Pang Yan Picture Book: Lingering Echoes

Author: Pang Yan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: I have sung many songs with my brush and compiled them into this collection. Good songs often leave a lingering echo, unbroken and continuous. Such lingering thoughts, like a wisp of smoke drifting in the air, are the very essence of painting. Music and painting are twin sisters, sharing the same origin yet differing in form. Drawing with notes and singing with a brush should not be a difficult task. So I have sung many songs with my brush and compiled them into this collection. Unlike personalized works that deliberately construct and showcase the artist's spiritual world, the works in this collection are fundamentally egoless: because the original creators of the songs have already set a stable tone for the works' spiritual essence. Their popularity has further replicated countless copies of the original style, deeply occupying the hearts of the singers. Despite this, the value and meaning of the works are essentially realized through a collaboration between the creators and the audience. Without the duet of the audience and the creator in spirit, the original value and meaning would lose their vitality. In this sense, a work only truly realizes its meaning through the harmonies created by many different minds. Therefore, I am both an appreciator of original songs and a creator who adds myself into them. I am both a passive listener who hides my "self" and listens to the melody of the songs, and an active participant who explores and expresses myself through the theme. Good songs often leave a lingering echo, unbroken and continuous. Such lingering thoughts, like a wisp of smoke drifting in the air, are the very essence of painting. They can stir one's emotions, refine one's character, or even "dance the hidden dragons in the deep gorges" or "cry for the widows on solitary boats." I hope my paintings will be a subtle aside that brings a smile of understanding or an extension of thought that sparks new insights.