It was in an extremely cold morning when I received Yang Ermin’s works. Previously, I learnt that he had been exploring the skill of Chinese ink wash painting in hope of realizing a creative transformation of traditional Chinese art. To be honest, at that time I could still not be away from such a common contempt that ink wash painting was no more than to use a willful brush and light ink to paint blurred and desolate landscape. Appreciating ink washing paintings in cold winter, would I feel like a man lost in desolate wild and frozen to the marrow?

　　Wrestling with considerable doubts, qualms and guesses, I opened Yang’s album and amazingly found that the late impressionistic use of color, the dot-and-line configuration in traditional Chinese ink wash painting and the abstract expression in traditional Japanese art were combined into Yang’s own artistic language which suffused rhythmic and energetic force. Even it was at the first glance, I could observe Yang’s artworks were quite different from those created within traditional artistic frame.

　　Later I searched for the artist on the internet, but got little useful information. It seemed that he was not a high profile person. So I made a short call to him. Not surprisingly, Yang did not harangue, but what he said stimulated my special interest and struck a responsive chord in my heart. He told me that as modern people, Chinese artists could and should only do modern deeds. “Every place in the world has the same custom”. “Poetry and painting have the same destiny.” Yang’s words made me think of the Argentinean writer Borges’ same opinion that a writer should not do what he wants to do, but what he can do. Does this mean that both writer and painter are doomed to be enslaved by “pragmatism” and have to take a cynical attitude since neither of them could go beyond their age?! The harsh reality always possesses an absolute right, hence many people would like to be a future-teller whereas few a practician. Frankly speaking, a pure practician is a real future-teller. Yang is such a person because when exploring in the field of ink wash painting, he promotes “color externalization” of traditional art as well as “mind internalization” of spiritual art. Meanwhile, he shows his providence in an unnoticeable way; that is to create a modern artistic epic which is mixed with rhythm and force by using a certain genre, and to revive Chinese traditional culture with art.

　　Yang’s painting is pregnant with a variety of affects. However, “affect” is not “affectation”, but a kind of “affecting”. Here, this word refers specifically to the colors “summoned” by the artist in creatively transforming traditional art, and personal feelings and common emotions conveyed by these colors. On the one hand, color displays enrichment and mottlement of object’s representation; on the other hand, it implies change and variety of subject’s emotions and postures. The utmost function of eyes is to photograph plentiful colors of the universe and illustrate one’s internal puzzlement. As one of the totems of modern pictorial art, color has already predetermined an uncontrollable destiny for oil painting, mural painting, gouache and aquarelle. Nevertheless, is it legitimate to activate and transform traditional ink wash painting by scattering colors onto rice paper? We might get a disappointing answer in daring modern Chinese art history from the late Ming Dynasty to 1990s. Though numerous are modern reforms in traditional ink wash painting, the relative fruits are drastically few. The spirit of traditional ink wash painting as a collective artistic will hindered artists’ exploration and left too much progressive room in this field. In space of traditional ink wash paintings, rhythm is more emphasized than force, spirituality is condensed and the body unfolded thoroughly (or we can say an airless rhythm and a bodiless spirit). Too beautiful it is, yet makes one horrible. How to get out of modern artistic dilemma and promote the modern transformation of ink wash painting while not getting into western and Chinese set pattern?

　　Being an explorer model, Yang is inflexible in pursuit of creative transformation of art tradition. His ideal is to set the modern world into ink wash painting and have the traditional art spirit settled down even spread over in the age of globalization. For this purpose, he brings color into ink wash painting and tries to illustrate a colorful and vivid world with freehand brushwork. Undoubtedly, this is a daring, challenging and dangerous attempt because color and ink wash belong to two different art traditions. The former is the language of oil painting which comes from western art tradition whereas the latter the language of landscape painting which is born of Chinese art tradition. What is more contradictory is that the use of color lies at the sensible level, but ink wash is the abstraction of color. If an artist of ink wash painting is unwilling to touch other art traditions and genres but abides by the norms in his own system, then he will never have an opportunity to meet his peers---color cannot be displayed on rice paper, so ink wash painting is “colorless” and “forceless”. Yang, however, goes in the opposite direction. Breaking the framework of Sino-occidental art contexts, putting ink wash into the embrace of color, he employs rice paper to make brand new ink wash painting.

