Yang Jun has created a series of flowers named “Happiness”. Although they shared the same name of the early works which were painted on flax-paperboard and inspired by stone relief of Han dynasty, integrating the trace of dye into the paper with the sense of crude fiber, the new work presented more different features. Instead of flax-paperboard, he chose the smooth paperboard which could represent the moisture and thickness of water and ink. The style of his flower turned more realism, but more than just painting. He combined the graphic image with ink to make a brand-new looking of his flowers. For Yang, it’s not a weird thing to develop. Because he never had any rigid idea. That means he always changed himself to express more feelings of Chinese painting.

　　It’s a valuable quality for Chinese painting which was easy to stylize, but it constantly making troubles for the artists---Yang was one of them. The trouble he made this time was to explore a contemporary way for the traditional flowers and birds painting. But it’s easier said than done. In the history of Chinese painting, the language of brush-ink and the intention-to-paint constituted the internal logic. And the Shanghai freehand brushwork had achieved the peak. The visual structure was one of the achievements that the fellows hardly went beyond it. According to some points of view, that’s why there’s no breakthrough on modern Chinese painting. But Yang didn’t seem to care about it. He devoted himself to the freehand-flower besides figure-painting. He started a research in the early work that inspired by stone relief of Han dynasty, and went further in the recent work “Happiness”.

　　Of course, Yang was different from the artists of Shanghai freehand brushwork. He changed the internal logic under the language of brush-ink and the intention-to-paint, and turned to reorganize the freehand brushwork flowers and birds painting according to the clue which came from the trace of dye and the graphic image. Maybe that’s the reason why Yang differed from the other artists. He brought peace and purity into the work “Happiness” by overlapping the pure colors and ink, and made the techniques of brush and ink fade away. What he had done made it possible to find an interesting way, which was out of brush and ink, in the visual language of Chinese painting. At the same time, he gave the work some feelings like subjective sense of visual experience by planing the images rather than simple “westernization” to avoid the blunt, boring way of painting. All these made his works different from the “new tradition” realism since 50’s. In other words, he explored a way that linked to both tradition and innovation.

　　Maybe that explained the unique style of Yang’s work. On one hand, he changed the bold style of Shanghai freehand brushwork, and turned it into the delicate style. On the other hand, his style kept the traditional spirit of Chinese painting, which was quiet and elegant, that suited both refined and popular tastes like Shanghai freehand brush work always did. It must be a good try for modern Chinese painting to develop based on the traditional resources. And thanks to his idea that so called “making it fresh”, we can gain something excepted.

　　Aug. 9th, 2010. Wangjing

作者：Wangjing