Rivers and mountains can be found everywhere, their grandeur beauty as well as the rich implications linked to reasons of life are inexhaustible. Mountains and rivers complement one another as they have always been with their opposing features: the stillness versus the movement , the hardness versus the softness. They get involved with one another in a capricious but natural way imbued with the theories of Taoism. Appreciation and admiration for natural scenery take root in the true nature of Chinese people, they have a natural born taste and understanding for the natural beauty, they have endowed the mountains and rivers with poetic elements and spiritualism, which are intertwined with people’s meditation on philosophical matters: The wise enjoy the waters, the benevolent enjoy the mountains ( the pleasures of the wise and the benevolent), the highest excellence is like that of water, the sound of the streams is that of the Buddhists whereas the mountains are the bodies of truth, Communication with the spirits of heaven and earth, One has gained a great surprise in finding the real bosom friend from the mountains and rivers alive with spiritualism….the natural sceneries pleases the eyes and the mind. Various kinds of cultural interpretations of these natural sceneries add more charms and splendor to the raw beauty of mountains and rivers. However, the best way to capture the temperament and spirit of mountains and rivers could be no other than the art of landscape painting which have enjoyed a long artistic history in China. It makes up for the limitations of words and lines dedicated to depicting the natural scenery.

　　Li Changji once said, “Paintings with brushes can make up for what is lacking in the world of natural beauty” , just like that art can show the paramount beauty of things. Dong Xuanzai also said, “ Real natural beauty overshadows its painting in terms of eccentricity and uniqueness, yet the paintings will surely be more delicate and refined than the combination of words to describe natural beauty .” This comment clearly and directly pointed out the mystery as well as the wonder of the art of landscape painting. For many dynasties , the landscape painters have made the best use of their talents and abilities to compete with one another in terms of artistic skills and attempted to convey the spirit of mountains and rivers with heart and soul, what is else, they have gained insight and visions from the cultural perspectives of different schools like Confucianism and Daoism and expressed them in their painting, combining the spirits of natural scenery with metaphysical and philosophical thoughts to construct an artistic world of landscape painting that is pure, serene and deep.  Fu Shanchang said, “The use of pen and ink best show one’s nature and temperament.” The skills of painting are akin to Dao, a real art. The brush made from a few hair of a beast has the power depict nature and imagination. Not merely art creation in ivory tower or just limited to vivid images of mountains and rivers, but a true epic written with life. We can also put it in this way: the artistic history of landscape painting is also a history of evolution in the style of images in landscape painting and the forms of pen and ink, in some way, it represents the key dimensions of a nation’s history of mind.

　　Nowadays, compared with the trendy modern art, the art of traditional Chinese painting that advocates the forms and lines has already fallen into an embarrassing state, there is no need to dwell on this matter. However, as the most shining component in the world of traditional Chinese painting, the landscape painting encounters a dilemma. Against the background of the dramatic changes in the means of communication, the representation of space and cultural context, a great number of landscape painters are confronted with the problematic subjects: How to express the world of mountains and water from the perspective of a modern artist under the context of contemporary culture? How to create a kind of visual language of landscape painting that caters to the modern taste? At the same time, the celebrity effect ,the exposition effect , along with the market effect have led to many bad phenomena like blindly following the trend , close breeding in art’s world, revealing the contemporary defect of the spiritual vacuum of the artists. 

　　Therefore, it is rare and desirable for the landscape painters to be able to follow the principle of inheriting the valuable elements from the ancestors without going against the contemporary trend when dealing with visual language, to be able to explore new formulas of pen and ink and express their authentic understanding of the spirit of mountains and rivers. In this sense, Professor Huang Yue from the department of traditional Chinese painting in Si Chuan Academy of Fine Art has given us a good demonstration. His achievements in landscape paintings in recent years provide us with a typical version of Contemporary landscape paintings rich in academic value. 

　　The trail of Professor Huang Yue’s pursuit of art is quite clear, if we had a chance to savor all his main works since he began teaching, we could see the image of a thinker as well as an explorer of pure art—the piety for pursuing true art , the awareness for authenticity in creation, and the talents for innovation under the context of pluralism in modern landscape painting, with different schools pursuing and exploring various forms of art.