　　Since the beginning of 1990s, Yang’s painting shows an intensifying trend of “color”. In the following part, I would like to analyze his three representative works, namely “Landscape Created on the basis of Monet’s Works” (Yi Monai Zuopin wei Lanben de Fengjing)(1995), “Weekends” (Zhou Mo)(2002) and “Autumn in Taihang Mountain” (Taihang Qiu Se)(2006).

　　The “Landscape Created on the basis of Monet’s Works” and other counterparts are the starting point from which Yang attempted to play with color and made creative transformation of ink wash painting. Actually, it is an outstanding start for he daringly made colorful effects on rice paper with reference to western impressionism instead of abiding by the norms of ink wash painting. Employing impressionism as a basis for landscape, Yang intends to, firstly, highlight the significance of color and secondly, show up his outward exploration. As people who are familiar with the history of art know, impressionists regard color as the eternity of art to which they pay the highest homage. For Van Gogh’s part, color is the dreamful frenzy, the sun in mind and the storm in heart; color is tantamount to the artist’s religion. To use impressionism as a basis for landscape is to go beyond the limitation of traditional art with reference to western art. That is to say, to use the light and thin rice paper to bear heavy and thick color. Not only is this a dangerous experiment, but also a subtle balance, even a unique achievement which goes to Yang Ermin himself. It is not enough to summarize such a work as combing Chinese and Western elements and bridging ancient and present. Feelings originate from human nature. There is no boundary in art world. The artist transfers the conflict between Chinese and Western arts to rice paper, and put their tension to the extreme. Nevertheless, things always reverse themselves after reaching an extreme. In this conflictive dialogue, the vulnerability of the Chinese artistic body (rice paper) becomes an advantage which allows a variety of colors to dance in the space of ink wash; the forcefulness of Western artistic body (canvas) turns into submission which allows peaceful atmosphere to fill in a small piece of area. Clusters of flowers sprouting afar with the color darkening bit by bit; this landscape leads the audience into the farthest place, a boundless airness. Turning “deep farness” into “blurred farness” is the symbol of the artist’s endless will as well as an attempt at arousing audience’s exploring desire. The artist uses a variety of colors to represent a vivid world while showing an external artistic will. In traditional Chinese art, an artist is suggested to go back to innocence and disinterestedness, and confine himself into an internal world where he would rest pacifically and spiritually. Obviously, such a kind of art does not correspond to our modern world. Through borrowing colors and imposing significance into them, Yang looks forward to going out of the solitary and tranquil state of ancient Chinese artists and stepping into a colorful and vivid world. On the one hand, his works restore the elegance of ink wash and the airness of its state; on the other hand, the transformation of color and external exploration in these paintings illustrate clearly the modern dimension of this artistic will. That is also the cadenza in Yang’s creative transformation of traditional art.

　　The “Weekends” could be regarded as a representative work for showing daily life. It belongs to a series works of daily life’s beautification and aesthetic mystification along with “Holiday” (Jia Ri), “Kitchen” (Chu Fang) and “Cafeteria” (Kafei Dian). The first artistic skill to realize daily life’s beautification and aesthetic mystification is the use of color together with light. In this work, being set under a black background, the human body as the constructive part is filtered by highlight and decorated by colorful sunlight. As a result, there emerges an effect of “image-stream” in modern media. Dazzling like a thunderbolt, melodious like music, the human body displays both leisurely enjoyment and unbearable confusion at the same time on rice paper. Enjoying leisure time should have been one of scenes in daily life, but when life is brought into painting, it enters the aesthetic time and space where it becomes mysterious and eternal. From life to aesthetics, from aesthetics to mystery, color has always been motivation in these transformations. Black symbolizes pressure in the universe, dazzling light the sanctity of life, and colors complicated values of existence. In “Cafeteria”, the character who bows his head peers from static images. A sense of inconspicuous melancholy comes through colors and almost overflows the painting. The audience could feel that the artist is as still as a tranquil pond when creating, as depressed as an elegy when using colors. The force embodied in color is internalized as the conception flowing with lines. This is the form of modern Chinese painting born of intercourse between impressionist style and rice paper the body of classic Chinese art.

