(I)

The fascinating nature is provided with superlative craftsmanship. Seemingly mutually contradictory objects can integrate with each other, producing unexpected charm, soul-stirring and astonishing.

Nature is composed of fluids and solids. To be specific, the former group includes clouds, waters, smokes and mists while the later refers to mountains, stones, ridges and peaks. Outstanding painters depict the two opposite groups on xuan paper, constituting Chinese landscape paintings.

Clouds, waters, smokes and mists are dynamic, widespread and ever-changing, resulting in indeterminacy. Despite being light and feathery, they have invisible power. They are either raging storms and flying waters descending straight, overriding and full of daring, or breeze and drizzle, and light smokes and thin mists that seem to caress the world by hugging or kissing, manifesting sort of feminine beauty, enchanting and dreamlike.

Mountains, stones, ridges and peaks are solid-state, solemn and quiet, composed and immutable. Despite being solid, they are in thousands of postures. They are perpendicular and horizontal, full of ebbs and flows and stand upright in an indomitable manner, or emerge amid forests, rise nearby water shores and soar to the sky, manifesting sort of masculine beauty, pacifying and awe-inspiring.

Mutual fascination and antagonism between fluids and solids in nature leads to man-like virtues for clouds and mountains, spectacular and thought-provoking.

Dynamic clouds and waters can add lofty quality to static mountains and stones  by providing them breath and blood, while static mountains and stones can add vigor to dynamic clouds and waters by providing them thoughts and inspirations.

Clouds and mountains exist in unity and boost each other. Innumerable mountains and valleys contend for beauty, clouds and waters constitute an inexplicable state of charm, fantastic, unrestrained and ever-changing. With the co-existence of dynamic and static objects and mutual reinforcement of Yin and Yang, nature is endowed with souls alive, more fascinating charm as well as eternal and inextinguishable vigor and vitality. Surviving in the nature, mankind sometimes become unaware of the fleeting time even though the seas can dry up and the rocks can decay, or sometimes feel life is transient despite the heaven and earth stand leisurely and it is necessary to cherish more life.

It is Lao Zi, a great thinker and philosopher in ancient China, who found that Yin and Yang co-exist, and heaven and earth are very beautiful but they say nothing. “Dao operates naturally” has become a classic saying, exerting a profound influence on countless men of literature and writing.

Mr. Lai Zhigang is among the outstanding contemporary landscape painters who are deeply influenced by the thought.

(II)

Born in Bengbu, Anhui province and receiving his education in Beijing-based Jia Youfu postgraduate course and Li Xiaoke studio, Lai Zhigang has grasped philosophic theories of Laozi and Zhuangzi and drawn inspirations from mountains and rivers to create profound and forceful ink-wash paintings that originate from life but go beyond life, depict live souls of nature and convey the simple truth that great beauty speaks nothing as well as everlasting tremendous momentum. Moreover, his works showcase the breadth of vision that “man is an integral part of nature” as well as the elegant quality of “clearing the mind to savor the image”, and more importantly, reveal his unrestrained and vigorous style of imagination, carefree joy, and remarkable independent character nourished by clouds and mists, and present the sophistication and delicacy of Chinese landscape paintings in the new era.

On the basis of Mr. Li Keran’s innovative technique of highlighting the texture with backlight, his works created with ink accumulation referred to the practice of Professor Jia Youfu to add three-dimensional effects with huge piles of ink accumulation, but are of more powerful spirits, broader visions, more decorous mountains, more widely spread clouds and mists, more plentiful ink and more vivid artistic conception.

The above styles are notably evident in his huge paintings Dao of Art and Dao of Gorges Flowing and vertical axis paintings Clouds Over High Mountains, Empty Mountain After Rain. Viewers seem to place themselves amid clouds and mountains and breathe smells of mountains and rivers, and are infatuated with beautiful and dangerous peaks, deep gullies surrounded by clouds and mists, rolling ridges, mountains that are ranges in face and peaks viewed from the side, mountain springs that can turn clouds into water, waterfalls descending out of valleys, destructive torrents of water, mountain streams in an endless motion, clouds that weigh on mountain ranges, drifting clouds and mists in the mountains and rising vapors in his paintings.

