Famous painting historian James Cahill discussed the literary painting concept "sincerity and spontaneity" promoted by Su Dongpo in Song Dynasty in his paper Sincerity and Spontaneity in Chinese Painting: the Rise and Fall of an Ideal (Art Research, No.1 2009). The amateur-like "sloppiness and carelessness" of many literary painters in Ming and Qing Dynasty were critiqued by Li Rihua and other critics, leading to the longing for the return to the ancient styles, perfect painting techniques and serious treatment of elegant subjects. The pursuit of elaborate and impressionistic styles by professional and amateur painters is an interesting topic in the history of Chinese painting. Fang Yizhi, a philosopher in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty, made a brilliant comment on this: "The painter who practices the elaborate style is confined by the technique itself; the painter who practices the impressionistic style is confined by the unlimited space." The elaborate style tends to be stiff and rigid while the impressionistic style tends to be vague and general. Till now, it is still an insurmountable bottleneck for many Chinese painters.

　　Chinese painter Feng Dazhong's exploration during recent years can be considered as a Chinese painter's solution to this historic problem. Feng Dazhong, born in Benxi, Liaoning Province, has long been highly famous among artists of traditional Chinese painting. As early as in 1984, at the Sixth National Art Exhibition, his work Awakening (co-painted with Mr. Song Yujia) won the silver medal. In 1985's International Youth Art Exhibition, his elaborate-style work First Snow won the silver medal and showed his artistic potential. But since then, Feng hasn't shown up much in public and held many exhibitions of his works. He has immersed himself in the creation of new works for several decades. His artistic ideal and pursuit focus on the basic aesthetics and brushstrokes in Chinese painting. He regards the elegance in traditional Chinese painting and sincerity and spontaneity in literati painting as his artistic pursuit. In recent years, Feng has conveyed his aesthetic ideal of combining elaborate and impressionistic styles, tradition and innovation in his landscapes and bird-and-flower paintings.

　　As the backbone of modern Chinese painting, Feng and a number of other excellent Chinese painters can be regarded as something of an endangered species. They exist in the arts institutions such as arts academy and studios and are protected by this social environment and arts system. They are not satisfied with being mere bread-winning painters. People want them to get in touch with Chinese painting's history and shoulder the responsibility of innovating Chinese painting. Actually, these Chinese painters live in a dilemma which may limit the growth of innovation. Since this system protects the group's values and many painters consider themselves belonging to the system and will protect this value system subconsciously, which may ignore the other arts schools and values.

　　However, innovative painters and trends have always existed throughout Chinese painting history, such as Xu Wei, Bada Shanren and Shi Tao. It is not reflected in a painter's family background or social rank, but is reflected in his concepts and works. No matter what group or school he belongs to, the call for individuality and innovation has been raised to an unprecedented level. For example, the collective awareness in Song painters'landscape paintings, whether it is the panoramic landscape painting in North Song Dynasty or the regional landscape painting in South Song Dynasty, is fully reflected and the individual aesthetic and innovation are embodied in this collective framework. But under the personal liberation since the Ming and Qing Dynasty, the emphasis on liberty, individuality, especially the germination of modern thoughts such as Eight Eccentric Painters in Yangzhou, it symbolizes the emphasis on individual creativity and the breakthrough in the whole system and pattern. Since Shi Tao, painters emphasize differentially and don't pursue similarity, which is different from the mainstream standard in traditional Chinese painting: Quality first, innovation second. (The quality of a painting comes first and then come the style and category.)

　　Feng adopts the strategy of One Hand towards Tradition, the Other towards Life, searches for innovation on the basis of tradition and expands his brushstrokes on the basis of sketches. For the past decade, Chinese painting market has been overheated and there have been a lot of brush associations and painting works, but in terms of artistic quality and innovation, there is little progress. After 2004, Contemporary Art floods into the market and the focus of arts media turns to oil painting. According to Feng, he can use this period of time to conduct artistic thinking and he spends almost two years studying the ancient masters' classic works such as Bada Shanren and gain inspiration from them. After experiencing the untimely loss of relatives, Feng deepens his understanding of society and life. In his recent works, birds and flowers paintings convey the harmony between lives in nature and landscape paintings convey the clear and bright state in the world. If you say that Feng's poetic works show concern for the personal feelings before 2005, then his works after 2005 add more sense of history and show concern for origin of life. They are simple and natural, expressing a vast and lofty eternity.