　　Professor Huang Yue has created a great number of works in late 1990s, among which most renowed are Yu Qi You  He (Clouds Over Secluded Gully) and Li Hu Ru Xue (Pear Flowers with New Snow). All his paintings are filled with vigor, clarity and fragrance. The novel forms of landscape, the semiotic system with distinctive personality, the wonderful stroke of brush, the construction of sheer Oriental artistic conception, the poetic expression of humane cultivation and cultural awareness gain wide compliments for their academic value and artistic taste and make his works eye-catching to contemporary artistic world amid the surges and falls in exploring and experimenting landscape painting. In fact, he has already delved into distinctive expression of landscape painting as early as the beginning of 90s, creating some excellent works like Lan Se Kong Qi (Blue Air). 

　　It is no wonder that he had already devoted himself to the meditation on the future direction as well as the innovation of landscape painting at that time, thus he had input the universal poem-related themes into each work and implanted his own heartfelt thoughts along with pulses into cultural sphere, combing the spirit of mountains and rivers with the forms of language. All his efforts help make his later works immersed with deep humanity and philosophical appeal.

　　Take a look at his main works in the last 20 years, we find that his language in painting includes pen and ink, and colors. We can also realize that the expression of these paintings compromise the combining language forms of images, concrete images, abstracted images and semiabstract images with the first form in the dominant status. His process of creation can be divided into four stages: the first stage ranges from 1991 to 1996: the period he embarked on the creation of the new artistic language for landscape painting, establishing the adoption of the language formula of painting using both colors and pen and ink, and setting the orientation of his style with inclination to be delicate , elegant and poetic. 

　　The second stage ranges from 1996 to 2000: the formulation of his personal style for painting, in this period he tried to decipher and reconstruct the old form of traditional painting with pen an ink and started his exploration on the innovation of landscape painting formula as well as the visual expression of the colors. What is else, he simultaneously incorporated in his the landscape painting with imagism and abstract art as he had delved into the study of the pure imagism; 

　　The third stage ranges from 2000 to 2005: the manifestation of his personal style, in this period he managed to combine the expansion of space, the pattern language and the personal formula of pen and ink together in a creative way; the fourth stage starts from 2006 till now, he focused on exploring the visual expression of the pen and ink, expanding the ways of expression and types of style. His study of imagism in landscape painting matured. He delved further into the combining form of abstract art and imagism in painting and began his new study of abstract landscape painting.

　　From the perspective of discussing one’s work after knowing one’s background, Huang Yue’s perception of art, his personal construction of the artistic system of landscape painting ,and his orientation of style are closely linked to his teachers’ and family’s influence , his own traveling experience and temperament. His family has a rich education background, his father Huang Yuan(Hairu) is a professor from the department of traditional Chinese painting. He is also a famous landscape painter, calligrapher, having a profound cultivation for Sinology , with a mild and open disposition.    

　　Just like the old saying : “ Wangxie’s disciples carry a special temperament of their own.”, Huang Yue has been imbued with father’s gradual influence, extending from the taste for art, personality and disposition, to the other aspects.

　　He started his training very early, accompanying his father learning the traditional Chinese painting and going out to paint in the field as early as 8 years old. He has laid a solid foundation in terms of his understanding of traditions of Chinese painting, his awareness of the relation between the innovation and the theory of treating objects as teachers, and his self cultivation outside the sphere of paintings.

　　The general atmosphere in the Academy, the influence of the older generation and the neighbors who often discuss the topics related to art, all of these helped develop his interest for art and broaden his horizon. As for the teachers, he benefited from many excellent teachers apart from his father, and he received systematic training of traditional skills in Chinese painting of academic school from the teachers like Feng Jianwu, Li Wenxin, Bai Desong and so on. All these teachers have given certain inspiration on his later improvement on traditional skills in painting and his switch between the traditional and the modern way of painting. 

　　In the year 1990, he carried his bags to pursue studies in HangZhou, learning skills under the instruction of Zhuo Quejun and Chen Xiangxun who are from Chinese Academy of Fine Arts. It was during this period when Huang Yue had more practices and deeper thinkings independently in many aspects: the review of classic landscape paintings, the study on the discipline of the use of pen and inks, the construction of patterns and handling of colors as well as inks, the awareness of styles, the construction of semiotic system in pen and inks, the effect casting upon the cultural meanings by the landscape’s images and so on.

