The cross-cultural phenomenon of Chinese painting is widely seen in our world today. Adventures abound with a view to revolutionizing Chinese painting through borrowing from the strengths of western painting. Nonetheless, most movers for change through China-West integration live on their home turf, their cross-cultural experiments are but attempts at selection from external art on the basis of their own cultural experience at home. What warrants attention is another phenomenon—sometimes Chinese painters who reside overseas are more steadfast in their adherence to Chinese painting traditions; the changes they effect are not a result of the integration and mutation of a heterogeneous culture from the cross-cultural perspective but, rather, an evolution and transgression that follow the development logic of traditional Chinese painting per se. Reason has it that, having lived overseas for long years, they have a deeper and closer appreciation and embracing of heterogeneous culture than the peers in their homeland but, judging from their routes of creation, they have an even clearer idea of the qualities and features of Chinese culture and art themselves. Both from the perspective of nostalgia and the direction of rejecting heterogeneity, the Chinese paintings they created are more in keeping with the evolution logic of the Chinese painting traditions proper. This phenomenon is once again borne out by Mu Jiashan’s artistic creations.

　　2011 was perhaps the most important year in Mu’s artistic life. In a short span of several dozen days before, during and after the Chinese New Year, great inspiration suddenly dawned on him and he simply managed overnight a facelift in his own style after decades of painstaking searches in Chinese shanshui (landscape) painting. This new style is the Dry Ink and Brush Shan Shui metamorphosed from the new literati painting that he had sought from Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, Wang Gongwan, Shi Tao, Huang Binhong and Liu Haishu, among others. It has taken shape as the Mu-style shan shui painting that forms a striking contrast with all other famous painters and schools in the history of fine art.

　　Graduated from Nanjing Art Institute (NAT) in 1988 as a Chinese painting major, Mu Jiashan moved to the U.S. for exhibitions, lectures and residence. While in NAT, he studied under grand masters such as Liu Haishu and Chen Dayu and, through them, traced their origin all the way to the South Song Dynasty, He is well versed in numerous brush scrubbing techniques, such as pima (披麻--flax apparel), jiesuo (解索)—untied rope strands), niumao (牛毛—ox hair), heye (荷叶—lotus leaves) and zhedai (折带—foulded fabric) techniques with corresponding textures. And he became well versed in the pima, jiesuo, niumao, heye and zhedai brush scrubbing techniques, and accumulate knowledge and cultivation from the composure, serenity and grace of South Song literati painting in an attempt to acquire the quintessence of Chinese literati painting in both state of mind and artistic concept. His work and life in Nanjing in the ensuing years, i.e., the late 1980s and the early 1990s coincided with the surge of the new literati painting school there. With the traditions he had acquired, he followed the tide of the times: though his painting style varied from that of earlier years, it did not deviate of that of the new literati school now that he had aligned himself with the trend. The solid foundation in ink painting that he had laid down at NAT and the legacy on new literati painting influence in which he had immersed himself formed the Shan Shui style that he had largely kept after settling in America. Living in America did not bring his paintings any new change along with a heterogeneous culture. So much so that he did not even accept the change of concept such as modern ink and wash. If he cognition of his culture and art through American culture means protecting the purity of his cultural heritage, then what this cross-cultural contact reflects on him is precisely a widening gap between two natural cultures. In other words, in the cultural environment of a foreign land, the fine art education that he is engaged in should be one of pure Chinese painting in order to have the cultural space and position of his raison d'être. This determined his efforts to strengthen the cultural uniqueness of Chinese painting instead of gradual movement towards proximity with American culture. In a sense, from the perspective of an alien culture he was able appreciate ever more deeply the uniqueness of traditional Chinese painting and his endeavor to purity it. Hence, refining and deepening his brush and ink language, cultural meaning, and the scholarly erudition and cultivation that are typical of Chinese culture became the homework in Chinese painting that he performed for some many years in America. In this regard, he even excels his peers in the Chinese homeland in studious learning and patient practice.

