Since the ancient times, the artists who were successful in Chinese landscape paintings most of them are the frustrated and lonely literati. Their works are ravishing to highlight they are talented than the others. The nature under their hands become refreshing and the beauty of the nature reach to the acme which just like break away from the cities. Why the artists could do that? They devoted themselves to painting without any distraction which made the artworks full of elegance and delicate brushstrokes. If painting only is for living, or become the tool to get rich and famous, artists will lose the patience and simply paint by haphazard and see their grotesque paintings as the masterpieces. If the artists use arbitrariness as aestheticism, feebleness as beauty, rough as power, dullness as steadiness and simplicity as fading; for the artists, this is already in the critical condition of one’s artistic life

 

Confucius once said, we should determine to our own favorite interest and devote ourselves in a professional conduct together with ideology and superb skills to put into practice. Many Chinese scholars and literati believe so. For the commoners, if they treat painting as a profession, they should dedicate their life to it just like the monks with their esteem of devotion and follow their rules with discreetness, in order to enhance their spiritual level and study from the law of nature; these are the spirits of our ancients. For me, there are no other shortcuts to the success, the only way is to unite one’s soul with the nature from which to learn the tolerance and through the understanding of nature to improve oneself and led you to the road of success.

 

I learnt painting from my father since my childhood and inherit hiscareer naturally. Now I am over 40, but my interest in landscape painting is still as ever. I painted trees and rivers, mountains and ravine as well as clouds and mist, all of them are spacious and eternal. I have spent half of my lifetime in landscape painting;I just hope that I could use the rest of my life to continue the artistic creation, so that I could have a clear conscience to my respectful father and those masters of landscape painting.

FengYiming, Late Fall, 2010