　　Hence, the works created by him in his primary stage can be said as the achievements that he came out with thoughts after he had learnt how to paint in the beginning, the first stage of his career of painting can also serve as the new start for his embarking on  the study of landscape painting since he had accumulated experience from the south.

　　The works created in this period are represented by Blue Air, Green, Serene Villages, these works have already shown his self-conscious exploration of new expressions in landscape painting. There are three conspicuous features in these works: firstly, he downplayed the traditional skill of Three-remoteness(deep, high, horizontal) by introducing the conception of plane configuration into the visual formula of landscape painting; secondly, he broke out the traditional limitations on colors, mixing the use of modern colors with the traditional pen and inks to achieve the effect of building up a realm characterized by delicacy and elegance, secluded and refined in colors and inks, and multiple scratches in random strokes. 

　　Thirdly, he chose the romantic and mysterious elements as the dominant feelings flamed into the space of mountains and rivers, adopting the method of alienating the landscape images from the real world to present the self-centered way of appreciating the natural beauty.

　　Generally speaking,  what he had leant from the classic landscape painting work named Helmit  by Wang Meng and other works during the years of his studies is mainly about how to use the inks delicately, this helps him to enrich his works when he want to have a switch in his creation. Though he started from a very high level, he had been greatly influenced by the way of painting of many teachers and masters. It is certain that the essence of these works exhibit the painter’s approval of the value on stressing the new expression of modern landscape painting.

　　The way of painting fails to show any personality, yet the later works in his first stage of painting present his style and stresses in art. Besides, the paintings of this stage emphasized the construction of the artistic conception and the pursuit of mystery and elegance in style, what should be noticed is that all of these have a close link to his practice of life drawing and his own experience. As for the relation between the painter’s experience and the painting, it's always said that he was supported by the nature. Xie Wuliang also said in his poem by telling the same truth “Being afraid of the exhaustion of talents, I visit the place once again to find inspiration through the sound of waves”.  

　　By embracing the environment of benevolence and wisdom, one can be endowed with gifts from the heaven; so can be wise and talented as one may be. The painter’s experience in life and his meditations on life gradually grew, which also greatly promoted his knowledge, these definitely help him broaden the vision and become more tolerant, leading up to the influence on his works.

　　Before reaching to this stage of painting, he had spent a long time in the areas of Si Chuan province where there are wonderful mountains and rivers, besides he had done life drawing when he visited Mt. Hua, Mt. Huang and the south part of China, he observed the scenery carefully, meditating and pouring out the inner emotions . These experience of art and traveling have all kinds of links with the construction of images in the works of this stage, yet the characteristic of drawings is decided by the author's personality, the influence which he gained from the local surroundings and customs on his temper can't be ignored. The experience of life drawing in his later stages does not only closely link with the works in different stage but also possesses certain connection with the temperament of the human beings in terms of its funny composition of images and the expansion of the types of styles.

　　As a teacher in the department of traditional Chinese painting at Si Chuan Academy of Fine Arts, Huang Yue engages himself in teaching and creation simultaneously, he thinks these two tasks complement each other in someway. The former one related to the theories, methods and skills, this helps him keep a clear head with caution  and think over and over on the general thinking of the dialectic relations between  the traditional and the modern trend of Chinese paintings.

　　The later one dealing with creation requires him devote all his talents to the practice of finding out the modern discourse forms  and  the Multiple complement of the traditional  recourses of landscape painting. What is the most creditable is that Huang Yue can settle down his mind on studying modern art regardless of the worldly pursuits , he keeps the spirits of his own and tries to be away from the extravagance and the superficial,  he does not choose the Western style sword  or  Chinese martial art of using Eastern knives  to dazzle the populace , neither does he choose to rely on the Chinese art of using swords like poking, chopping, scraping, covering, pointing and so on, instead, he only takes the sword on his hand as the tool for practicing  West-style poking. In the chaos of the world of  modern Chinese Art where all kind of patterns show up , he chooses the heavy sword made of black steel—paying attention to the live drawing, collecting the fantastic materials, inventing the works with originality, deepening the understanding of the traditions to find new styles on the basis of the traditional art. Stressing on  the self-cultivation means that one does not have to care about the shining decoration on the point of the sword but store all the powers into the body of the sword as well as the skills of practicing the sword.