　　As for many learners of Chinese painting, the plum blossom, the orchid, the bamboo and the chrysanthemum are their familiar traditional subjects and there are many famous masters and the later generation can't innovate in their paintings. Feng doesn't agree with this although he has painted these subjects several decades ago and he has a different understanding of the traditional subjects after his life experiences. He considers the paintings as a challenge and wants to paint some new meanings. He expresses a new artistic conception and explores a new language and a new means to make these traditional subjects modern and enjoyable. Feng thinks if a painter wants to find new things out of a very old subject he shall learn from tradition and life. This is the ultimate means and the absolute principle. Only by improving one's knowledge and aesthetic tastes can one paint these old subjects. These subjects can't be conveyed through mere splashing of brushstrokes, but shall be used according to the inner thoughts. The painter must first have this quality and knowledge then he can convey this artistic conception.

　　The road chosen by Feng is a traditional and innovative one. Throughout Chinese history we can see innovations in different historical periods but every literature revolution is characterized by the return to the ancients such as Han Yu's ancient literature movement. Zhao Mengfu praises highly Chinese painting because he thinks that contemporary things are too vulgar and irrelevant so he tries to find a stable, dependable stuff. So is Huang Binhong. He constantly recalls the history of North and South Chinese Painting School and tries to establish his own artistic style and evaluation system and gain confidence to innovate.

　　But the purpose of recalling tradition is not to duplicate or repeat ancient masters' arts. Feng's generation has deep feeling for traditional culture and they are thinking about modernity every day because everywhere they see modern reality. In Feng's paintings he not only emphasizes the modernity and originality of paintings but also shows concern for the culture itself and hopes Chinese paintings can move to a higher and deeper level.

　　Compared with the popular trends in Chinese painting during recent years and the piling up of a certain painting school and pattern, Feng's new works have raised the importance of sketch and quick sketch. Feng said: "I don't like to paint a pure symbolic subject because that gives us an unreal feeling without an immersed sense, which can't be interpreted as painting a picture. This is a dialectical relationship. My whole artistic practice is to integrate my understanding of brushstrokes with my feeling of the painted subjects on the basis of cultural conception of traditional Chinese painting." He thinks, in traditional Chinese paintings, sketches of life are to portray life, living things and vitality and this is a lifelong task. Feng transforms the sketches of scenes in western paintings into sketches from memory and conducts innovative structural transfer on this basis. He turns to impressionistic style and paints the images in his mind and his life.

　　Up to now, we need to clarify the impressionistic and elaborate style in Chinese painting and recall the famous Chinese painter Zong Baihua's comment on the elaborate style in Chinese painting. Many people think impressionistic style is the basic feature of Chinese paintings, which do not paint realistically and scientifically and are not advanced. However, Zong thought that Chinese paintings emphasize realistic painting among the whole range of criticism in the May Fourth Period. This is very meaningful. In Introducing Two Books on Chinese Painting and on Chinese Painting (1932) Zong mentioned: "Landscape in Chinese paintings in Song and Yuan Dynasty are always barren and bleak, like the world at its very beginning. There is no sign of people, no author and bystanders. It is nature and natural life at their best." (The Complete Collection of Zong Baihua's Works, Volume 2, Anhui Education Press, 1994, p. 45). This paragraph is very appropriate in describing Feng's recent landscape paintings. In his recent works, Feng's mind has already been immersed in the brushstrokes and he himself in nature and has become a part of nature like a tree, stone and cloud.

　　In On the Origin and Basis of Chinese and Western Painting Techniques(1934), Zong pointed out that Chinese paintings focuses not on the mechanical realistic painting but on creating images although its original emphasis is on realistic painting, such as the delicate paintings of birds and flowers which rank first in the world. The image mentioned here refers to Realistic and Intangible. But we also note that Zong's realistic style is different from western realistic style and he also emphasizes realistic style is the starting point of Chinese paintings not the finish line. "However, realistic painting is only the starting point of paintings. From realistic style to conveyance of the charm of life and character, from vivid expression to the creation of artistic conception, the artist's final and ultimate mission is to explore the mysteries of the universe and life." In The Realistic Spirit - for the Third National Arts Exhibition published in January 1943, he discussed the realistic style of Chinese painting systematically and said: "every artistic realm can be categorized as realistic, vivid and innovative: from natural imitation, conveyance of living things to the creation of artistic conception. The basis of arts lies in the loving for the whole world, not only love their images but to love their soul from their images. The soul is embodied in the lines, colors and volume." (The Complete Collection of Zong Baihua's Works, Volume 2, Anhui Education Press, 1994, p. 323) Feng's recent works start with realistic style and pursue vivid expression and innovation. As for Chinese painters, realistic and spirited reflects the inner uniformity between realistic and impressionistic styles and is not the binary opposition imagined by people.

　　Feng not only studies the ancient people's paintings in his studios and often copies an ancient painting for dozens of times and bring his understanding into his life. After copying Bada Shanren's works repeatedly, Feng knows well Bada Shanren's concise and compact use of brushstrokes and simple and elegant ink usage. This directly influences his mood in painting and makes him pay more attention to the division of black and white and the pursuit of spiritual states.

