Professor. Mu Jiashan’s landscape paintings remind viewers of traditions, vitality, and their growing points.

　　For nearly a century, Chinese painting has been following two traditions—introduction from the West and borrowing from the past. The former practice is one of active learning from the West, be it Chinese style in a western application or the other way around. It is not entirely disconnected from traditions though it has greater attention attached to scientific awareness, changing in the process the visual concept as well as the lingual approach. It has gradually become the mainstream amidst the evolution of the century. The latter, on the other hand, has kept further the distance between China and the West while marching with the times in a steady pace. This by no way means it totally rejects elements of western painting, but rather, it emphasizes accommodation of both, with a greater focus on the humanistic value of art. It generally involves western application of Chinese art, keeping the spirit of the national culture, inheriting the way of thinking of national art and developing the language features of brush and ink. Despite its roller-coaster trajectory, this approach has attracted even greater limelight for almost three decades. Mu Jiashan has finally emerged as an eminent figure from among his 1961-born contemporaries by virtue of developing the tradition of blazing a new trail through borrowing from the ancient.

　　Mu emigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s after graduating from Nanjing Art Institute. His education consists of both the tradition of western pencil sketches guided by realism and Qi Baishi and other modern masters’ commoner-styled tradition of creating the present on the basis of the past. With influence of the former tradition being predominant. His sketches are also imbued with a free-flowing touch of happiness, his earlier Chinese painting creations, which belong to the school of new literati artists, were both a reaction to the sweeping western tides, a correction of the politicization of creative consciousness and, more importantly, an innovation of traditional literati paintings. Mu Jiashan’s new literati paintings, be they of human figures or scenery, were from the outset invariably devoted to poetic sentiments and literary interest typified by a leisurely pace, light brush strokes and measured ink deployment. As a graduate student, he began to move from learning from modern painters to tracing ancient masters, his style transitioning from agility to greater depth, with the depths in turn embodying lightness. His paintings of that period are described by critics as those of the new ink and wash school.

　　In his early years of residence in the U.S., Mu continued his exploration of the new ink and wash, with more time devoted to scenes of his imagination. Afterwards, he had, on the one hand, a more direct exposure to modern and post-modern art of the West, which set him off pondering about the difference between Chinese and western art and studying the visual aesthetics shared by humankind, including the magnifying visual effect of composition and colors. On the other hand, his homeland nostalgia sublimated to a shanshui (landscape or scenery) spirit that is redemption for the restless urban soul. Mu Jiashan portrays landscapes that “take the mind on s thousand-year journey and afford a ten-thousand-li vision”, injected with the trinity spirit of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism and perfected with the integrity and versatility of “one brush technique for to everything”. The end products thus created are mountains and waters that transcend the time and space of history, shanshui landscapes that are dissimilar to both traditional literati paintings and new literati paintings—they are at once tranquil and robust, solemn and expansive, simple and yet profound. They have contributed to the spreading of Chinese culture in pluralistic America.

　　Since entering the new century, Mu Jiashan was described by a friend named Zhang Zining in a critique as walking with both legs. With the first leg, he has now a deeper comprehension of the essence of traditions. Judging from his titled paintings, he has an insightful understanding of the gist of Shi Tao, Dong Qichang, Wang Yuanqi and Huang Binhong’s painting theories. With the second, he has been attempting to learn from God’s creations by doing sketch works of nature at the Grand Canyon, Yellow Stone National Park, and Yosemite in the United States and at the Yellow Mountain and Qiyun Mountain of China. His creations are guided by the spirit of Chinese art and based on field observations, fusing the ancient with the present, cross-referencing the West, which result in a vivid and grandiose representation formed by the intricate formation of ink and wash. In recent years, he has further simplified the complex and come up with a dry ink shanshui style that permeates into thick, boundless wilderness. Prior to this, though he did pay great attention to brushwork, he was nonetheless invariably devoted to shui yun mo zhang—a technique for expressing rhythmic chapters and poetic meanings by virtue of ink and wash. Now, he is making a conscientious effort to use dry ink in lieu of ink and wash. As he aptly puts it in a caption, “By changing the ink and wash technique, one can blaze a new trail with dry ink.” This marks the apex of his individualistic art.