His works, which are of only three colors, namely black, white and gray, are  characterized by the slightest amount of ink, every stroke being indispensable, crisscrossing, tidy ink traces, rick layers, remarkable charm of color and absence of pigments, but depict in a vivid and unsophisticated way clouds and waters, tranquil gullies, high-altitude mountains and deep valleys. Like a lotus rising out of clear water, natural and without embellishment, ink is of tenacious vitality and is adept at expression.

(III)

The fundamental aesthetic principle for painting is to transfer and replicate multi-dimensional images onto two-dimensional planes without sacrificing the multi-dimensional visual beauty, just as described in the poem “Painting” by Wang Wei, a poet in Tang Dynasty, “From distance, mountain’s colors are unrivaled. At close-up, running water's sounds are stifled. Spring's gone, but flowers still stay. People's approach does not scare birds away.”

Lai Zhigang’s landscape paintings created with ink accumulation faithfully interpret ancient Chinese painting aesthetics and present the bold and rough three-dimensional beauty. Clouds and mountains in his paintings are majestic and graceful, vividly portrayed and momentous like brave generals, men of great ambition or men of moral integrity who are forthright and sincere, self-composed, indomitable, self-disciplined and committed to society.

His success can be attributed to the application of Laozi’s naive dialectics. In terms of composition, shaping and touches, his paintings are full of contradictory pairs, including long and wide, high and low, sparse and dense, soft and tough, great and small, virtual and real, bright and dim, deep and shallow, square and round, lines and planes. But all the contradictions are unified in constant changes and constitute colorful dreamlike and fascinating paintings which are absent of aesthetic fatigue for viewers.

In addition to philosophic thoughts of Laozi, he has been familiar with thoughts of paintings such as“clouds and mountains are the sources of my inspiration”put forward by Zhao Mengfu in Yuan Dynasty, “idealistic imagery” by Dong Qichang in Ming Dynasty, “search for wonderful peaks and make a draft” by Shitao in Qing Dynasty as well as fully agreed on the proposal “don’t copy the ancients, don’t copy yourself” by a modern man Pan Tianshou. He has penetrated into the tradition with great courage and pursued innovations with outstanding skills. Lai Zhigang, who is slow in his speech but prompt to act and wise in heart, tries hard to tell about his experience in painting, the charm of ink wash painting, the outstanding tradition of Chinese culture and the outlook for innovation in his poetic glamorous paintings.

Meanwhile, many of his works have paid tribute to the beautiful and magnificent mountains and rivers in our motherland, unflinching courage of the Chinese nation as well as peace and happiness in the new era, and ushered in a new chapter for landscape painting with ink accumulation.

Works of Mr. Lai Zhigang are artistic but not boastful, truthful, grand and magnificent. Despite drawn with ink and wash, his paintings seem to be in high spirits, which unfold an entirely new world of arts for me and strike my heart. Therefore, I write down my feelings and sincerely hope that he, now aged 60, will create more outstanding works that depict beautiful rivers and mountains of our mother country and sing the praises of Chinese national spirit!

Goushan, West Lake, Hangzhou in April 2023

Ren Daobin, professor at China Academy of Art, the first dean of School of International Education, China Academy of Art, director of Zhejiang Provincial Museum Council, member of the Research Institute of Culture and History of Zhejiang Province and honorary chairman of Japan Sesshu International Ink Wash Painting Exchange Association.

1.Lai Zhigang Painting Show in Hangzhou.

2. Ren Daobin inscribes for Lai Zhigang Painting Show in Hangzhou.

3. A symposium on Lai Zhigang.

4. Empty Mountain After Rain

5. Waterfall in Baishuizhai

6.  Dao of Clouds