　　Following the old saying Know your enemy as you know yourself, he does not fail to absorb the advantages in the use of Western sword and Eastern knife, in this way, he can accumulate lots of artistic skills  and  enrich himself  in order to fight back . Huang Yue clings to his use of pen and inks and be happy with his own simple pleasure in the world of  modern art where fashions really count a lot, at the same time, he is as cool as a cucumber to adopt what he will be in need of in his creation in modern visual art  with the help of his awareness of “stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade from this hill.

　　After the middle 1990s, Huang Yue tried to enhance himself in painting by doing the life drawing, busying himself with the studies on the basic rules in the visual art, like the catch of the basic forms of the objects, the space taken up by the basic forms, the relations between the forms. He broke out the limitations on the sorts of painting, giving a overall consideration on combining discourses of plane-frame design, sculpture and the traditional Chinese paintings.

　　The thoughts and inspiration he gained from this relatively long term contributed to his paper entitled Searching for the formula of landscape painting with personality. Therefore, it is needless to say more words about it. All of these help him win self –elevation in a relaxed and quite way, laying a foundation for his future jump in his career by infusing into his art enough power as well force .

　　The second stage starts from 1996 to 2000, the traveling in the northeast part of China and the life drawing practiced there added more materials in his pursuit for natural visual art; what is more, he gained better understanding of the studies on the materials and the traditional skills and formed a conception of his own gradually;  he also devoted a lot to studying the deconstruction and reconstruction of the formulas in skills employing inks, and learning from other painting styles, thus the works produced in this period are mostly vivid and fresh for he began to form his own style.

　　These works are imbued with the typical scents of poetic elements found in mountains and rivers. As for his special style and art in painting, he created the work Village in the Mountain characterized by leisure and comfort, the Wind Coming from the North West in Gui Zhou is full of mighty elegance and beauty,  the  romantic and mysterious works like East Wind Made Thousands of Winds Blossom at Night, and so on. These works are not copies of the former painters but also different from the works of his contemporaries.

　　Among all these works, the painting named East Wind Made Thousands of Winds Blossom at Night is the successful example for him to display the function of the materials and explore the visual art in this period. In his further studies in the imagism of landscape painting, he started to explore the art combining the imagism and the abstract styles, like Pear Flowers with New Snow and Symphony have shown the skill of dealing with the complicated arrangement of the ink and color, the orderly formation of the form’s effect and semiotic formulation, to create the works full of musical rhythms, like half reality and half dream. From then till now, Huang Yue  has been put endless efforts to make his creation more varied, elevated and wonderful on this basis.

　　From the year of 2000 till now, this is the period for the third and fourth stage in his painting, it is found that the thrust of painting and innovation gained grounds and deepened. On the one side, the achievements Huang Yue had gained in the life drawing at the botanical garden in Xi Shuang Ban Na helped him become quite agile and familiar with the use of graphic discourse in painting, and his personal style of using inks and formulas had become mature and natural; on the other side, his long training on sketches of images and abstracted images gave him an opportunity to have a deeper awareness of the forms of painting. These two aspects contribute to his painting of imagistic mountains and rivers in a mature way, leading up to his further exploration on the abstract landscape painting and the painting with the combining imagism and abstractionism together.

　　The emphasis on the sense of order and music clearly showed in the works of this period is the most conspicuous features that these two can be connected closely and help create a great number of works.

　　The lines of no regular length are simple, complicated and mixed with the flying dots in the painting. Radom though they seem to be, they play quite an important role in regulating the rhythms of the picture and are quite reasonably placed. The reason why he can reach to this high level of mastering the art is that his release and self-conscious display of the achievements he gained from the study of the relation between the painting, basic forms and continuity along with the traditional Chinese painting since middle 1990s. As for the efforts he made outside the painting, it is known that he has a quite good cultivation in literature and classic music, and the exploration for the music nature of the painting has a lot to do with his own cultivation in this way, their relations are just like the inner relations between “Ti” or knowledge, and “Yong” or practice.

　　The works of this period are mainly composed of three collections: the wild and fantastic expression of lines, the inkwash expression, the eccentric and cool expression combining forms of images and lines. Yet all these works keep their quality of being elegant and delicate built on his early works featured by fantastic images.

　　Vigor（2001）, Dancing o f the Brush（2005）, these two works contain the new elements in inks that traditional Chinese painting lacks in terms of formation and graphic symbols. Huang has already advocated something unique by creating the works as follows: Mountains and Rivers（2001）、Clouds Over the Secluded Gully（2001）、Fresh Rain on the Serene Mountain（2003）、Random Sunlight Cast Shadows upon Millions of flowers（2005）which are of a harmonious integration of image and abtractness. 

