''Spring promise''-solo exhibition of Tai Ho Ying
Unfinished Introduction
Article/Dai Hai-Ying
In the annual Gallery Exposition in Taipei last year, I was invited by Moon Gallery in Taichung and thus I sent some art works by the end of October. Out of surprise, I received a letter from Chin Dai-Hsi who was in Taipei,
“Dear Hai-Ying, there was an exposition in Taipei. I went to the booth of Moon Gallery and saw three of your recent works. Those small but full-of-spring paintings truly amazed me. I can see your exciting mood in those paintings. Hope you can stay on the path and keep exploring. Please express my greetings to Yi-Hua and maybe we will meet soon.
Sincerely,
Dai-Hsi
2013/11/21 Taipei”
When I painted in the recent years, I felt it was endless. When it came to the deadline, I was always reluctant to deliver the works which I was not very satisfies. I was curious why Dai-Hsi had chances to see my works closely and even wrote letters to encourage me. Then I received a letter from Hsi-Song who said he got a call from Dai-Hsi and Dai-Hsi said he saw my art works at the exposition that made him feel out of spring. I was really surprised and really want to know more about Dai-Hsi’s perspectives on my recent art works.
I got a call from Ms. Chen of Moon Gallery this July to discuss about the painting exhibition in 2014 and the introduction for the catalogue. When we talked about Mr. Jin Hen-Gjie, Ms. Chen mentioned that Mr. Jin came to the booth of Moon Gallery in the last Exposition and he shared his afterthoughts with them. Therefore, we decided to invited Mr. Jin Hen-Gjie (Jin Dai-Hsi) to write the introduction.
On July 24 (Sun.), I and Dai-Hsi agreed on the phone to see my paintings at 4 pm next Thursday. By the night of Wednesday, Dai-His called and said he was not well. He might get a cold and have to reschedule the meeting tomorrow. He would call me after he got well. After the phone, I had been waiting for him. But he never called again. He left all of us. When I thought of him every time, I felt myself full of sorrow.
He was an old friend of mine who met in Paris. We seldom met each other in one year. As I remembered, I though the Jin family knew I was alone painting in Paris in this May, they invited me for dinner and to see the recent art works of Lee Ming-Ming. I got their place early and went to Ming-Ming’s studio to see the paintings. When it was about time to dinner, I was informed it was their young sister’s birthday. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t bring anything to visit them. I used to bring a bottle of wine to friends when I was a student, but I was too busy to bring it. So I was really embarrassed to celebrate their young sister’s birthday with their family. Time really passed very soon. I remembered when I first arrived in Paris to learn painting, I met Hsi-Song and he introduced me to Jin Dai-Hsi and Lee Ming-Ming. It was the time that people in Hong Kong and Taiwan would pay attention to young contemporary artists in Europe and the U.S. And all of them knew the Europe magazine whose editor was Mr. Jin Hen-Gjie (Jin Dai-Hsi). It was fortunate for us to meet such a pioneering artist in Paris. At that time, the young sister of the Jin family was about time to learn to speak and she could speak very well. Once a time, the parents came to visit us with their young daughter. It was our common habit in Paris – when the adults were chatting, we tended to leave our children to pay aside. Suddenly, we found they were fighting. It turned out that their young daughter brought a gift to our son and ask him to say thanks. My son was too young to say thanks but smiled to her. We found it was really cute and funny. Lee Ming-Ming thus said to the young girl that the little boy was too young to speak. Then the young girl turned to be serious and said, “He has tongue and teeth. He got a gift, and he has to say thank you, or he is not polite.” We have so many fun memories and we talked a lot of them on her birthday.
After the long dinner chat, the young daughter considered her parents were old and easily to get tired, so she wanted to take them home early. I would also ask for a leave. But Mr. Jin asked me to stay. Later on, we discussed about the translation progress of Les Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire (1782) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Dai-Hsi said it was the most difficult task he even had. There was more than ten Chinese translation versions and it was still worth to retranslate the master piece. Then we also talked about “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” by the Song Dynasty artist of Zhang Zeduan and “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” by the Yuan Dynasty artist of Hung Gongwang. All of sudden, we were all interested and Dai-Hsi took out his elite copy of the full “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” on the floor and we looked at the seven-meter long painting together.
