Sailing the Art Sea -- A Glimpse into a Thousand Years of Chinese Art

Author: Zhang Fa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-05-01
Features: In the hustle and bustle of the city, amidst the chaotic flow of traffic and crowds, can you still close your eyes and enjoy a moment of quiet reflection? The poet says, enough, let me enjoy silence! Amidst the noise of fashion, in the flickering neon lights, where is the path through the forest where one can walk alone? The philosopher says, in the misty haze of the forest, there is always a hint of poetry that emerges faintly. We live, we run so laboriously in this world; we must live, restless, busy, tired, and exhausted. Yet our infants still cry passionately into the world, and our grandmothers still pickle winter vegetables for the children. Last night, I was so weary, tired, frustrated, and even utterly disheartened. But in the morning, I wiped my face and still had to drive forward, hurrying on my way. Outside the car window, I occasionally glimpsed wild fennel by the roadside, flourishing wildly. I remembered a poem I wrote in my youth:
I carry the thick sorrow of my homeland,
From south to north, I search for my dreams of the poet.
I truly wish to burn all my poems,
Pick up the ox-horn horn, and walk into the depths of the wilderness.
That is a timeless plea from youth.
"What is the role of a poet in a poor age?"
We must always seek meaning for our existence, we must always name our busy lives.
We will inevitably run helplessly along the path of meaning and significance,
Picking flintstones from the rubble of time.
In this poetry-deprived era, I stubbornly seek poetry.
The burden of civilization is so heavy,
I am fond of the path through the forest, fond of art.
The essence of art is poetry, and the essence of poetry is the sincere dance of life.
Yet the contemplation of existence is always abandoned,
The poetic nature of thought is always covered and hidden.
Man, to dwell poetically?
Is this a prophecy, or a curse?
I stubbornly question this overused, trendy, and smooth adornment.
Man, to dwell poetically!
I still chose it with great difficulty.
So I invited teachers, scholars, and friends to embark on a distant journey of thought,
Letting faint threads of thought drift like mist in the clouds,
Allowing gentle strands of thought to wander between the heavens and the sea.
Thought always arrives suddenly—whose wonder can touch it?
Thus, this series of "Tides of the Sea of People" art and cultural prose books was born.
Chinese literature and art unfold in the vastness of time and space,
With falling petals and boundless grandeur,
Can its beauty be vividly expressed in a small book?
I recalled an analogy:
When browsing through various geographical maps, I noticed that,
Facing the same pair of spheres, one can draw various maps—administrative maps, transportation maps, travel maps, topographic maps, weather maps, mineral distribution maps, plant distribution maps.
It is impossible to draw all these maps into one comprehensive map,
Each map has its irreplaceable uniqueness.
When a historian faces history, how does one choose and depict their unique historical map?
On one hand, history can be depicted in various ways, with no unified standard.
On the other hand, once you choose a method, that method has its own unified standard.
I have long desired to depict the millennium-old artistic soul of China,
But until now, I have yet to find a graphical model that aligns with both my heart and the heart of the universe.
In my search, I first left a trail of scattered footprints on the path of literature and art.
Let us consider it as a simple and desolate cottage I have unintentionally built on the road of scholarship.