Ask Yangshan in the face of the sun to answer

A monologue from an artist

 

Nian Shan, Nian Jie Shan

 

Zhejiang, the hometown of mountains and rivers.

 

The cascading mountains, accompanied by the meandering rivers, present a unique and picturesque landscape of mountains and rivers. Seven mountains, one water, two fields, the mountains and waters surround the embrace of the fields, making it the robe of Zhejiang people.

 

The mountains in Zhejiang are generally not high, with a scale of several hundred meters. Compared with the northern mountains, it is difficult to call them magnificent. But the mountains in Zhejiang, from west to east, rise in groups along several large mountain ranges, with a trend of thousands of mountains rushing towards the sea. The chicken cage shaped mountains on the banks of the Fuchun River, the stacked forests that gradually enter Xinchang along the Cao'e River, the magnificent peaks of Tiantai Mountain that crisscross from north to south, the Tianlao group of valleys that Li Bai dreams of, and the Ou River source on the Huangmao Peak surrounded by the Longquan Canyon... Thousands of mountains surge and thousands of valleys stack up, supporting towering mountains at the junction of the Asian continent and the East China Sea. The brilliance of mountains and seas is the most magnificent of Zhejiang Mountains!

 

In 2020, due to retirement and the pandemic, I returned to Shanshui. Painting landscapes has become the ark for me to overcome hardships. I visited various mountains and rivers such as Yandang, Tiantai, Fuchun, Shenxianju, and Dongxi Tianmu. Climbing a mountain, opening up a new realm; Find a place, tidy up. Every time you enter a place, a series of observations suddenly appear, opening up a state of mind that faces the mountains and water, and creating a group of performances. Grouping refers to the consolidation of perspectives, forming a comprehensive view of each mountain and water, in order to facilitate the aggregation and fullness of the landscape.

 

In this way of multi screen juxtaposition and separation, I encountered various questions about landscape scenery. Climbing high and crossing far, I am fully immersed in the scenery of climbing, admiring the scenery with my eyes wide open. The hardships of climbing, the face of wind and rain, the desolation of clouds, and the gathering of trees all converge at this moment. Cliffs, deep valleys, winding trees, and stone paths converge together for us to gaze from afar and chase after them. I am in the realm of Huaiyuan, embarking on a historical pursuit of geomorphology. Encountering ancient people in the scenery, vaguely revisiting the old place. In the smoke of the past, we faintly heard each other, and the lament of the restoration of the country surged in our hearts.

 

Nature is inherently ruthless, leaving no trace of time damage in the universe. The wind of the mountains and forests brings a common pattern of feeling time to poets throughout history. So, a state of sadness quietly arrived. In the maze of distant mountains, wind and smoke brought desolation, flowing light became emptiness, and clouds and mountains suddenly blocked each other. As far as the eye could see, there was a resurgence of light and a mournful song everywhere. In this sudden turn, my brush strokes suddenly responded. The bone technique and brushwork emphasized by Zhang Yanyuan thousands of years ago are now vividly manifested. The pen and knife move in the wind, grinding the tension, yin and yang, and reality. The wind blows over the sea, and rain flies across the river. Black clouds flip ink, and white rain jumps pearls. A poetic and melancholic sentiment of certain mountains and waters tirelessly emerges in the mountains and waters. In the maze, one suddenly gains insight, but immediately retreats to a distant place. The inspiration and color painting of mountains and waters immerse us in the endless immersion of the "mountain and water transformation" that is full of Chinese connotations and the journey between faith and reality, through the immersion of our bodies and the poetic expression of viewing.

 

To recite mountains is to recite all mountains. Amidst the mountains, savor the endless experiences of mountains and waters, and explore the infinite collection of poetic landscapes.

 

The scene of the prairie fire and the whistling sound

 

Ten years ago, I painted many wastelands of sunflowers.

 

There is a vast expanse of sky and wilderness in this wilderness.   This line is vast and boundless, but it is always suddenly torn open by some lifted sunflower heads. The wind moves the blades, like flying arrows dancing. I often use a small pen tip and a scraper to pick and scrape, thinking that it has a calligraphic charm. Later, I encountered a vast sea of okra in Daqingshan, north of Hohhot city. The huge slope of Daqingshan, the east and west of Kuiyuan, are both hundreds or thousands of acres in size. Due to the lack of water, black plastic cloth is buried on the sandy slope to allow water to flow on it, but it also gives the brownish red soil a bone like or knife like sound, emanating from the red soil. In October, in the northern mountains, there is already a cold west wind, and the remaining leaves of okra dance incessantly in the air, like the tassels on banners and the flames of a prairie fire, stirring up a wild vitality.

 

In the depths of the arid grasslands in northern Xinjiang, I once saw boundless Gobi. On the dry land covered with stones and debris, knee deep little sunflowers are growing. Some sunflower stalks stand upright, about half a person's height tall. Kuipan seems to be shouting. The wind blew, and the sunflower wriggled like fluff. I seem to hear the call from the depths of the sunflower garden. The farmer told me that these endless sunflowers are not harvested. They use their roots to chew on the hard stones in the Gobi Desert, tenaciously absorbing possible nutrients. In the spring of the following year, a fire broke out and it was plowed back into the soil for another round of sowing. Year after year, relying on its perseverance and body, the Gobi gradually improved. The mission of this weak creature is to wholeheartedly embrace the sun, using the harmony and tranquility between heaven and earth to bear and transform this land.

