With the so-called end of the art and the withdraw of God or the Supreme Being, modern painting began the withdrawal of painting itself, never again focusing on the expression or representation of any objects. With the American abstract expressionism of the 1960s, in the paintings of such artists as Rothko and Newman, this withdrawal or deity-absenteeism had already begun, with this absence becoming the subject of their painting. Though Lyotard called this an inexpressible expression of the sublime, it actually amounted to the disappearance of all the visible. If there is nothing to convey, and the condition for emergence is lost, then if aesthetics still exists, then it must be as the aesthetics of disappearance and the disappearance of aesthetics. If painting is to express anything, it can only be the disappearance of painting itself, i.e. the disappearance of art becoming the subject of painting. When painting has become the meta-object of itself, only emptiness remains. But where is the fertility and reality perceptivity of painting? When everything is abstracted, what can painting still take in?

　　Painting has become empty, and in this regard, it must maintain its non-being or emptiness while also accepting something. How is this tension possible? Can Chinese artists take on this challenge? We can see that the painting of Jiang Dahai responds precisely to this situation.

　　The emptiness is maintained, but a certain openness is also present, an openness that is impossible to fill. So what can enter this openness? Infra-mince qi! The allure of traditional Chinese aesthetics lies in its avoidance of falling into an absolute, oppositional relationship between being and nothingness, which is possible because of the method of transformation from infra-mince chaos and the khoralisation. François Cheng described this “densely vaporous” infra-mince qi in the preface to the Chinese version of his work Vide et plein: le langage pictural chinois : "All works must primarily contain the saturation or tension in the interweaving of Ying and Yang, and this saturation and tension is present throughout the composition and arrangement of brushstrokes and ink. " Cheng addressed the characteristics of Chinese art in speaking of the void. But now, let’s imagine the void, the passage to the void and the infra-thin all become verbs. The Yinyun or the metamorphosis of the energy infra-thin is different from the Western conception of emptiness, and thus is difficult to understand for the Westerners. Therefore, contemporary Chinese artists are asked to represent the infra-thin qi in a creative way while absorbing Western art forms to achieve a universal visual perception.

　　The “void” (or infra-void) is not nothingness, nor is it being. The infra-void has been adequately emptied, yet it never allows itself to be constrained by any discipline. It remains uncertain and within a state of passage twards the other (“the passage from one to the other takes place in the infra-mince”). Isn’t it precisely the infra-mince that Duchamp quietly speculated on in his 1937 notes? What of the possibility of reconnecting painting and the readymade? While maintaining this delicate passage, mankind’s reason and principles cannot follow this change, but we can imitate the changing nature. Nature has its own categories, but in the passage of qi, and especially in the fluctuation of clouds and vapor, all rules and forms are ephemeral; only change is eternal. Therefore the substantive-being and void-nonbeing are only two extreme states. That is because true emptiness does not exist in the universe, and there is no absolute opposition between the one and the other. What exists is the passage towards the void: between all creatures, there is always room for infinite plasticity and the subtle transition.

　　This infra-voiding, however, must possess “emptiness” – the openness and lack of definition, rather than absoluteness, as well as acceptance - the ability to absorb limitlessly. In its concrete form, it accords with the principle of quantum mechanics: on the one hand, there are particles and smaller particles, which collide with each other, and have multiple opportunities to change directions in the microscopic domain, even if these are only possibilities; on the other hand, the particles also have wave properties. Provided that the observer does not appear, which causes the collapse of the state, the wave function is always established, which guarantees uncertainty, indefiniteness, and the possibility of change. But how is this duality possible? It is made possible by this infra-voiding: it maintains both the subtle changes of particle properties and also the wave properties, which do not bind, but remain in a fresh state of change.

　　Hence the metaphysical quality in the work of Jiang Dahai. In his painting, countless particles glitter with intensity; they maintain in a state of potential formation, as if rotating, yet they also remain silent. Is this not the "mystery of mysteris" (darkness beyond darkness) in Lao Tzu’s Dao De Jing? What magic did the painter use to produce these “points”?

　　First, it is related to the pointillism of Georges Seurat, a painter loved by Duchamp. Seurat accumulates points to create multicolored blurred images, in the same principle as that of the TV screen. Uncertain points overwhelm images of objects by providing a misty and poetic glow. Having lifed in France for twenty years, Jiang Dahaiknows the tradition of French art, and has made various attempts to introduce a Chinese infra-flavor into these traditions. In the 1990s, he covered calligraphy with faint points. These spots and points are only remnants, or rather points in disappearance or in dispersion.