　　The “Autumn on Taihang Mountain” and the “Autumn Water Touches Sky” (Qiu Shui Chang Tian)imply the universal dimension of color use. The so-called universal dimension means the artist extends his horizon to nature and history so as to discover the secret of the universe. The ideal of classic Chinese art is to reach a state where individual creature lives forever and changes with nature. However, classic Chinese artists had followed for quite a long time the principle that showing spirit outweighs imitating, and until in modern times did they find that the more passionate they were in pursuit of this principle, the farther they were away from the eternal state. Art is not self-reference, thus painting would not be self-disciplined. It must be rooted in life with expectation and present the essence of nature with enlightenment. When there are only desolate mountains, deadly water, solitary flowers and broken leaves left in traditional ink wash painting, when imitating western realistic art becomes a mechanical procedure, it is difficult for modern Chinese artists to paint in a creative way. Yang Ermin obviously made another incredible attempt ---to perform the eternal rhythm of the universe on rice paper with layout, the use of color and skills in oil painting. The landscape in autumn should have been magnificent, but Yang’s seems so sedate and serene. It is the life of static things which makes an artist go beyond representation and create spiritual works. The audience can feel this through appreciating Yang’s paintings like “Family on Taihang Mountain” (Taihang Renjia) and “Moat” (Hu Cheng He). But in these works, the combination of force and rhythm is embodied through human landscape rather natural landscape as a result of which the artist dives into a nostalgic history.

　　Having created on rice paper with reference to impressionism, Yang carries out a colorful and magnificent modern experiment of ink wash painting. On basis of his judgment to history, Yang promotes two turns in modern Chinese art. One is to go outward for color, the other to go inward for soul. The former is to employ the western artistic system to correct the Chinese counterpart, describing universal force on fragile rice paper. The latter is to employ the Chinese artistic system to correct the western counterpart, playing life’s rhythm on solid canvas. However, Yang explores in such a conscious way that he tries to realize “active fusion of western element into Chinese style” instead of to “westernize the Chinese art”. Through this method, the artist combines Chinese tradition with the western tradition, producing a new tradition of his own in modern context and bringing new elements into classic tradition. This is a strategy which modern China employs in the age of globalization and multi-cultures. It suggests the subject to encounter western culture not passively but actively, to select cultural resources not around “other” but “itself”. Of course, it is also the right way on which modern Chinese art is proceeding. In Yang’s case, it is the reviving way which his experiment engendered. Yang uses color to make force, brush to imitate rhythm; he paints landscape on “rice paper”, leaves eternity on “canvas”. The utmost is he always blends and softens force with rhythm. Therefore, his painting is full of rhythmical force and forceful rhythm.

　　In order to elaborate the value of reviving ink wash painting, I would like to introduce a hermeneutic mode from comparative literature study as a reference frame when commenting modern artistic exploration. The Italian theorist Franco Moretti puts forward an occurring law of artistic form through analyzing how “world literature” came into being and how comparative morphology was established in global perspective. In his opinion, modern artistic forms and art tradition are produced when the West-centered art become marginalized and semi-marginalized. The modern art tradition is the local forms developing in the mutual incursion between formal influence of West and local materials. From this reference frame, the new tradition of modern Chinese art was born when formal influence of western art had invaded Chinese materials and been invaded in turn as it extended to the edge of the Far East. In this process, realism became a totem of modern Chinese art while classic Chinese art like ink wash painting, literati’s painting, and landscape painting became a taboo for modern art. Then, the principle of freehand brushwork, abstract forms, force and rhythm were all fading away or becoming memory. In other words, influence and spread of West intervened in independent development of modern Chinese art and eliminated all possibilities of growing new traditions. Consequently, the West is highlighted as a guest whereas China unknown as a servant. This is also the destiny of modern Chinese art in last one hundred years. If an artist intends to change this situation and lead modern art to its right developing direction, he must possess enough knowledge and courage so as to realize “active fusion of western element into Chinese style”. In his experiment of reviving ink wash art and creating modern Chinese painting, Yang establishes a paradigm of creative transformation which keeps a necessary balance between West and China, western forms and Chinese materials, color and its significance. Yang’s attempt suggests implicitly other Chinese artists that it is necessary to partly absorb the value of western forms so that it would not hinder independent development of modern Chinese art; to partly accept state, ink and brush as great legacy of Chinese art so that they would not become confinement. As such, a dialogue based on mutual respect and equality can be initiated between western art and Chinese art. This is the only reviving way for classic Chinese art.

Translated by Lin Zhenhua

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