Jiang Xun was 77 years old, and he named his personal exhibition "The Clouds Are Clear and the Wind Are Light",
It is on display at the Mingyue Tower near the West Lake in Hangzhou.
Lin Qingxia said that Jiang Xun's voice was her "half sleeping pill",
The West Lake willow waves in Jiang Xun's paintings smell warblers,
The brilliant and endless plum blossoms on the barren mountain,
The wind in the deep pines,
The cloud mountain on the pool, the cat in contrast, the lotus in full bloom in summer
It also soothes people's hearts. Every stroke of ink flows to the clouds and breeze.
Yitiao and Mr. Jiang Xun took a walk by the West Lake,
"I hope the West Lake will become a kind of salvation, a kind of redemption for our modern people,
Office workers are in such a hurry that they can hardly stop,
The word "busy" is really death of the soul,
It's not just the scenery, but also our mood. "
Self description: Jiang Xun
Edited by: Ni Jianjia
In the courtyard of Mingyue Building
Jiang Xun's Tribute to Ni Zan 2021
Jiang Xun's Water Spirit 2024
When I first came to the West Lake, I had a very special experience. We often traveled with several friends. When we went to Florence and Kyoto, we took cameras to take photos. A friend said, would you mind not bringing a camera this time? There is always a frame outside the lens in the camera.
His words gave me a lot of thought. Traditional Chinese literati paintings do not like to close the vision in a box. Xia Gui's "Clear Mountains and Streams" was created in the West Lake. It is a long scroll that can be viewed from left to right, and you can feel the flow of time and space.
I studied in Paris, and probably the most proud thing about western painting is this box. Since the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and his colleagues have tried hard to find a visual focus in the golden section. But when I took classes in the Palace Museum in Taipei, I saw that the paintings of Fan Kuan and Guo Xi in the Northern Song Dynasty are very long vertical axes, and this box cannot be put into it. Now we call it scatter perspective, which is not focus perspective.
The last time I came to the West Lake, it happened to be the night of New Year's Eve. It was snowing, and there were almost no boats on the lake. This kind of space was beautiful, so I shouldn't pick up a camera.
In the West Lake, even the boatman would tell me that the sunny lake is not as good as the rain lake, the rain lake is not as good as the fog lake, and the fog lake is not as good as the snow lake. The snowy West Lake is really ink.
This time when I was doing the exhibition of "Clear Clouds and Gentle Breeze" in the Mingyue Tower, I also thought of the experience of the West Lake in that year, hoping to slowly find a kind of aesthetic feeling like the Southern Song Dynasty in the long scroll with light ink.
There are two pine tree sketches hanging at the entrance of the exhibition
Clouds are light and wind is light. It's about scenery. You feel the wind blowing and there are light clouds in the sky. You feel very happy, but in fact, it's also about our mood.
The West Lake is a place that gives me a feeling of lightness, because it is not heavy at all. In such a long history, Bai Juyi, Su Dongpo, Tang and Song dynasties came to Hangzhou as demoted officials, as if they were exiled, but I think the most remarkable thing is that they did not show a little bit of the sadness of exile.
Su Dongpo's sentence, if the West Lake is better than the West Lake, it is always appropriate to wear light makeup and heavy makeup, which means that the clouds are light and the wind is light.
Some people also have a kind of wisdom that can deal with very dangerous things until the sky is clear. Zhuge Liang always shakes a folding fan. Sima Yi's army encircles the border. When he is in danger, he plays the piano on the tower. I think what great wisdom should there be when the sky is clear and the wind is clear. This wisdom is to know that there is a person's own character besides winning or losing.
Hupao Temple in Hangzhou, a grass temple where Hongyi falls
Behind the Tiger Running Temple, Hongyi Master Yiye Tower
From Bai Juyi, Su Dongpo to the modern Master Li Shutong Hongyi, I think they all practiced themselves in the West Lake. The scenery of the West Lake is very similar to the life of Master Hongyi. Before he was 39 years old, he painted, composed music, sang operas, and also played the role of camellia girl on the stage. But at the age of 39, he went to the Hupao Temple to stop eating, finally became a monk, meticulously practiced himself, and finally left the world.
