Traditional Chinese Paintings
Bai XiaoJun
Professor Huang Weilin and his Thoughts
Take
a Firm Foothold in Modernity while Keep the Tradition in Mind
My Understanding and
Appreciation of Bai Xiaojun's
Paintings
At the very
first sight of Bai Xiaojun's paintings, I would think that they are somewhat
different from that I am used to having a look at in terms of my own artistic
taste.
I am in favour of a taste in the traditional Chinese paintings that tip the
scale of aesthetics to the side of the free and natural style with no intention
to present too complicated a design on the picture appearance. But the
appearance of Bai Xiaojun's paintings seems to be in a substantial way well
arranged in designs. If Guilin's landscape is linked to a beautiful Chinese Ink
painting, the water course of the Lijiang River from Yangdi to Xingping in the
misty rain will provoke a sort of feeling that I am more familiar with. With
such a picture of ink and wash coming into your sight, you will feel as if the
whole picture appearance were enshrouded by the main component, the misty rain
in which peaks and mountain summits, where vaguely visable, producing an effect
of then being interspersed on the picture. In the misty rain, everything is in
the state of natural stillness, no sound and no desire of the secular world. Bai
Xiaojun's painting in form of ink and wash represents another style, a style
much closer to that of the landscape at Xing'an or Lingchuan, two Counties under
the direct jurisdiction of Guilin Municipal Government. In the style of painting,
the dominant component of the picture appearance has become mountains while
waters are vaguely visible whereby the picture appearance will let you feel that
it is so fully loaded with designs as to be forcefully wild, vigorously simple,
vast and extensive. There may be such scenic spots as the civilian residences,
mountain trails and stone bridges, which will obstinately display themselves in
the picture, as if to show the existence of mundane affairs going on there.
I was deep into a repeated appreciation of Bai Xiaojun's paintings time and
again. At first, this sort of appreciation was an act a bit purposeful. However,
with days passing by, I must admit that I have gradually developed an affection
for his artistic works the way I have done for a person, who is a stranger to me
at first but after a certain while of daily intercourse with him, a close
relationship has been established between us. This kind of metaphorical
affection for Bai Xiaojun's paintings has been activated by my repeated study
and appreciation of them. It is justified for me to say that a solid foundation
can be discovered in Bai Xiaojun's works, which carries on an old tradition, a
tradition that i haven't come into a close contact with for a long time. In my
mind it seems to have died out but it still saturates Bai Xiaojun's works. Take
his pictures with mountain villages of the northern part of Guangxi as the
subject matters for examples. The appearances of those pictures often display a
river, neither so deep nor so shallow, which seems to drop a hint to the effect
that it runs to somewhere. I've come to realize a subconsciousness connecting
the old tradition has been revived.
For the clarity of what stated above, we may also turn to Guilin's landscape for
an analogy. We are quite familiar with Guilin landscape paintings depicting the
mountains and waters that shut Yangshuo in, a small county within easy reach of
the cityproper of Guilin, for the landscape within Yangshuo is the marker of
Guilin's landscape. And yet, if we arrive at the interior of
Guilin's landscape, we will find the other side of
it. lf Yangshuo's scenery gives Guilin's landscape a prominence of the mood
created by misty rain in which you would feel as if you were an immortal living
in a fairyland, then the scenery of northern Guangxi will represent another
taste in Guilin's landscape, imposing, magnificent and imbued with a spirit
originating from a distant source.
In order to make a better understanding of Bai Xiaojun's landscape paintings, I toured the mountainous region on the upper reach of the Lijiang River, which is geologically situated in the northern part of Guangxi. Different from the land forms of a forest of peaks on the spacious lower reach of the Lijiang River, the district on the upper reach of the Lijiang River presents an imposing view of rolling mountains covered by woods of various trees that will be deep-dyed in late autumn, which looks like a landscape painting composed in the same style as that of Bai Xiaojun's painting, and the appearance of such a nature created landscape painting is also as forcefully wild, vigorously simple, vast and extensive as that of Bai Xiaojun's artistic works.
