I prefer to call Yang Ermin's Xuan paper painting ink painting because my feeling convinced me. If I try to arrange my feeling logically, I can sum up a few points. First of all, his painting is based on sketches in structure. His paintings are full of strong images. The garden, a corner of the room, still life, figure and landscape are not just pure sketches but the second nature created by the artist. Eventually he has to return his creation to its original viewfinder and there is no such a concept as viewfinder in traditional Chinese Xuan paper painting.

　　In painting, he learned the images mainly from the traditional images of Western impressionism, post-impressionism and Fauvism. Tabletops and objects on tabletops are seen with elements of contra-perspective or vertical view in getting a horizontal view. The expressive power of colors and shades are strengthened with elements of decorative color in his sketches. The tableau, with colors being dominant and ink being supplementary, is full of colors without any blank space. The painting, based on sketches, is arranged horizontally. A1l these mentioned above are methods of artistic creation, quite different in style from traditional Chinese Xuan paper painting, which focuses on the dominant use of ink, stylized shapes and mobile viewpoint with blankness as blackness. One of his works, A Landscape Based on One of Monet's Works, can well symbolize the cultural source of Yang Ermin's artistic creation.

　　The true value of Yang Ermin lies in that he brought about a creative transformation by means of color painting on Xuan paper and his color painting is endowed with a certain significance of Chinese culture. From another angle, Yang Ermin started with Western painting without following the traditional development of Western painting and, on the contrary, he widened the language method and spiritual connotation so actively that he discovered new possibilities of success from the field of Xuan paper painting, which enjoys a history of hundreds of years. Lin Fengmian had already begun to explore this way of creation many years ago, yet Yang Ermin found his own proper way to explore deeper.

　　Smoothness and simple elegance, which are also most difficult to achieve, constitute the outstanding feature of Yang Ermin's painting. His paintings are done with simple but elegant use of color. He didn't use those pigments of strong covering power. He used very little strongly rich colors; sometimes he did without them. One can't find in his painting distinctively bright colors and the dull, withered, pale and obscure colors are all excluded in his painting. In this way the special water-absorbing quality of Xuan paper is best displayed and thus his smooth strokes of brush with simple elegant colors become unique in Yang Ermin's painting.

　　Yang Ermin used his brush and colors easily and smoothly and the shades of color and the structure of tableau in his painting are simple and pure.

　　Smooth strokes of brush with simple color are apt to cause such disadvantages as being superficial, crafty, soft and flattering, which are nowhere to be found in Yang Ermin's painting. Sometimes simplicity and purity may look dull and monotonous. However, Yang Ermin successfully avoided these negative elements. He succeeded in dealing with subtle changes. He made clever use of the richness of subtle changes of light or pale colors and he moved his painting brush, smoothly on Xuan paper so as to achieve the richness. Thus the dullness and monotonousness are avoided with ease.

　　Since Yang Ermin is particular with the harmony of shades of colors, he uses undoubtedly more similar colors. He enjoys light colors and the similar colors are restricted to the limit of lightness. This means he has to achieve relatively rich color in the relatively narrower shades of color in order to achieve limitlessness from the restricted limit. Yang Ermin is good at expressing subtle difference in shades of colors between coldness and warmness, richness and lightness, grayness and brightness. Sometimes he even produces a magnificent picturesque scene by using gray and light colors. In his Still Life, no part is strikingly eye-catching in color but still the color of prosperity in the small Still Life, the bright light behind the counter and the bustling atmosphere strongly impressed me.

　　The richness of subtle changes in his brushwork and in the texture of his painting is both important and difficult for him to achieve when he tries to realize his creative transformation by using ink on Xuan paper. I believe Yang Ermin must have done a lot of experiments and exploration in this aspect. We can notice the path of his brushwork. And the mobility of ink goes well with the soakage of Xuan paper. The special quality of Xuan paper with light colors and the soaking effect of Xuan paper make Yang's paintings very impressive. The Pumpkin with Other Vegetables is a typical example of this kind.

　　There is nothing empty in Yang's painting and one can feel the greatness in his seemingly limited space of the picturesque scene. Among his works, Still Life. Landscape Based on One of Monet's Works, the Pumpkin with Other Vegetables, Dr. Andrew and The Flowers at the Window etc are all wonderful pieces that I am particularly interested in. They are as pure and concise as a poem in meaning and as enjoyable as a mellow wine in taste.

January 4, 2009 in Beijing

作者：Liu,Xiaochun