Selected Collection of Oil Paintings by Pu Songling

Author: Zeng Songling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The painter began learning to draw in a hazy state, experienced the weighing and striving for fame and fortune, and returned to a hazy state dominated by aesthetic beauty in his later years. In the clear and striving segments, the artist went through long years. In the midst of numerous artistic doctrines, it is futile to judge right or wrong. That is the task of the younger generation. This is a pluralistic world, where each art form has its own, more or less, audience, and thus its own space for existence and self-affirming value. A painter who insists on their aesthetic needs, finds their own audience, and seeks fresh sensations within their own artistic will is an honest painter. A painter who adapts their aesthetic sense to belong to more viewers is an dishonest and contrived one. I have always remembered this rule, just like eating three meals a day and sleeping at night. This collection records some of my works from the hazy beginning of learning to draw to my time mingling in the art world. It lacks novelty and is merely an intuitive perception of an outdated lifestyle. However, in adhering to my own aesthetic will, I am honest. I am grateful that I have been able to shed various pressures and enter a hazy state of artistic pursuit, like when I first started learning to draw—hazy, ignorant, and without striving.