　　Dry ink landscape poses a formidable challenge to the artist—reduced water usage impede brush movement, rendering it susceptible to dullness and erecting obstacles to the free flow of rhythm. Meanwhile, it sets the bar higher for brush control, which opens up a brave new world for Mu, privy as he is to the secrets of Chinese calligraphic art. As I pointed out before, “All those who understand ‘the five shades of ink’ know the difference among ‘jiao nong zhong dan qing—dry, wet, thick, thin and transparent’ which are invariably dependent on the different amounts of water in the ink. On the one hand, dry ink painting, for which there is little water concentration in the ink, is more exacting for the way ink is applied as the usual wetness is replaced by dryness, lightness by heaviness, ink by the brush, simplicity by complexity. The end product is undoubtedly a purer language of art. On the other hand, the reduced ink usage inevitably opens up ample room for maneuver with brushwork techniques. While his touches by and large still follow the principle of “accurate likeness of the painted subject” (one of the six cannons of Chinese painting—note by the translator), in fact Mu has to a certain extent detached himself from the realistic approach of the West as he is not bent on reproducing the depths of spatial layers and the on and off of light and shadow. He endeavors to sense different dimensions and travel unshackled in the universe so as to give formation to a freer and more independent brush approach and rhythm that help convey his state of mind and sentiments.

　　A well-known dry ink landscape painter in ancient China is Cheng Sui of the Xin’an School (named after Xin’an River in Anhui Province). However, his dry ink creations, typified by the dry, dull autumn winds, depict only the melancholy and nostalgia of cynical descendants and followers of the demised dynasties of yesteryear. His “ink through the brush” technique was somehow constrained.Modern grandmasters who contributed to the development of dry ink painting include Huang Binhong in his 90’s and Zhang Ding in his advanced years. Huang Binhong’s dry ink landscape paintings are generally small in size and were created under difficult conditions in a half-hearted manner, with his talent only partially tapped. In a way, Zhang Ding’s dry ink landscape is fettered by the notion of realism, with too much attention paid to depicting minute details of the subject and a dearth of fluent expression of the inner feelings. Mu Jiashan’s dry ink landscape is not only different from that of Cheng Sui and Huang Binhong, but also varied from that of Zhang Ding. Compared with Cheng Sui, his creative concept turns withering solitude into boundless wilderness. Compared with Huang Binhong, he has a wider vista and richer forms of ink work. Compared with Zhang Ding, his mountains and cliffs have gone through the foundry of inner emotions, with the essence distilled therefrom, a common theme running throughout and sentimental rhythms flowing in between. If Zhang Ding is inclined towards realism, then Mu Jiashan’s dry ink landscape is characterized by freehand.

　　In his dry ink landscape paintings, Mu Jiashan mainly depicts boundless scenes of lofty mountains and deep valleys that rise or precipitate sharply, veiled by misty clouds, sometimes with terrace fields providing rhythm and wild geese formations laid out as beats. Rather than laying scenery before the viewer’s eyes, what he produces are the grandiose and boundless mountains with deep valleys in one’s mind, a powerful, virile machismo. In terms of artistic conception, Mu describes his as linquangaozhi (林泉高致, i.e., a state that is as lofty as towering mountains and as pure as spring water, or as tall forest trees and quiet streams, with the noble mind of a saint or king and a setting detached from the mundane world—explanation added by the translator). But, instead of the muted, withering, depressing and hopeless quietness of ancients, what Mu conveys is the upright nobleness in the midst of Mother Nature, a great beauty in serenity. In terms of painting techniques, he has totally abandoned colors and has substituted in their place the thirsty brush that generates a full array of changes and variations with dry ink. He applies the ink technique through the calligraphic brushwork as the mainstay, integrating the free-flowing expressiveness of big brush strokes with the precision of fine, dry touches, and the fuzziness and undertone created by deep dyeing and dry scrubbing of the brush. On top of that, he gives full play to the striking contracts between black and white, big and small touches, relief and intaglio. All this is fused into his flee flow of brush strokes. In naming his paintings, Mu stressed “composition”, pointing out that “the combination in modern society of eastern and western art with equal emphasis on both is a path that leads to innovation”. This remark reveals the fact that in his dry ink landscape, Mu does not refrain from absorbing the western approach for adaptation to suit his own purposes.

　　After four decades of practice and pondering, Mu Jiashan has eventually “firmly planted his footing and chosen his pursuit” in the work of dry ink landscape, elevating this art form to a new height in the world of Chinese painting.

　　Written at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

　　March 16th, 2011