　　As Feng has said, "I study these masters' works not to make my works like them, but to transform out of tradition. I learn from life not to simply imitate their works, but to read their works more. Different from the copying of many Chinese painters, my main technique is to explore subjects from life." As for the relationship between tradition and brushworks, Feng thinks, the understanding of tradition is - a painter has perceptual knowledge of reality and creates excellent expression means and methods. With the use of traditional techniques and brushstrokes the picture is still modern. Likewise, the work is still modern if it doesn't use the traditional elements. Tradition makes us inherit the elite culture passed from ancestors and history. Tradition is an objective existence and should serve our creation and we should study how to coordinate tradition and life by using our works.

　　Take Feng's West Peak of Moun. Hua as an example. This is a realistic painting on spot. He wants to explore a way of brushstroke to convey the stone structure of Mount Hua and he paints the geographical features of Moun. Hua by using realistic style. In his paintings, the type of texture strokes and bigger structure are somewhat like the Rational Interest promoted in Song dynasty but the detailed methods are different. His method is similar to Fan Kuan's method, that is, dense and sparse dipping. However Feng's ultimate purpose is not to use the type of texture strokes but to convey the spiritual and life inspirations by using sketches. In Feng's many sketches we can see the sketching and quick sketching techniques practiced by him for many years. Facing a common tree he can paint it from different angles and outline it repeatedly and paint its structure features, including the minute changes of different tree trunks. As Fan Kuan said, "All previous masters learned from things around them. It would be better for me to learn from things around me than to learn from any person, and still better for me to learn from my heart than to learn from things." Fan Kuan's works all come from sketching and life while Feng obtains similar creation inspiration by using sketching technique and summarizes the concrete brushstrokes from nature and practices Fan Kuan's sketching ideal.

　　Take Feng's Awakening (2008) as another example. The painting techniques are still traditional and agree with the objective scenes and the subject he wants to paint. Therefore Feng's painting, whether it is impressionistic or elaborate, attaches great importance to the conveyance of the real scenes and objects. In the old pine trees and plum forests painted by him he handles space and structure well and conveys the spatial structure and overall format by emphasizing blending and pitching. It reflects the vigor and vitality in nature and full texture sense and makes one feel immersed and genial. In Scene after the Rain, Feng vividly depicts the silent and vibrant bamboo forest by the mountain stream, especially the stretching new bamboos. The new form and posture remind us of Kaii Higashiyama's emotional confession: "In the shade of the mountain there is a nameless stream, a silent world. I watch the undetected corner of the nature and feel the deep voice."

　　In the big landscape painting such as Frost over Autumn Forest, Feng conducts innovative search for the painting of streams in the mountain. He studies the ancient masters' paintings of streams. It is mainly an impressionistic style and is composed of outlining and the composition of different lines that expresses the stream-like signs. However Feng pays more attention to texture of water and its movement and its rhythm and saturation caused by the change of stream and makes us feel it and that our soul is soaked in the sunshine and stream. Feng integrates his feeling and understanding of objective scene and things on the basis of tradition, such as dots and lines; the insertion of images and things; the blending of color and ink instead of painting with one set technique or format. The stream painted by Feng can be very abstract and concrete at the same time.

　　According to Feng, if the picture you paint is not to convey the life felt by the painter then it is purely a game of ink. What he wants to convey is not the exquisite brushworks but the real life and his own feelings. The relationship between man and nature is what Chinese art wants to convey and the painter sets up the channel for dialogue between one's mind and nature. Feng's landscape painting doesn't pursue the extraordinary form but hide itself in the environment and this is so-called "unity of heaven and man" and this is the core of Chinese traditional culture.

　　Feng has spent dozens of years in expressing modern people's state of mind and understanding of nature by innovating Chinese painting. His works transcend the boundary of mountain and stream, bird and flower in Chinese painting and integrate them in many pictures. Meanwhile, he makes innovation on the basis of sketches and makes his painting unlimited and free in terms of spatial structure and color expression and acquire the real modern sense without losing the elegance of traditional Chinese painting. As for the expression of effects of light and volume in Chinese painting someone thinks it is against the tradition of Chinese painting, but Feng thinks it is an expansion and all the expression methods are in accordance with the scene and theme. He doesn't consider whether it is planar or spatial and what culture it originates from when he chooses his painting methods. What he pursues is the most suitable integrating point between painting and painted subject. He thinks, as long as it can enrich the picture and reach the realm he pursues then it is a good one. Therefore Feng integrates and expands his artistic forms on the basis of tradition. Feng's artistic pursuit further confirms Chinese painting's developing progress in the 20th century and its innovative road on the basis of the study of tradition and painting from life.

　　Wangjing, February 25, 2009

作者：Yin,Shuangxi