The Way of Art of a Soul Exerciser

Peng Weiheng is my buddy, and it is said the Hakka dishes he makes are very delicious, but I haven’t chance to taste, but I have tasted a lot of his spiritual products.

His personal art show is about to be held and he hoped me to write an essay for him – that embarrasses me really. I cant speak even an entire sentence at mean time, but I can write something now, please excuse me. I hope the readers can enjoy themselves. I was acquainted with him ten years ago and he looked like a young fellow then. Now he looks like nearly an old man after being tortured by life. During the ten years, he was tortured and thoroughly remolded himself by his life.

Come straight to the points! In terms of his exploration direction, he discarded the bizarre and motley world and entered his inward and the origin of painting; just like the modeling method of the painters before the 16th and 17th century, the painters at that time described the myth, but he described himself. In my opinion, the figures he painted don’t have the differentiation of male and female, all of them can be regarded as the conversion of his feeling and thought. The image and motion of the people in the paintings are the externalization of his inward world and they are presented in a romantic way. Weiheng is a man of autophilia, he is fascinated in his artwork and the pleasant sensation brought to him by the integration of tiny things. When I make definition here, I have something to compare. His modeling method is based on the tradition, but also deviates from the objective logic and goes beyond the limit of reality; it doesn’t intend to escape the reality world, but to grasp it in a better way with romance. The traditional methods are obvious, comparative and definite, and the colors are clear. But his paintings have oblique and tedious – just like in the smog. We can feel the depressive feeling in the tendering and weakening figures. He abandoned the clear and obvious traditional comparison method in the description and uses the gradually strong but restrained method to describe continually. He paints unruffled and shows more and more strength and taste in the weakness. When the final climax comes near in the gradually strong description, it will show the weight of life and the hollowness of fortune.

When I said this, I can’t help to imagine how did his aesthetics come into being… I don’t recognize his childhood, for the childhood of an artist is very important to his art and aesthetics orientation in the future. His paintings make me think of Caravaggio – the classic painters. Maybe the reader will laugh – what are you saying? No – there is a world of difference between them. Caravaggio uses the gloomy hues to compare with and set off the matters and he endows the paintings with dramaticism and mysterious feelings. While, Weiheng weakens the strong and he changes the dramaticism into romance and keeps that kinds of mystery and hollowness. The grey hue intending to be weak is governing the entire painting; in the hues just like smog, Weiheng endows various matters with life. The light used by Caravaggio is dramastic, and the colors are strong and external; the light used by Weiheng is the restrained internal demands. The color restraints and the figure modeling are just like a craftsman who is grinding a jade, it makes man tense but fondle admiringly. In terms of methodology, Weiheng uses the traditional Western modeling method; in terms of aesthetics, he selects the direct opposite way of aesthetics; in terms of vision, he doesn’t have the traditional aesthetic feeling, but the self-sufficient, free, unmaterialized and romantic feeling which can express more of his internal demands. His aesthetics is self-conscious and introspective. He inherits from the aesthetics of the Chinese agricultural civilization. For example, the feature of self-sufficient and the personal expression of the internal demands presented in the paintings of traditional scholar can be presented in his paintings – under the grey hue and in the harmonious scene, the abruption among matters are on the contrary. The abruption among the matters is conceiving more possibilities in the atmosphere of pathetic, passive and hollow hues.

Weiheng and me are about to 40 years old. An old proverb says – Life begins at forty. But we have a lot of doubts. In such an environment, Weiheng didn’t face the doubts given by the environment directly, instead he goes back to his spiritual life and present all his bitter experiences of humanity during the beauty appreciation by the aesthetics way, and show the different imagination provided by other methods.

Actually I have had few time to live with Weiheng and I didn’t obtained his feeling to the reality environment from his talking. Sure, he seems not to care about the times and the people affected by the politics. When I was facing his works, I started to feel the sensitive feelings of Weiheng and his exquisite affection. In the environment in which we are growing up, each generation of people have the circumstances of their own since “emancipation”. In such circumstances, not everyone can determine his fortune. What makes us confused is the relation of breaking and not inheritances between two generations of people – that is the relation of “revolution” and the relation of “reform”. Fortunately, we have “opened up”. We are worrying, confusing, feeling uneasy and wresting in the “reform”, ”revolution” and “opening-up”. We feel a lot of doubts, just like the pathetic, passive and hollow hue in the works of Weiheng, it makes the people depressed. Being blessed by “reforming and opening-up”, it is possible for Weiheng to learn from Western countries. No matter oriental or Western matters, he can return to the tradition and describe the context relations. In my opinions, Weiheng is walking in a very narrow path but not broad path. The dusk is about to come, and I can see his sight of back which is trekking on the way in the pathetic and hollow hue. Let me see him off and bless for him cordially…

When we were tortured by the meanings, their affects and even more fearsome creation, Weiheng is finding in his lonely feeling world. He expresses his recognition to the matters with more ancient ways. Somebody said that, a person is incorporated with his nationalities, times and background. Just expressing his really internal though integrally, he can obtain anything he wants. I also agree with this argument, and it is also my expectation to Wei Heng.

Now I will also show my respect to the hard work of Mr. Linsong for the growing-up of young artists in many years!

Qing Yue
2010.12.10 BeiJing