Artist Discusses Art -- Special Expressions of Modern Ink Painting Masters

Author: Yu Hui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-12-01
Features: The transformation of Gongbi painting in expressing perspective and surreal spatiality has endowed traditional painting with a modern aesthetic spirit, bringing many vivid and unfamiliar visual experiences to traditional painting. To some extent, this transformation in Gongbi painting reflects more the aesthetic tastes of different flat art forms such as watercolor, oil painting, and printmaking. In terms of its own language, it drifts toward non-native language or marginal language. It has greatly enriched the sense of color in the painting, and the rhythm of the painting has also separated from the natural harmony, appearing concise, bright, contrastive, and harmonious. Large-scale rendering has replaced classical, while the modeling of surface texture has replaced double-line filling with color. The planar composition embedded within the figurative has replaced the natural form of the branch pattern, and it is clear that the traditional patterns of Gongbi painting are being deconstructed and restructured. In this interpretation of the modern consciousness of Gongbi painting, Yu Hui positions herself at the intersection of tradition and modernity. Her works, in addition to the above-mentioned common characteristics, relatively emphasize the role of outlining. Although these outlines are sometimes completely hidden in the expression of surface texture or subtly blended in the faint rendering, these fine lines are undoubtedly the veins that connect her to tradition. The classical spirit preserved and presented in Yu Hui's works, as compared to those of radical reformers, lies not only in the grasp of the atmosphere of high antiquity, nobility, elegance, and even a touch of ethereal charm but also in her limited natural integration of traditional lines into modern language. From the very beginning, Yu Hui bypassed the vague and formulaic ailments formed after the Ming and Qing dynasties and directly pursued the sincerity, naturalness, and simplicity of Song Dynasty painting. Almost every one of her works originates from her genuine perception of natural forms and the capture of real details. From the curves and folds of each leaf and stem, from the subtle changes in the color of each petal, she perceives the essence of life.