It is obvious that Bai Xiaojun has a clear idea about how to depict the landscape on the upper reach of the Lijiang River. In 1976, upon his graduation from senior middle school, he joined the last group of high school graduates dispatched to countryside and settled down there. Over one year's farm work in Lingchuan Country as an educated young man settling down in rural area, a chance for him to come into a "zero distance" contact with the land and people of northern Guangxi occurred and this kind of contact proved to be of great significance to his career of art creation. He has not only discovered the side of the naturally imposing, extensively wild and vast view that the upper reach of the Lijiang River has presented his discovery is shown by his paintings in which the rolling mountains and dense woods can be regarded as his accurate expression of the natural scenery of the mountainous area in northern Guangxi, but has also arrived in the inner world of the aborigines whose destiny inclusive of happiness, prosperity and troubles in life are all indispensable with the mountainous area all these are expressed in Bai Xiaojun's paintings by the civilian residences, the mountain trails and the stone bridges. They seem to be a sort of existence in tranquillity but it can be felt that they imply and emit a sort of cry and yearning from the hearts of the aborigines. I've also directed my attention to those works of Bai Xiaojun, which depict the spaciousness over the Lijiang River. It's reasonable to say that the appearances of those pictures stand for the typical scenery that the reach of the Lijiang River within the boundary of Yangshuo County presents. But at the point of Bai Xiaojun's painting brush, the still spaciousness has given way to the wind rising over the Lijiang River, and the strong wind which can bend the branches of old trees at that. Bai Xiaojun has put this mood in his paintings, either intentionally or unintentionally. So, it has made a forceful deconstruction of the tranquil mood in Guilin landscape paintings, which we would habitually intend to feel when we taste any painting that belongs to this category. I've noticed that Bai Xiaojun loves to sketch with simple strokes or lines the moored boat and reflections in the water of the buffaloes leisurely strolling along the banks of the Lijiang River and the views of this kind are often neglected by the majority of the landscape painters. Furthermore, my special attention is paid to the colours that often occur in Bai Xiaojun's landscape paintings. The appearances of his pictures are often tinged with colours, bright red in particular, which come out from the view of the most tranquil woods deep in the mountains or from the most rough strokes and lines. What do all these really mean? To my own understanding, they could mean that we should not always be bewildered by the atmosphere of tranquillity and the mood of transcending the secular taste, which a view of the Lijiang River in the misty rain has conveyed to us, simple because in truth, it is not the whole of fact. We should be aware that the Lijiang River and her people have also had their original desires and simple dreams.
What
I抳e said above is a mere interpretation of the internal logic of Bai
Xiaojun's artistic works, nature and life itself. But I know well that such an
interpretation is far from being enough if it is intended for the works of an
artist who has inclusive views on his or her aesthetic pursuits.
As a matter
of fact, the rural life in Lingchuan, Bai Xiaojun underwent as an educated young
man settling down in the countryside has made him a man endowed not only with
the experience of the simple life itself in the northern part of Guangxi but
also with the character of an artist
und the impact of an artist's aesthetic orientation.
It may be the arrangement of predestination to let Bai Xiaojun become an artist.
During the period of time when he was living a farmer's life in Lingchuan, Li
Luogong, a renowned artist, was transferred to do manual labour as a demoted
cadre by sheer coincidence in Lingchuan, too. At that time, Bai Xiaojun, in
search for the teachers and friends who could help him to make progress in his
painting skills, happened to meet Master Li Luogong, whose artist's reputation
is described as "a gifted man of complete integrity with supernatural
accomplishment in the field of art". Besides, another painter, who is
famous for his inflexible will or tenacity in the artistic pursuit, was also in
Lingchuan. His name is Tan Zhengrong and he is the father of A Xi, a talented
child-painter well-known to the public at that time. So lucky was Bai Xiaojun
that he found the right road leading to his future career, entered the pure
realm of art and acquired the essence of a real artist's character under the
tutelage of those rnasters he met in the chaos of "the cultural revolution".
Shortly after "the cultural revolution" was brought to an end, social
order was established out of chaos. In 1978, Bai Xiaojun passed the national
college entrance examination and was enrolled to study at Guangxi Academy of
Arts and became a student of its Art Department in 1984. Two years after his
graduation from the college he got the chance to continue his education and
became a graduate student of the post graduate program run by Guangxi Academy of
Arts majoring in the traditional Chinese painting under the guidance of the
supervisor Professor Huang Dufeng, a very famous painter.
厖According to Chen Chuanxi, Lingnan art school has its unique style,
that's because it is under the influence of land configuration characterized by
"sea and coastline". Generally speaking, his opinion is right. As a
layman in art as I am, I can see the difference of Bai Xiaojun's paintings from
the works of art that we're familiar with. But it is the difference that attests
the fact that Bai Xiaojun has acquired the essence of Lingnan art school and the
road he has taken is the one the laymen like me are not familiar with, quite
traditional though it is. If we appreciate his pictures from the perspective of
artistic effect and form, I'd like to say, on the basis of my own understanding,
that Bai Xiaojun has chosen to depict the scenic spots in northern Guangxi in
his landscape painting and the reason for his choice can be interpreted as
follows: He is so familiar with the mountainous area with so many nature-born
scenic spots that he has made a well thought-out plan for an expression of the
beauty of this area in his pictures, and what is more important, the style of
Lingnan art school has a potential impact on his choice of subject matters in
creation. Different geological environment is conducive to the formation of
different artistic disposition. The magnificence of Zhongyuan, the fine delicate
features of Jiangnan and the mystic and tranquil recesses of Lingnan - each has
its own distinction. Lingnan - the regions south of the Five Ridges - is
developed rather late in terms of our history and is situated in the subtropical
zone. To a large extent, its ecological environment is still in a primitive
state with less traces or signs of humanist activities. So, in such ecological
environment, dense forests and a variety of animal and plant species have given
rise to the mood of abundance, tranquil recesses and mystery. Geologically
termed as "south", the southern part of Lingnan differs from the
southern part of Jiangnan in that the?.
Traditional
Chinese Ink and Wash Paintings
Bai XiaoJun Paintings are exhibited worldwide in Museums and Galleries