I always deem Mr. Cai Xiaohua as a professional painter, i.e., painting is his life. The title implies two meanings: his works are simple; and he simply persists in. He always reminds me of several persistent painters who seemingly forget the fads and buzzes in the art with a slow pace but who eventually surpass their time and leave their contemporaries far behind them.

　　It is not difficult to categorize the Cai Xiaohua’s works into a certain artistic chronology; however, a predicament embodied in his works is unique and single. As a professional painter, he is acquainted with the painting language, painting form, style of writing and the like; particularly, he is such a rigorous painter who advocates the delicacy of the painting that his painterly work is of great enticement. However, his recent works are caught in anti-painting, which makes people feel perplexed. He almost completely eliminates the trace of painting, but he is really painting there.

　　This is a gorgeous trap elaborately created by him, which does not play a trick on others, but in which he jumps himself. He is in a quiet and bright predicament.

　　This is called “Paradox” which enables me to think what Socrates says, “I know that I know nothing”. Certainly, that he knows nothing means that he knows everything. Whereby, the predicament created by Cai Xiaohua can be interpreted into “I’m drawing but I’m drawing nothing”.

　　The reason why Socrates also is a very persistent person does not lie in that he is a there philosopher. In my opinion, he looks more like an artist (His father is a sculptor, and he studied and was engaged in sculpture). He loves predicament. It does not mean that he intentionally says some strange words, and is infatuated with the fast knot at the cost of his life. Therefore, he seems to be relieved and enables the future generations of people to get in chaos.

　　2413 years ago, Phaedo described that his teacher talked about the soul with his students before his death: when soul is combined with the flesh and migrates to the other world, it is not pure and is always polluted by the flesh; thereby, we must relieve the soul from the flesh to obtain complete freedom; and the soul which is taught in such a manner only cannot be killed, blown by wind and disappear when being away from the flesh, so that no fear is generated.( (Plato’s Phaedo) translated by Jiang Yang)

　　Therefore, we are often caught in all kinds of paradoxes like art and anti-art, content and form (whether the form without content exists or not, and vice versa) and painting and anti-painting. It is almost defined that the art is to create or express the predicament called Dualism in the theory of philosophy, conflict by the classicist and “tension” by the modernist.

　　However, the final paradox in Cai Xiaohua’s works is not in his painting but basically comes from the predicament of the philosopher’s life.

　　I think that Cai Xiaohua is exclusive and ambitious and has a sharp intuition on painting. But, he seems to resist biological existence with spiritual existence. The overflowing spirituality always tries to break through the body skin; and in the seemingly simple and quiet picture, a suppressed force is surging, which is a tension of heart and is a struggle between heart and body.

　　At length, painting becomes a spiritual upbringing to remove the dirty body, and desires, bitterness and joy, even intellectuality can be given up, so that a simple and clean existence is obtained; and thus, our life is free, and the eternal life is gained.

作者：苏中秋