I think he is a kind of power that gradually retracts life from prosperity from the spring dawn of Su Causeway to the broken bridge and snow.
Jiang Xun's "Luyeluan Mountain Plum Appreciation" 2021
Jiang Xun's Water Spirit 2021
Jiang Xun's Ten Thousand Jade Flowers 2024
I have always liked painting flowers. No one is not excited to see flowers blooming in spring. In fact, it is a desire within our own life.
In Taiwan's Luanshan tribe, many people planted plum trees and wanted to pick plums. Later, they probably planted too many plums, which had no economic value, and turned into abandoned plum flowers all over the mountain. Nobody heard of it. Its life was unconstrained. It grew one by one throughout the mountains. I went to the epidemic, and it was extremely prosperous and brilliant.
Su Causeway Spring Dawn photographed by Jiang Xun
Remnant Snow on the Broken Bridge in Winter
Every life has experienced the prosperity of spring, the prosperity of summer, and the life state is completely different after autumn. It is like walking from spring dawn on the Su Causeway to the autumn moon on the flat lake, and finally to the broken bridge and snow, all the prosperity will pass away. This past is not sorrow or regret, but let life go round and round, like a real success.
The name of the West Lake is very special. Broken bridge and isolated mountain are words that are not commonly used by ordinary people, but the West Lake is also not taboo. People who have seen the spring dawn on the Sudi River go to see the broken bridge and snow. I believe that the mood is particularly charming, and the end state is not necessarily sad.
Jiang Xun's First Snow 2018
One year when I was in the season of light snow, I went to the Tibetan King of Japan and saw a famous place with snow. The bare tree trunks in the snow reminded me of Huang Gongwang's "After Nine Peaks of Snow". He used black dots to express the dead trees in the snow. Every dead tree did not die. They left a lonely dead branch, and kept the energy until the next spring. In fact, it is a process of life cycle.
Jiang Xun's I Still Have Tears 2021
Exhibition site of Mingyue Building
Painting is too happy. I told my friends that painting is love, but the exhibition is very painful, because it is a wedding, and it is over. If the ceremony is necessary, I hope it will not be too rigid.
In recent years, I was a little afraid of too formal art museums. When I was studying in Paris, I often went to the Louvre, but gradually became afraid.
In this space, one painting followed by another, and finally there was only a feeling of fatigue. Maybe it was some kind of show off at the end of the development of colonialism in the West in the 18th century. Beauty should not be a show off. Maybe it was an opportunity when you happened to walk in the eastern garden and meet a couplet.
I like a couplet that I saw in Suzhou gardens. It's windy and rainy, warm and cold, looking everywhere; Ying Ying Yan Yan, flowers, leaves, Qingqing day and night.
It talks about seasons, time, years, prosperity, and the passing of prosperity.
Jiang Xun's Lily 2022: A bunch of fresh lilies is placed opposite the painting
So I chose Mingyue Tower, which has a history of 100 years. Sit down and you may see the Vimalakirti Sutra. What you may see is the magnolia grandiflora blooming outside. I feel a breeze on the lake. I think this is what the West Lake has taught us. It is not deliberate.
Then you can feel that it is probably the "intersection of grief and joy" written by Hongyi at the end. I think that creation is the "intersection of grief and joy". It is not entirely joy, but also a kind of desolation, because it is suddenly face to face with life, with the inner self.
In October 2014, I went to Chishang Village and slept several times better than I did in Taipei. The studio in Taipei was small and the size of the paintings was small. Many of them were paintings of human bodies, but it was strange here. Every day when I walked in the mountains and waters, nature became so important.
In 2019, Yitiao went to the pond to visit Jiang Xun, who was painting lotus flowers on the pond
Lotus 2024, the exhibition site of Clouds and Breezes
I think there is no inspiration, in fact, there is no life. In nature, you want to paint when you see the lotus in summer, and you want to paint when you see the purple of garlic ivy.