　　From the year of 2006 till now, his works closely follow the style of the achievements he has made in the first three stages, yet he has been concentrating on the exploration on the expression of the visual effect in pen and inks and searching for the expansion of scope for his oringinality. Among these works, following the work Green Waves of the third stage, and the works like Free Clouds, Soft Wind are for the painter to explore more forms of expression of the same type in painting; works named drifting amid image and abstractness; a series of peculiar but delicate works represented by A dream in Fine Rains, First Encounter with the Summer Rain, the work Asking for the Route in High Mountains contains the form that is akin to the traditional ones but the discourse of ink bearing the novelty; the works like  Hills withered in Cold Autumn Wind are painted with classic image language and input with rich meanings ,yet the works like Withered Hills, Wind, Rhythm of Ink, Clouds around the Peak of Godness tend to be abstract, expressing the subjective ideas and conceptions through the pen and ink, which are quite interesting and eyes-attracting. Some of his works are implicit and lighthearted whereas some are extraordinarily free and easy, reflecting Huang Yue’s personality. His style in painting mirrors his own character and that is perfectly true.  

　　All his works are known for their novelty in expression and styles, their strong visual effect, he comes out with some works wild and repetitious by changing the traditional way of painting,  somehow he utilizes other’s ways in painting to brush out the what he really want to express, or he produces some works known for profound beauty by breaking up the clichés……the arrangement of the dot, lines and planes and the handling of different forms help make the whole work not only express the musical rhythms but also exhibit various kind of charms, and all these demonstrate Huang Yue’s erudite knowledge and deep understanding of the abstract art and also show his rapacious imagination on the nature endowed with poetic elements. 

　　All in all, these works are created on the style influenced by “Poetry is found in the picture” as advocated by a school “Nanzong”, and also following the theory originated from Yuan dynasty on painting “Paintings are created not with skills but Inspiration.” In forms and tastes, they are corresponding with what Zhuda of Qing dynasty advocated, that is the forms of flowers and birds full of real vigor with a harmony of black and white, the wonderful use of dots and lines in Shi Tao’s Scroll of Pictures of Millions of Black Dots and the fantastic paintings on mountains and rivers done by Huang Binhong. In graphic structures, technique arrangements and semiotic systems in inks, these works show their own charm by differing from the traditional paintings as well as the contemporary ones, contributing to the art of landscape painting as a kind of new fine art. 

　　Heidegger once said, “The duty of the poets is to return to the homeland. ‘Returning to the homeland’ is to make the motherland the source of art creation, and return and approach the source.”  Taking a look at the great number of works created by Huang Yue since 2000, one can see how his artistic spirits flying high in the sky and his eulogy towards life, and also perceive his profound meditation on emptiness and existence , life and nature, surreal and real worlds,---his works are attached with a complex of returning to the homeland, and this can be said as his honor to traditional Chinese philosophical thinking with a spiritual horizon of modern people, and also a unbosoming himself to the destination of his spiritual journey, fulfilling the task of questioning and introspecting his own heart through the mountains, trees, waters, stones ,clouds and smoke in the painted world.

　　We can review the elegance and independence of art through the landscape paintings by Huang Yue. If we savor the works carefully, we will find the refined skills in pen and inks, feel his full involvement of the nature and cares for the ultimate. The intention of the painter is as clear as crystal.

　　Zhang Dai said, “One should not make friends with those who don’t have any hobbies, for they might not possess the deep emotions for anything or anyone, and one should not make friends with those who are out of defects, for they might be too perfect to be human.” Similarly, in the world of arts, the paintings without defects are not worthy of criticism for they are short of vigor. One who is critical is the true buyer. As for the subjects of landscape painting which Huang Yue is dealing with at present, what one who knows his arts expects is also his own expectation: it is essential to improve the skills to be more true to life. It is true that a brand new outlook will be unfolding. Huang Yue is still in his 30s and the future is yet to come. But what progress can be made shall come out at the end of the day. At last, I want to end this article with the Buddhist QingYuang WeiXin’s words, “Mountains and waters you see is what you see, but they may not be as what they are, while they are still what they are.”

作者：吴维羲