When we looked at the “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” on the floor, the beginning is the fragment reserved by Zhejiang Musuem and the later one is the fragment reserved by National Palace Museum in Taipei. In the painting, the mountains started from the right-hand side to the village house next to the river. Then, there were mountains in a far distance to desert the river with some trees and pavilions. There were more trees near the river, and some fish boats next to the pavilions. Along the river side, there was a pavilion and three little trees. There were villages walking on the bridge back to their houses in the deep mountains and high trees behind their houses. There were paths to the river and to the top of the mountains. When it was near to the valley, the wind was stronger blowing the tiny osiers. There were mountains after mountains, side by side, till the middle of the painting. Finally, there was the sand bank with lot of bushes, and a high mountain behind. The painting exhibited the great mountains, high hills, deep valleys, as well as the shallow sand bank. We were speechless and looked at the simple and honest painting to form the great image where the sky and the water cannot be identified with thin and thick ink strokes to create the high mountains and great waves. What can we say more about it? The Tang poet Du Fu had said for us in his poem.
Finally, we began to talk. The painting “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” was painted by more the four years, but it seemed to be done in one time. Hung Gongwang started to lay out the painting and began to paint. He took three to four years, but he was not satisfied. So he always brought this painting when he was traveling. When he had free time, he would add something on the painting. Therefore, we can see the different drawing of bushes, stones, mountains, clouds and water, which made viewers can have different feelings. Literally discern subtle differences can be returned to the wet and dry weight shades pen, ink , water , changes in the structure of infinite thickness and length , corresponding to our life experiences to show the natural changes in the infinite; when we look forward to a lively and vivid vision pen and ink style effect , require modeling generalization touching vitality glance impossible to go chase the natural shape, and from scene to feel real, they often seem abstract tendencies; as with "birds of the forest , the grass snake scared" to comment calligraphy , meaning birds not scared of snakes, intended specifically at the " happy " ; we will talk about a very concise , very concentrated on the Chinese words such as "渾," "厚," "華," "滋" , even to summarize the Chinese spirit ( Huang Binhong titled: "Tang people scored Hyun , Song people refurbished see vigorous temperament wordsworth our nation , but were old saying bogey figure by." It is to eye on image and to avoid illustrations.) We fell into silence again.
Then we looked at the painting “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” and discussed the exhibition ways of contemporary expositions. Those paintings uniquely express the time element, so the painting should be hold in hands. The unfold part is the future, the current part is the current time, and the folded part is the pass time, which was corresponded to the time experience. Without the time element, we have no expectation on the future, no memories of the pass, and no pressure to hold on the current time. Without the time condition, there is no life, and activities are stopped, like on the operating table as we can observe carefully back and forth.
As we looked at the painting, we talked about the angle we looked. Western scholars pointed out that Chinese painting is from a high perspective and moving constantly, like flying in the sky. We checked the standard line of the painting, we enjoyed high from the middle of mountains, looking at hilltop and overlooking the waterfront vision. We can browse the path and track people's attention from the deep valley of the jungle, village houses visible during the looming buildings, as titled: the author returned to Fuchun and finished this painting in the south tower. Then, Jin Dai-Hsi talked about the classic Chinese poems, which showed clear time and space, such as the poets of Du Fu. From Du Fu’s poems, the audiences can clearly imagined the weeds along the river bank and the lone boat on the water, and the individual saw the sky on the boat who saw starts and the moon. From reading out the poem, we can see images in our brain, from the small perspective to a large view. We became vigorous. Suddenly, I realized it was the middle of the night. And Mr. Jin also forgot how tired he was. So I had to leave at the mid night.
It was my last chance to talk about paintings and poems with Jin Dai-Hsi. I enclosed the letters from him. It is unfortunate he didn’t finish the introduction.
2014/11/18