The Last Poppy

Author: Zhu Yong, Illustrated by Ling Glacial
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: The opium poppy bkbk505412
Preface: Ling Glacial said, "This collaboration is the closest we've ever been." The first encounter was a year ago when I published The Weight of Sound, using Ling Glacial's artwork on the cover. From then on, I began to notice this name that shimmered with a hint of coldness, wondering what kind of person it belonged to. Later, I discovered that Reader magazine had used his illustrations multiple times, and I purchased his art book. Published by Jiangsu Fine Arts, called Ling Glacial's World, it has been a treasured possession. Eventually, I got to know Ling Glacial. I was surprised by his simplicity—contrary to my initial expectations. We are accustomed to defining people's appearances based on their identities. In our imagination, officials, intellectuals, merchants, and painters are all preoccupied with their respective roles, and they cannot be confused. If a painter looks like an official or an intellectual resembles a merchant, it would cause us discomfort. Some say that writers cannot be handsome; if they are, they won’t write good stories. And what about painters? Their appearances cannot be ordinary; if they were, they wouldn’t be good painters. It’s vivid, but not reliable. Three years with a friend, and the details of our interactions are long forgotten. What remains is a feeling, as if a story has no process, only a conclusion. So, my interaction with Ling Glacial was brief, but the aftermath has been long. Ling Glacial is very quiet. His paintings are delicate, as if they shouldn’t be human-made. If it’s said that God has favored his hands, it’s a praise, but at least those hair-thin lines should have been done by a machine. I prefer to face the results of his paintings rather than the process—not out of pity. During the research trip, we lived together. When he started painting, I would sleep, and by the time I woke up, he had finished. Every night, his blade had to go through a perilous journey—his works are all completed in one go, with no room for revision. The slightest hesitation in his blade would cause him to lose everything. His grip on the blade is somewhat like that of a surgeon. His black paper on his chest is filled with sensitive nerves that are easily touched. I admire Ling Glacial’s decisiveness. Ling Glacial decisively said, "I can’t be perfect. Do you want to take even the joy of my mistakes away? My flaws are part of my personality. You can’t learn from them." Contrary to his name, Ling Glacial’s paintings led me to find the south—sensually. It’s impossible to discern a specific location, but every lush leaf suggests a connection to sunlight. Under the cold knife, a world of passionate vitality emerges. Every cell is expanding. His black-and-white paintings not only contain dazzling colors and light but also the clamor of the crowd. As Chen Danqing described it, they are vast, bright, profound, and resonant. Ling Glacial’s paintings are like the night, making it convenient for our dreams to wander. Everyone could be carried away by them without restraint. The temptation comes from the girl in dreams. Their dreams are written on their faces. Ling Glacial’s paintings give me a sense of dual dreams. Ling Glacial also said that beautiful works (including love and all art) contain some misunderstanding or at least illusion. Without misunderstanding and illusion, would art and love exist? Much later, I realized that almost every name of Ling Glacial’s art books is the same—Ling Glacial’s World. Every time he publishes a book, he removes unsatisfactory pages from the previous one and replaces them with better works. The art books are like a moving exhibition, where he constantly adjusts. He does this to ensure that every new collection surpasses the previous one in quality, and he hopes to produce the ideal art book at the end. Mr. Wang Jiaming recently joined Sanlian Bookstore, and I coincidentally met Ling Glacial there. I suggested that Ling Glacial publish a book at Sanlian—not an art book, but one with both illustrations and text. I threw the stone and hit my own foot—good advice quickly turned into my own heavy workload. Reading paintings is interesting, but writing about them is difficult. I didn’t start writing until the following year, wrote a little, and then a computer virus wiped everything out. Now, it’s the third year. Thirty thousand words written over three years. It’s the slowest book I’ve ever written. Ling Glacial doesn’t rush, he only paints ten pictures a year. We’re both slow. Freedom can sometimes be the greatest limitation. This book was a struggle, and one of the reasons was Mr. Wang’s tolerance. Freedom sometimes makes me lose the need to speak. Freedom leads to silence. Paintings are like dreams, incomprehensible. I’ve said a little about my own thoughts in this book, some of which are unrelated to the paintings, and some are. But I hope it’s a misunderstanding. July 2004, late night
Postscript: Afterword/By Ling Glacial
A few years ago, when I and Zhu Yong were talking about this "erotic" book on a spring night free of any bad marks, I guessed that no matter how hard Zhu Yong tried, he couldn’t reach that place of flowing water and falling flowers. Indeed, Zhu Yong stopped at his reserve and "didn’t love truth anymore." Zhu Yong is a serious person. He never finds inspiration in his own life. He seems distant from people, but his thoughts are getting closer to them—neither do I find inspiration in my own life, but I directly take moving details from life. The deeper I paint, the clearer my inner thoughts become. So my works have solid, intricate details with a slight eroticism—but their comfort is sincere, intoxicating without being toxic. In fact, neither the people in my paintings nor I enjoy much pleasure. "I" and "she" merely display a personalized form of freedom, a simple taste of life; everything is just an impromptu creation of human nature. But its charm lies in this unfettered, spontaneous burst of emotion about freedom and sensuality—actually, Zhu Yong often awakens our intoxication with freedom in his passionate words. Zhu Yong is a perceptive person. His deep reflections and awakenings, cold yet sensitive, suit his rebellious tone in writing—I’m also a reasonable person, but I don’t follow reason in my creation. I express myself freely—I reject tradition, yet I don’t want to surpass anyone, nor do I use worldly knowledge or rational judgment. So, I’m just a wanderer, a creator who relies on intuition, constantly approaching the disaster of the heart. Zhu Yong’s measure in his writing and his physical measure are modest and elegant, never strange. But his clear reasoning and straightforwardness are like an old knife hand. Looking at Zhu Yong and his words, we feel as if we’ve met a stranger. He exudes a sense of solitude, making us feel alienated in familiar situations. And Zhu Yong, in turn, builds his connection with people and history through this alienation. Zhu Yong is an introverted person, with a beautiful silence like a forest. In his forest, there is sincerity and secrets that no one can decipher. Zhu Yong is a person of conviction. Those who don’t understand him can only see a small part of his strength. Zhu Yong is also a person with clean writing, and from his clean words, we can see the shadow of his pure soul. In fact, it’s hard to accurately evaluate his vivid words or to briefly explain the solemn and composed voice in his works. He explains his thoughts and his voice in history with his spirituality and wisdom—these reserved voices and thoughts move us. Solitary memories, like deeply buried poems in our hearts. Buried, that is, to plant. In the moonlight in the city, a person’s activity area is usually contained within certain things—streets. Generally, streets are under the jurisdiction of daytime, while the night belongs to the night. These two spaces of different scales have been authorized by time to take custody of a person’s life. They are reserved and never issue commands, yet they are loyal to their duty. Only when the street delivers people to the window does it begin its brief rest under the moonlight. Roads provide many variables for a person’s life. They are interconnected, providing the quickest channels for desires, marking the unknown part of life, while the window remains indifferent. As the known and certain part of life, it always negates the function of the road, as if an already known result were to laugh disdainfully at the complex and variable calculations.