 

Many years ago, I asked a friend to help me leave a sunflower garden for winter. In the vast expanse of ice and snow, this sunflower garden is almost lost. When we finally found it, the sunflower stood solemnly on the colored paper like a thin yet exceptionally tough ink line. The sunflower stem is straight, it's better to bend than bend, it's better to break than bend. They seem like a group of travelers, withered and haggard, but they never give up their responsibilities. I feel like I'm grazing this sunflower garden. They nourish their charred bodies with a white chill, silently bidding farewell to this snowy plain and crossing through this winter.

 

In the summer of 2015, a strong typhoon hit the east coast, where there was a sunflower garden that I often visited. After the typhoon, the sunflower garden was in a mess, with many people collapsing. I said this is exactly my dish. I carried an iron frame, like a tiller, sketching in the dawn light, spreading colors under the scorching sun, and feeling the warmth of the sunflower garden. How did these weak vertical beings fight against the storm on that stormy night with the power of a group, and finally leave behind the ruins of this life in a theater like sculpture. It also has the power to ignite a prairie fire, rewriting the gentleness of deep green into unyielding resistance, and rewriting it into a garden of overturned monuments.

 

I am experiencing the four seasons of life and listening to the deep cries of the world in these patches of Kuiyuan. I take a deep breath, in the midst of the raging and collective fate of the times.

 

The wilderness where we started a fire together is growing

 

In our lives, there is always a recurring motivation: revisiting the past. This is Proust's words, which include a cup of tea, a flower, a chance encounter, the silhouette of a walk, and the evening bell under the setting sun. It is that unforgettable corner, that moment of spiritual enlightenment, that hides the true meaning of life. After continuous review and selection, time suddenly appears here, and life settles here.

 

Kui is the life carrier of this revisiting motivation. I see all objects on Kui's body, or rather, in my eyes, Kui always transforms into all objects. There is nothing more touching to me than the sunflower garden on the wilderness. The sun sets, the sunflower falls in love, and the worldview of a certain plant spreads out from there, meeting and gathering with its roots, with the opening and closing of heaven and earth, and with all things. That can be my daily routine, or it can be an endless dream without waking up. The seeds, ears, and fruits of the sunflower replace the "shaking", "drunkenness", and "choking" in our hearts, and their related connections light up each other, revealing the true meaning of the world in an instant. The growth of plants and trees triggers feelings of sorrow, endless thoughts of home, and makes the hidden world visible.

 

The most common image of sunflower is burning. It connects the scorching sun, converting invisible heat into vertical growth. Our generation has a small number of collective dropouts during their teenage years, but the era that should have been studied has grown wild in society. In this period far away from textbooks and lecture halls, free reading began. In the poorest and most impoverished rural areas, they encountered Balzac, Stendha, Voynich, and Sholokhov. A nameless spontaneous reading becomes the root of spiritual redemption. The classic of realism and the myth of the Arabian Nights blend together, igniting the inherent passion of youth. The dispersal of appearances and the internal combustion give rise to the plant-based power and imagery of sunflowers. A certain allegorical complex, like a solitary and heartfelt redemption, spreads in the wilderness.

 

In the autumn and winter of 2009, we made thousands of sunflower heads and showerheads. Cut small strips of clay on the plump mud ball, like a big pot spitting out petals. Wrap the sunflower plate piece by piece with mud flour, and it will flutter like a flame. Make this sunflower head into copper, aluminum, and polish it to shine brightly. This branch of sunflower reminds me of candlelight and the books I have read in the wilderness. Insert the sunflower head into the long stem, as if fire and books were fluttering on the wilderness. This sunflower stands shoulder to shoulder with the lotus. Can this vertical organism, which grows in sandy soil and water marshes, coexist? Will fire and books coexist due to combustion? Some kind of wilderness imagery grows naturally. Those who know me say my heart is worried; those who don't know me say what I want. "Later, we forged the sunflower and lotus heads into a red, vast expanse, connecting them into a fiery wasteland.

 

We grow everywhere with this fiery wasteland. We have been to the spacious hall of the National Museum on the side of Tiananmen Square; I have been to the museum rebuilt from the ruins of Dresden; To the German horn where the turbulent Rhine and Moselle rivers intersect; Visited the domes of the China Art Palace and Minsheng Art Museum by the Huangpu River. The fire was burning straight and slowly rising. Its red color stands upright, illuminating the surrounding mountains, rivers, and history. As Bashra once described, the verticality of fire brings heaven and earth together on this red wilderness, creating an atmosphere of vertical growth that leads passionate meditation to its peak with vast and strong vitality. People feel the vortex of darkness and light in the depths of that world, experiencing the symphony of passion and sadness in the past of life.

 

At this moment, at the top of this fiery wasteland, the desire for symbiosis is ignited, and some great imagination is growing. (The title is revised by the editor)