　　The Mu-style dry ink landscape painting that seemed established overnight through drastic changes is, therefore, a result of his decades of accumulation and learning which finally bore fruit through natural transformation along the route of learning from ancient Chinese painting in a foreign linguistic environment. In our contemporary world, artists who paint shanshui with nothing but dry ink are rare. And among them, those of a higher caliber are few and far between. To produce Chinese painting with ink, seven ink techniques may be employed, i.e., nong (浓—thick/dark), dan (淡—thin/light), pō (泼—pouring), pò (破—breaking), ji (积—accumulating), jiao (焦—charred), and su (宿—overnight) Though not all painters are able to use them dexterously, nong, dan, pō and pò are the ordinary techniques which form the basis of ink use in general Chinese painting. Ji, jiao and su, in contrast, are the special ink techniques developed on the above-mentioned basis: they are the yeast for turning basic inkwork into stylistic variations. Leaving aside the basic skills of, nong, dan, pō and pò and employing any one of the latter three ink techniques will inevitably lead to a risky move. This is due to the fact that, in terms of expression and presentation of objects, the ii, jiao and su ink techniques impose restrictions. This is particularly the case with the use of pure dry ink as the painter will have to screen off intermediate color tones as well as the foreground and background relationship, fully relying on the changes generated by his brush to regulate the rhythm in the picture. This can easily render the picture monotonous, thick with black and devoid of the transparency of ink; it may also result in high restrictions on the generation of charm. This is perhaps one of the reasons that explain the scarcity of dry ink painters.

　　Mu Jiashan’s dry ink shan shui, however, helps change this kind of picture that is vulnerable to rigidity. The brush in his hand is particularly flexible and lively. The mountain rocks thus created are formed neither by lines nor individual brush hairs. Instead, he starts his stroke by moving the brush against the tip’s direction, varying the directions and lifting and pressing the brush at will while the brush is traveling, resulting in either skeleton lines, opened brush hairs or brush scrubbing. Though the brushwork is simple, the shapes and styles are plentiful, all-directional and full of fun. Through his brush, dry ink is not a swath of blackness, but rather, shades of his inner meanings through the rich variations of his brush style and connotations. While what he employs is a kind of dry ink, the myriad changes generated by his brushmanship give shape to a high and remote space formed by mountains, steep precipices made of huge crags and unfathomable gullies, and the quiet streams shrouded in mists. Therefore, he does not create rising clouds with a dry brush rub, but invents the coming and going of images of shan shui by virtue of the various ingenious changes of his deft brush. Even without the aid of light ink, he manages to administer the gradual transition from white to black with a constantly turning brush without resorting to light ink. Of course, dry rubbing is also one of his methods for reproducing the interface between misty clouds and mountains.Yet, even this dry rubbing shows his rich brushwork, much unlike some dry ink painters’ superficial depiction with dry ink that is devoid of the meaning of ink per se.

　　The fact that Mu Jiashan’s dry ink shan shui painting was able to emerge overnight, with his own distinctive features, in today’s world of painting is attributable to his decades of accumulation of knowledge and skills of Southern Song Dynasty shan shui painting. On the one hand, his dry ink works are not simply filled with pitch darkness, but rather, full of the fun derived from bronze and stone carings--works from which it’s not difficult to discern the brushmanship of Wu Changsuo’s stone drum caligraphy and Huang Binhong’s expansive and brilliant inkwork. On the other hand, the myriad changes in Mu’s brushwork invariably benefited from the finesse of the Southern Song masters, such as the niumao, lotus leaf, folded fabric and untied rope strands techniques. Yet, these painting techniques have all been fused in his own dry ink, with their remaining traces integrated into the Mu style. Of course, Mu Jiashan’s dry ink shan shui technique is not a mere amalgamation of various techniques. A more important feature is his concentration on powerful brushwork. It enables him to keep the brush moves powerful, spirited and precise. For Mu, every painting represents a battle—a battle for life and spirit. Like Shi Tao or Liu Haisu, he gallops on his painting by virtue of his brush and projects himself onto the landscape with ambitions in life and the struggle with his spirit. Nonetheless, his dry ink shan shui is not as realistic as Zhang Ding’s but he is--aimed at what is beyond the picture—by integrating its ambience with the vast expanse of nature. Precisely because of this, he dry ink shan shui works are endowed with mightiness and grandiosity--a level that is beyond the power of realist shan shui. And this is exactly where Mu Jiashan’s dry ink shan shui represents a development and extension of dry ink.

　　If Zhang Ding’s dry ink landscape is a symbol of China-West integration, then Mu Jiashan’s dry ink shan shui represents a transcendence of traditional Chinese culture in the land of the West.

　　At Art District, 22nd Courtyard Street, Beijing

　　April 18th, 2011