Jiang Xun painted the paddy field on the pond as the Autumn Equinox
Jiang Xun's Autumn Equinox 2022, the scroll below is Song on the Pool
The first lesson that Chishang gave me was natural order. In the morning and evening, spring, summer, autumn and winter, the 24 solar terms, farmers had to follow the solar terms because they wanted to plant seedlings and harvest. The morning light of Dapochi is different from that of dusk. After the autumnal equinox, the nights are longer and longer, and the days are shorter and shorter.
At the beginning, I lived in Dapu Village. As soon as the door was opened, there was a pile of loofah, leeks, etc. at the door. I was shocked. I asked around who put things at my door? Nobody paid any attention to me from morning till dusk.
Later, someone said that you came from Taipei impatiently? I said, yes, from Taipei. He said that when there are more leeks and loofah in our house, we will put them at the door of our neighbors. You can eat them. Why ask questions.
Song on the Pool 2016
The pool is very interesting. There are five or six thousand farmers with poor medical equipment. In fact, there are few hospitals. Large hospitals drive for nearly an hour, so the elderly are not willing to go for physical examination. I'm worried about what to do when they get sick.
But they told me that you can rest assured that our longevity population is the highest in Taiwan's 319 villages. He said that his friend's grandmother passed away a while ago. She was 108 years old. When she left, she was still feeling around in the field. Then she said she was tired and fell asleep in bed.
Jiang Xun's residence in Chishang Village was a teacher's dormitory abandoned for 60 years, which was very simple
I have two seals, one is "willing", the other is "reluctant". Often when I finish writing and painting, I will put on a "willing" seal. A friend suddenly asked, I know you have two seals, but never put on a "reluctant" seal.
I said it seemed so. I built "willing" probably to remind myself that there is no one thing I will always have. In fact, in the end, I was most reluctant to be my father and mother, but they all left. When my father left, I was very reluctant to leave. I stayed with him on my deathbed, and my mother was even more reluctant to leave, but they also left. I knew I had to say goodbye to my parents.
In recent years, especially after I came to the pool, I have done a lot of homework of this kind. What can I let go of, but it is painful not to let go at last. What can I take away? Life comes and goes naked.
What's the last lesson? Say goodbye to your body, and one day you must say goodbye.
The beautiful scenery on the pool captured by Jiang Xun with his mobile phone
After living in the pond, I began to like to write "Clouds are clear and the wind is light". I really felt the clouds are clear and the wind is light when I walked in the pond. I thought it was only in spring and autumn before, but sometimes it was also in summer and winter. Later, I found that I was slow down.
In Tokyo and New York, office workers are in such a hurry that they can hardly stop to feel the change of sunlight. They feel the wind, clouds and the word "busy" on that day.
The last time I came to the West Lake was in the winter of 2019. On the White Causeway, a mandarin duck suddenly approached me. It was strange, because it might not be seen at all. Birds would also be afraid of running away. But I was there to look at it for a long time.
West Lake Willow Waves Warbler
Jiang Xun, The Clouds Are Clear and the Wind Breeze Lighter (The West Lake is in the shade of willows) 2021
At the end of spring and the beginning of summer, I went to the willow waves to smell the warblers. The willow trees flew in the wind like water splashing one by one. It was so comfortable. I just lay on the grass, and then I really heard the yellow warblers chirping. I suddenly found that "the willow waves smell the warblers" should be the hearing with their eyes closed.
The Quyuan Hefeng (later renamed as the Quyuan Fenghe) is a wine making Quyuan in the Southern Song Dynasty. You can imagine a summer full of lotus flowers, with the smell of wine making and the wind coming together. It's totally olfactory. The West Lake actually reminds you of many feelings in your body.
I hope the West Lake will become a kind of salvation, a kind of redemption for our modern people. The clouds are clear and the wind is light. You will see many things.