　　Second, the points or spots in Jiang Dahai’s artworks are also derived from the “Mi-style clouds” of the Song dynasty. These Mi-style points hav been vaporized or evaporated, and the stones are no longer stones, but many tiny ink dots that quiver and breathe, making them move like the clouds. Jiang Dahai continues to dilute these points, but in a new form: on the one hand, they are more intense, and thus the energy is invested internally, which is absent in traditional ink painting. On the other hand, they are more diffused, spreading endlessly, and are as thin as broken elementary particles. As a result, from the smallest to the largest, Jiang Dahai has introduced an internal sense of force into this sense of qi.

　　Third, these points emerged from chaos, and will always maintain a state of chaos, thus never shifting towards a concrete formation. On the murky boundary between chaos and incipience, there are portents of metamorphosis. The premonition of a coming incident without the coalescence of a visual image is a type of visual perception the artist learned from late Ming dynasty painter Gong Xian. Gong Xian used the “ink accumulation” technique to create landscape paintings marked by a desolate, wintry atmosphere, employing a subtle layering effect through the points and dots of the accumulation technique. The spots in Jiang’s paintings are more dynamic, absorbing and overlapping each other, providing subtle variations of color. Between the static and dynamic states, the colored dots subsume, assimilate and dissolve each other.

　　This mixing and fusion, as revealed by the titles of his paintings, convey the withdrawal of the particles towards the chaos, rather than towards a clear subject, much like the sense of particles and sense of breath found in film. This is the subtle aroma of time; it may be abstract, but it more often emerges as an afterimage (infra-image, infimage).

　　All images in our times fall under three categories: high-quality imitations of traditional images, as if the temporal distance of the past has disappeared, in effect making the past itself disappear; images made with high-definition technology, making everything exceedingly clear, losing the misty backdrop of reality and the charm of life - cartoon and anime imagery is nothing more than a derivative form of this, and there is no future for it; and then there are the images imbued with the feel of film, which have nostalgia for the past, but it is a past without value in reality. Thus, there is a triple loss of temporality. How to restore this corporeal temporality, one that possesses a new visual image, instead of simply abandoning the visual impact of technology?

　　The visual perceptions brought by Jiang Dahai’s artworks make for a great response to these issues: in their resistance against high-definition, they enter into a vaporous state of diffusion. This diffusion possesses a high-definition background, because we can actually see those countless accumulated particles. As we approach, they grow clear, but as we move away, they disperse, bringing a subtle atmosphere. These particles form into a certain vaporous state, and in the painter’s adjustments, in the repeated spraying and writing of the points, modifies the particles, which generate an internal white light. This is the light of vaporization. It is not a bright, clear light, but one that is softer and full of vaporousness, more infra-empty. It no longer shifts towards the clarity of visibility, even though one can see a certain flow of clouds within.

　　The texture of traditional Chinese culture is well embodied in Jiang’s artworks: on the one hand, there is the breath, the qi or the wispy clouds that awaken the feeling of the living, instantaneous change and natural evolution; on the other hand, it is also found in the texture of jade. The energy of the intense concentration of particles creates an internal hardness as strong as granite. It is the attraction, the concentration as well as the flexibility in the diffusion, which possesses a beauty comparable to porcelain.

　　Where does this elegant beauty arise? Apart from the vast gray haze, there is the gray azure found in Chinese porcelain. It appears that the painter loves the color of porcelain, particularly that of the Song dynasty, the color of celadon, that is to say, the celestial blue-green. The Celadon glaze of Song dynasty porcelain has wonderful colors: celestial blue-green, celestial azure, pale blue-green, pea blue-green, moonlight white. Among the colors, celestial blue-green is the most expensive, and the pale blue-green and celeste azure are also very valuable. It is important for the contemporary Chinese artist to memorize these colors. If black is the extremity of abstract painting, probably in the celestial blue-green of celadon is retained the life experience of the Chinese people. This celadon color, in relation to the Western gray and the gray colored Chinese ink, gives birth to a subtlity of the visible but impalpable, which connects the intention of the accessible and the inaccessible, the softness and the hardness.

　　For this reason, a hardness of porcelain is revealed in the subtle vaporization of Jiang Dahai’s paintings. In the gray color at first glance, a purple that is elegant, charming and serene pours slowly. For the patina of the celadon glaze of the Song dynasty, observed from outside, it is as smooth and warm as jade, and observed on the inside, there is hardness. As for Jiang’s paintings, when observed from inside, they are in a state of diffusion, and when observed from outside, they have the strength of the condensation of particles. In the changes of colors, from the force of the qi to the fore of strength, the plasticity of the particles is fully embodied. The works of Jiang Dahai share with us, and the whole world, the charm of the living texture of the Chinese tradition after the baptism of abstraction.

　　[this text translated by Shi Wenxin and Jeff Crosby]