Mount Tai Ink Charm - A Collection of Works by Six Faculty and Students of Fan Yang Studio, China National Academy of Painting

Author: Jia Dejiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: In recent years, as the national authoritative institution for Chinese painting creation and research, the China National Academy of Fine Arts has demonstrated visionary courage and determination, taking upon itself the responsibility of building Chinese painting. It has innovatively established an educational system under the academy's framework, (relying on painter's studios) to conduct practical educational and teaching activities in Chinese painting. The goal is to create favorable conditions and development space for talents dedicated to Chinese painting creation and research, with significant results and considerable influence, attracting widespread attention from all sectors of society.
As a painter, Fan Yang is an artist who thinks deeply, possesses comprehensive cultivation, and has a creative spirit. He has achieved remarkable proficiency in landscape, figure painting, and other areas. He gained fame in the art world for his figure paintings and became renowned both domestically and internationally for his landscape paintings, making him one of the most influential figures in the Chinese painting world. In his works, one often reads his boundless affection for traditional spirit—the bone structure of Song Dynasty artists, the elegance of Yuan Dynasty masters, the rough yet unrestrained brushwork of Shi Tao, and the boundless subtlety of Huang Binhong. However, all these elements are intertwined between resemblance and dissimilarity, faint and elusive, already fully absorbed and transformed by Fan Yang's bold artistic vision. His brushwork is free and unrestrained, dynamic and turbulent, and spontaneous. His seemingly casual, cross-hatched ink landscapes blur the distinction between brushwork and form, between ancient techniques and his own methods, between "true realm" and "" (virtual realm), leaving viewers uncertain whether it is the clarity of landscapes or the artist's inner voice that draws them in.
The works exhibited by the five young painters—Shan Yongjin, Zhu Zengang, Zhang Fan, Zhou Yibin, and Zhu Ling—from Fan Yang's studio demonstrate that Fan Yang's teaching philosophy has borne fruit and shown its power. During their one-year creative and research training at the studio, these five painters have deeply contemplated many new challenges of the era from all angles. They "stretch one hand toward tradition and the other toward life," using a painter's dedication and passion to experience and feel mountains, rivers, trees, pavilions, boats, bridges, and people. Their rigorous traditional techniques and compositional skills give these works an overall fresh and harmonious style, brimming with vitality. They not only reveal their natural talent and creativity but also show how, through calm reflection, they have pushed their art forward and developed more personalized expressive features.
Shan Yongjin, as the executive vice president of the Weihai Municipal Association of Fine Arts, is deeply influenced by Qilu culture and has profound brushwork skills. His works emphasize structure and (mastery), primarily depicting the Taihang Mountains, belonging to the "grand landscape" style, with a simple and straightforward artistic approach. Zhu Zengang's landscapes are even more ethereal, with compositions that evolve from close-up scenes to high-distance spaces and from realistic scenes to virtual realms. His arrangements are both ingenious and naturally flowing. Zhang Fan, born in Jiangnan, is inseparable from the cultural influence of the region. Unconsciously, he inherits the legacy of literati painting. He examines, selects, creates, and combines traditional symbols of Chinese painting with new concepts, displaying a kind of magic that "transmutes decay into wonder." Zhu Ling's works also belong to the grand-structure style, but compared to the first three, they show distinct differences: Shan's works are simple, Zhu's are unrestrained, Zhang's are lush, and Zhu Ling's works exhibit a shift from rational expression to relaxed articulation. His flowing, wandering brushwork freezes multiple layers of meaning in the composition, with the natural emergence of "" (momentum) breaking through static time and space, revitalizing and deepening the poetic essence. This gives his paintings an extraordinary quality.
Among the five, Zhou Yibin is the only one who paints figures. He enjoys poetry and values antiquity, and his figure paintings reveal two styles: one is Buddha-like figures placed in natural landscapes, still within the "Fan Yang style," and the other is simpler, more personal works. It can be said that the students in the studio have, through their exploratory creations, practiced the teaching training and planning of Fan Yang's studio, and have substantially elevated their artistic understanding and creative level. This holds profound significance for the advancement and development of Chinese painting, beyond doubt.