” The works of Yan Bo show the common state of young artists born in the 1970’s. The primary difference between artists of this generation and those of the 1980’s is that they lack desire to be heroes in the revolution of their country, aware that the whole world in watching. They take their personal life as an important source of inspiration and by observing daily existence from a fresh perspective they are able to convey novel sensations. Of course, these feelings lack the unassailable certainty shown in the works of previous painters, which were the result of clearly defined ideals and values. In the works of young painters of this generation, we see deviation and trance, obliquity and narcissism. In the works of Yan Bo, though silent hopelessness appears occasionally, the portrayal of the enjoyment of leisure-time is uncommonly refreshing.
　　The recent works of Yan Bo can be roughly classified into four groups. One group depicts scenes of daily home life where individuals lead a carefree existence.  Another group depicts scenes of a man accompanied by his pets (mainly dogs). One group consists of portraits of enlarged heads and the last consists of intimate scenes of a couple’s family life. All these works reveal our shrinking life space, which corresponds directly to Benyamin’s concept about “the indoors”. Due to the acceleration of industrialization and globalization, the rapid development of urban areas and the assault of mechanical images upon man’s feelings and memory, man has to retreat more and more from public places and the outdoors and stay inside and enter the inner world of the soul, in order to be able to retain some personal feelings and to be aware of ones own image. Modern skyscrapers and the social interaction of the nuclear family have greatly changed the traditional communication styles of the neighbourhood, making the portrayal of indoor scenes and family life the major subject of contemporary paintings.
　　Regarding artistic creation, Goethe once said: “don’t ever try to discover any novelty, but observe in your own particular way those things that are already discovered.” As we are part of the world, me must experience all of life’s ups and downs including happiness and pain. While commenting on the world in which we live in different ways, we tend to neglect to examine ourselves and observe in turn our own feelings and understanding about the world, emphasizing instead the “should-bes” of the world. 　　　　There are many enlarged head portraits in Yan Bo’s works. As a symbol of individual self-examination, they express the self-reflection and pondering of the individual, like people examining their own faces in the mirror in the morning. His intimate observation of animals, personifying them and capturing on canvas their unique expressions, also reflects modern people’s thirst for love and affection. With regard to the objective perspective, Yan Bo’s paintings also reminded me of the “big head portraits” of the Japanese Yamato-e, a very simple drawing technique that draws the head closer for observation. This approach to creating an image originates from impressionism, the photography of the late 19th century, to be exact, in which the camera is pressed up against the object so that the true appearance of the object can be captured as clearly as possible. Yet Yan Bo’s paintings are not as exquisite as this super realism. He either uses a palette knife or paints the canvas with thick brush strokes. The strong colours surge upon our retina, blocking out our own thoughts and leaving us immersed in endless beauty.
　　Yan Bo’s works are not purely concerned with the pleasure of colours since he has also exhibited a series of black abstract paintings.  Emphasizing the importance of texture these paintings highlight the mysteries of the origin of light, i.e. the origin of life. Life actually originates from darkness; the same way clearness originates from ambiguity, and elegance from lowness. In Yan Bo’s recent works, there are a lot of blank spaces. This resembles the void left in a Chinese ink painting, which is actually an integral part of the work. Yan Bo, who graduated from the Department of Design of the Tianjin Institute of Fine Arts, clearly knows about “leaving some white and keeping the black”, and juxtaposes blocks of dense colour against large blank areas, creating a harmonious balance in all his works and distinguishing them from the multitude of other works by contemporary artists. Yan Bo does not conform to standard compositions, which have a subject in the center and then a background. In one of his works, he depicts the heads of two people and two dogs, one black, one white, at the four corners of the canvas, leaving the centre blank. Not only does this demonstrate the artist’s creative spirit, but also his yearning to go beyond the mediocre. In short, his sensitivity towards materials, colours and proportion constitute the essential qualities of his art, while his unrestricted and unique sense of individuality comes from the enlightened and unrestrained education that his parents have given him.
　　　Among the cluster of stars of young contemporary painters, Yan Bo is attracting people’s attention with his unique style. One can liken his works to elegant chamber music. He has expressed the feelings of a new generation about life, a life that is neither too pessimistic nor too serious, but more caring and thoughtful. Finally, I’d like to quote a famous saying of Boes which relates to Yan Bo’s paintings: “when someone gazes upon man with dismal eyes, I have only doubt: why not cast bright eyes upon all creatures?”

作者：Yin,Shuangxi