Written byJia Fangzhou

　　(Translated by D. Christopher Harry)

　　From the perspective of oil painting, Li Qian’s works should be classified as landscape paintings. Yet her “landscapes” are painted in a comparatively unique manner, as most of them do not depict scenery per se, but rather take skies and clouds alone as their subject. In the history of European oil painting, landscape painting, which reached its maturity in the 17th century, employed various scenic elements as subjects: streets, countrysides, mountains and rivers, forests, rivers, the ocean … the sky was simply a foil to contrast with the scenery or added as a part of the scenery, but very few works abandon scenery altogether and solely employ the sky as their subject. And it is this characteristic that gives Li Qian’s landscape paintings their distinctive quality.

　　Of course, Li Qian also has painted a certain number of works depicting scenic land elements, yet she usually only paints a bit of landscape scenery along a horizon placed very low on the canvas; by no means portraying it as a focal point. Her interest still lies in the ever-changing sky above. When we look at her numerous works focused upon the sky, we cannot help but wonder: what is it in the vast expanse of the sky that fascinates her, as if utterly and inexhaustibly spellbound? We may even further ponder the following: since there is so much beautiful landscape scenery she chooses not to paint, just what is it that compels her to prefer painting the seemingly void and obscure skies overhead?

　　Perhaps Li Qian’s interest in the sky stems from her experience of painting physical landscapes in the west of China. Whether it be desert, gobi terrain or grasslands, this vast and monotonous wilderness – where even trees are far and few between – is virtually empty. There are simply unending mountain chains broken only by the odd appearance of white stupas, whereas, under the same sky there often appears unexpectedly wondrous views. In life, everything is constant and given. Rarely is there room for imagination. If we further relate this to the rut of convention and prescribed routine of city life, the constantly changing sky then becomes even more fully imbued with visual appeal. That kind of dramatically indefinite element, which at any given moment can lead to new possibilities, inspires in people an anticipation of splendour towards this great void; like unto a symphonic piece, at once intensely stirring then blissfully placid. At this very moment, there may be nary a cloud for as far as the eye can see, and then, in the blink of an eye, rising winds and surging clouds emerge. At times, black clouds loom heavily over the city, at other times the sky is resplendent with glowingly rose-coloured clouds … it is this mysteriously capricious force that evokes boundless reverie and longing, affecting our moods and emotions. Wang Guowei once said: “All poetic description of the natural landscape is in fact the language of emotion.” And so it is in this very sense that Li Qian’s use of the sky as a scenic motif can also be understood as an expression of her innermost emotions: a kind of ineffable anticipation towards unknown and indeterminateelements and a yearning to behold beautiful visions. These exterior elements, whether they be dazzlingly splendid, sombre and gloomy or implicitly rushing headlong – a diversity of intertwining and colliding visions – in fact, to some degree mirror her internal world, forming a sort of isomorph that parallels her own inner feelings. At the very least, in the process of expression, her inner feelings achieve a kind of release; namely from the mere use of scenic views to invoke thoughts and emotions toward entering a realm that blends scenery directly with emotion.

　　In another respect, Li Qian expresses emotion within her landscape paintings in that she seldom paints cloudless, pure blue skies, but rather focuses her abounding interest solely on the multifaceted array of cloud shapes and colours, their wavering fluidity, and capricious nature. The sky is like one great stage whereon the clouds are its main character. Cloud clusters ceaselessly swirl and gather, the cloud layer in its perpetual drift spreads thin or piles together, while the clouds undergo abundant spatial and colour transformations in differing light: enabling the language of Li Qian’s oil paintings to come fully into play. Added to this, the fact that cloud layers and clusters are devoid of any predefined shapes allows her to be freer and less constrained in terms of expression while tending more toward a kind of subjective form of rendering, even so far as endowing her works with a type of metaphorical characteristic or symbolic connotation. For example, in “Her sky” there is conveyed an intensified premonition of foreboding while in “Good morning Beijing”, owing to hints portrayed in the array of buildings on the ground below, a large expanse of red clouds in the sky also appears to be facing toward a centre point as the clouds converge. This manner of subjective treatment doubtlessly arises from the necessity of given motifs in her works.

　　The particularity of Li Qian’s landscape paintings lies in the fact that they are not confined by prescribed conventions of shape. Nevertheless, from the perspective of oil painting techniques we may still observe that these skills have been employed to quite outstanding effect. In terms of expressing spatial distances, her works still adhere to the principle of perspective and norms of artistic realism as they relate to the varying distances of cloud formations, while the changes of colour in her skies still comply with the relation between spatial distances and gradation. All of this can be attributed to a fairly solid grounding in painting from nature. However, attaining even greater advances based on this foundation will require further efforts on her part with respect to emphasising individual characteristics in the language of her oil painting, thereby enabling her to gradually establish her own distinctive artistic style.

作者：Jia,Fangzhou