Chinese painting is a visual presentation of Chinese philosophy and aesthetics and it carries forward the Chinese creativeness of thousand years. Spirit and artistic conception are the expression core of Chinese art. The view of superior pieces, superb works, fine works of art and excellent works in China's theory of painting are judgments for the ideological level expressed in the work. An artist with no independent spirit and self world will not be an excellent artist.

Mr. Wang Qingzhou is an artist who inherits traditional esthetics and adheres to morality and justice with self-confidence and enthusiasm.

Mr. Qingzhou was born in Anhui and grew up in natural landscape of Dangshan; has visual experience to the samsara of four seasons and vegetation vicissitudes. He was educated by his grandfather who acted as private tutor and read the original Confucian classics such as Great Learning and Analects of Confucius. The nature beneficial to body and mind and the humanities knowledge infused in the classics are the congenital foundation of his artistic creation.

Mr. Qingzhou has been engaged in art since 13 years old and devoted to calligraphy for over 20 years. Since 2004, he started to set foot in ink painting creation; recently he has tried in the Color Painting and comprehensive subjects. His subjects of creation are mainly flowers and birds whose modeling is vivid and color is bright. It is worth noting that Mr. Qingzhou put the protean line into the modeling by using his over 20 year’s power of calligraphy studying for making artistic conception outstanding. The greatest feeling about his these works is purport and vitality which contains in heart and reveals on surface.

Why ancient painters like to paint landscape and plum blossoms, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum? They all have culture motivation. In the deep level, it involves in Chinese cultural core, Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist thought, naturalism, humanism and metaphysics, etc.

The so-called placing feeling in landscape and taking advantage of a scene to express one’s emotion are all purport. The purport of Mr. Qingzhou is in that he loves nature and life. The reeds, plantain, pheasant and sparrow in his painting are full of vitality.

They are all on paper, but they are not static. Every blade of grass and tree in his work has great vital force and they are portrayed vividly. Thus visual infection cannot be found in other stylized work.

Of cause,purport reflected in works differ from each other. However, artists with no certain character will have no purport; the work itself cannot produce spirit automatically. Oriental aesthetics emphasize spirit, more important than form in art works. The purport reflected in work of Mr. Qingzhou, I think， reveals the natural infinite vitality and spirit onto paper and express more natural vivid artistically. In Wang Qingzhou’s thought, man is part of nature, rather than human is bigger than gold and heart of human is also a factor of natural heart. The ancients hold in awe and veneration to nature for experience nature and then reflect it into the poetry, painting and calligraphy; Eastern thought is a reverence to nature and a discussion and sentiment to the seemly uncertain natural law. In fact, this kind of attitude for approaching nature is an ardent love.

When I communicate with Mr. Qingzhou, I can obviously feel his deep love for nature. Thus, he goes to many places, for example, Xishuangbanna of Yuannan Province, and Nagri Guge of Tibet, for painting from life and collecting materials. Without pursuing a short term travel, he has truly realized his enthusiastic field creation in primitive environment with harsh conditions, which can be done by few young artists. Most of them spend their time in studios and draw beautiful rivers and mountains and rare animals without going around the natural world. Field creation requires great effort and energy, but Mr. Qingzhou still enjoys the “painful” creation. The reason is that he is passionate and awed towards the nature and never stops his pursuit of art. Qingzhou’s enthusiasm makes me think of a case of Zen Buddhism “Huang Long’s Three Passes”. During the three passes referring to “a mountain are seen as a mountain at first; later on, one sees the mountain not as a mountain anymore; at last, further down the line, one sees the mountain as a mountain again”, Huang Long was inspired by the nature spirits that he experienced by observing everything in the nature.

Qingzhou’s works are grand with profound effects. With his personality, banana tree and green bamboo are vigorous in his paintings, which reflect the reality without intentional beautification. In his paintings, one cannot find that plants in good conditions are distorted with rare and odd appearance just like the descriptions in On the Pavilion for Sick Plum-blossom Trees written by Gong Ding’ an. Natural beauty is the true and pure beauty, for which Qingzhou’s feelings are up and down.

At present, culture exchanges between oriental and western cultures have gradually increased. It is difficult for me to define the time Qingzhou belongs to and categories of his works. I am willing to regard him as a modern artist and his works as modern works, which are seen to be beyond the rules from the perspective of Chinese paintings. His creation inspirations are similar to that of ancient masters with his passions for mountains and rivers. However, he does not imitate ancient creation forms, which is in concert with Shi Tao’s “I can use the popular rules, but I also have my own rules”. Although his behaviors raise some criticism, I think that his approaches are reasonable in some conditions. Schools and stylizations are popular among current Chinese artists, especial the circle of Chinese paintings. Essential spirit of Chinese painting should lies in mental imagery of artists.

Chinese artists of past dynasties all faced the problem that how to learn from former masters when create their own styles, for example, Dong Qichang, Huang Binhong and Qibaishi, which is seen from the perspective of art history. For artists themselves, they draw what they think and feel, which is the most wonderful for their life.

When communicating with Mr. Qingzhou, I am always impressed by his vigorous creation passion and unchangeable art pursuit. From him, I can feel his great confident, which exceeds that of common people. His confident can be seen from his works, in which we can see coherence instead of hesitation.

At the same time, in the artistic view of Qingzhou, we can feel his self-confidence, because he dares to break the secular view and create. Self-confidence is a rare trait for Chinese and the great masters in all ages have the trait. Of course, we can say Mr. Qingzhou has been a great master, but it is possible he may become a great master. I think, to Mr. Qingzhou himself, whether he can become a great master is not so important and it is important that

his life experience, artistic creation and realm of life can sublimate constantly and get to transcendental ecstasy.

Mr. Qingzhou has gone through many difficulties in the past years and now he will make his journey towards a more splendid future.

I am here waiting for his good news.

2046

July-August 2012

Written at Huajiadi, Wangjing