The Profound Courtyard

The Profound Courtyard

—The impressions to Wenbing’s canvases

Guoyu

How profound the courtyard is, surrounded by the mist-covered poplar trees, just like shades. Riding a horse to roam the scenery, a high mansion blocks the pathway. Rain, wind visit in later March, cottage in dusk and spring slowly go away. Question flowers with tearful eyes, it keeps wordless; blossom dropping, autumn has been without the trace.         

In Yangtze Delta area, the classical gardens and beautiful women often are entered into paintings. In people’s imagination, the paintings genre is gentle and soft, just like a poem describing: “green and green spring water embraces a pleasure-boat wandering, rain and rain seams a harp singing. On bank, a beauty sits by wine-sale counter; she has moon face and milky skin.”

The paintings in Yangtze Delta area seems not drawing, not painting, but gently blowing out. To take a brush in random, a painting naturally appears. 

However, Wenbing’s paintings let me see another kind of Yangtze Delta area: the blue sky is heavy, the classical courtyard sitting yellow dust. Several modern women open the vague eyes to look up the far sly. The view of naked-back figures stealthily goes away just like ghosts. The paintings show the dense mist of uncanny flirtation, with frightening. At first, watching the painting I think that is figures in the classical novel of “Strange Stories from Chinese Studio” rather than modern world. These reincarnation and samsara women shuttle a wrong space-time, not entering Lanruo Temple, falling into a classical garden in Yangtze Delta area.   

The picture is full of tremendous tensile force and contents: the most classical garden, the most modern women, the most conservative ancient courtyard and the most exotic naked-back figures. 

No doubt, Wnebing’s brushwork is bleak. In literature there are two kinds of bleakness: castle style and courtyard style.  

In the novel of Franz Kafka, that is with fable colors, is sort of castle bleakness—the protagonist mazes in the grey mist secluded small town. In here there are the labyrinth-like castle, cold and dry winter season, and fog atmosphere and silence people. The bleakness is with grey color background. The season, the town and the people thrill of your nerves.

 “Dream of Red Mansion” shows another kind of bleakness: pavilions, richly ornamented buildings, poet singing, wine drinking and romantic theme poem writing. “After spring of season the flowers falling up,” the extreme prosperous is past, then lonely withered. Just like the burned Epang Palace, the exquisite jade railings ruined let alone the red corridor. The bleakness is with strong red and green background, dispersing after a grand feast.

The bleakness under the description of Wenbing’s paintings is more like a castle-like courtyard.

The women in red shirts are with necked-back and dotting in the classical garden. Figures and environment is mixed sharply showing some perverse ambiguousness, just like K in “Castle,” no one knows where and why she comes from. Their eyes are vague and full of expecting, looking up the sky and waiting the answer from Heaven. They fall into the space-time not belonging to them, just like K not belonging to the castle. There are always some people born in a bad time, their heart unsuitable to the current world. I believe the women in the painting belong to the group. Facing the outside world they, by vague eyes expression, naked-back and betrayed gesture, resist the world denying them. They resemble K, amazing “who am I?” and expecting the “castle,” they are loneliness, like K being denied by the world.

In the painting series, the theme is grey, with grey oppression, grey desolation and grey desperation. However author uses red, yellow, blue etc. the strong color elements to describe them. The figures’ clothes all are red, hotness and ambiguousness. Yellow sand is very oppressive but blue sky is bit of restlessness. The common tricolor is expressed uncommon. It still is full of contradiction, under quiet surface the rolling warm current surges.

It uses strong red and green colors to contrast “the grey theme,” that is similar to the style of “Dream of Red Mansion,” seldom description, more vividness. The artist simply depicts the garden, women, but the brushwork is exquisite and wrought, just like Grand View Garden described by Cao Xueqin in “Dream of Red Mansion.”  The cold atmosphere in the background, though artist not painstakingly describing it, strongly soaks into audience heart.    

The painting series share a common subject, or “concept” painting in philosophy. Artist emotion surges in creating. The emotion is oppression and irascibleness, calmness and clamor, struggling and desperation. Dissimilar to ordinary figure painting and scenery painting, the figures in here without discourse right, their eyes expression shows the artist own sound. So the painting series are full of rich “ego” colors, moreover id, selfhood, beyond self. These paintings are a very profound tunnel into artist heart.      

Famous scholar Wang Guowei ever commented on poem that has two kinds of realm: “the realm with me” and “the realm without me.” The verse “Question flowers with tearful eyes, it keeps wordless; blossom dropping, autumn has been without the trace” is “the realm with me;” however “picking up chrysanthemum in Dongli and seeing South Hill leisurely ” is “the realm without me.” No doubt Wenbing’s canvases are the former and different to much portraiture. Maybe that is difference between Gustave Flaubert and Franz Kafka.