Anarchy: Flowers as Objects of Perception by Guo Longyao

As a whole

The vitality contained in “Flowers” is like the perception of a young man, permeated with an ideal, diversified and fluttering quality. His apricot blossoms always appear as a whole, with occasional petals at the edges jumping and splashing to the side, but eventually being brought back together again by the composition, returning to the center of the vision and continuing to appear as a whole. There are very few dark parts in his paintings; the shade of the apricot blossoms is often the only dark part of the picture, and the translucent shadows either merge with the apricot blossoms or become one with the ground, and in any case can’t be separated out separately. These dark areas are often covered by the bright parts of the subject matter, revealing only a little bit to indicate their size.

Simplicity and brightness are one of the main characteristics of Guo Longyao’s paintings. At times, a triangular piece of brown soil sprawls in front, giving the apricot blossom trees in the center field the necessary tilt. The apricot blossoms seem to be replicas of the same petal, all grouped together in dots, and although the color variations in the blossoms are weak, they are rich in form and carry their own elegance. The word “elegance” is usually difficult to associate with the scenery of the Northwest, but in Guo Longyao’s writing, the magnificent North also presents a romantic atmosphere of curling together. Who says that the Northwest is not fascinating, and who says that the loess is not romantic?

His paintings have always had a romantic connection with the local nature of the Northwest, which is through the artist’s inner response to the familiar and loved environment – around the apricot blossoms is a quiet scene, even the air currents have become milder, and the warmth of the sun gives them the ultimate satisfaction, spreading the light and saturated pink tones from petals into the unseen paths of the bees that spread the pollen. In these paintings, it is often impossible to see the direction of the sun’s rays, or to realize whether the uniform brightness comes from the sun or from the viewer’s heart.

The perspective of the “flower” is always flat.

The atmosphere of the chapping method

In April and May, when we step into Dingxi, Gansu, a town on the Silk Road, where the terrain is high in the west and low in the east, you can see some red and pink apricot blossoms standing in the center of the rugged hills, and they bloom and look out at the blue sky. The vast terrain of the northwest and the twisting field gullies are depicted by the artist as sprawling and flat. The lines in the picture are generalized, condensed and soft, presenting a meandering scene, which not only strengthens the layers of the distant landscape, but also highlights the composition of the apricot trees in the close-up as the only subject of the picture. He used to arrange his brushstrokes in reverse to strengthen the solidity of the lines, and the color field thus has an additional layer of structure within it. The land is reduced by him to brown, yellow, tan, brick red, green, dark green, and even black. The northern landscape is characterized by dryness, simplicity, greyness, even barrenness, except for that extra pink.

“Chapping, pointing, rubbing and kneading” are some of the techniques used in Guo Longyao’s paintings, and when you look closely, you will see that there are jagged articulations, which are hidden in the darkness, creating a kind of halo feeling. He seems to have been influenced by Chinese landscape painting techniques such as “Mi’s Yunshan, ‘1 where Mi Fu’s ’big rice dots” and Mi Youren’s “small rice dots” are used to depict the lushness of the forest and the foliage of the trees. Mi Fu’s “Big Rice Dots” and Mi Youren’s “Small Rice Dots” were used to depict the lushness of mountains and forests, as well as the foliage of trees, and also to render atmosphere. If we follow this description, we can temporarily call Guo Longyao’s chapped brush strokes “soybean point” or “leaf chapped”, the particles of the brush strokes are always larger than the size of rice and millet. The “rubbing” and “kneading” is a brushwork with a strong sense of craftsmanship, a spirit of artisanalism and a quality of simplicity and persistence.

These portraits of nature are also similar to the artistic pursuit of the Impressionists – emphasizing shapes, lines, color blocks, and bodies and surfaces, through which strong subjective feelings and personalities are revealed. In these realistic images, “the trees are like a lyrical ode to the blue sky filled with silvery-white clouds, and the slow fluttering and clumsy revelry of the leaves and the breeze, the agonizing longing for purification of a rejuvenated human nature.” 2

“I don’t know how to describe it accurately, it’s the same as counting rosary beads, the dynamics of each of my brushstrokes is not overly empty, a stroke is a stroke, I’m restrained in my movements and emotions.” So says Guo Longyao. He uses his brush to reshape a concise nature on the canvas, organizing the volume of apricot blossoms, the breadth of the terrain, the boundlessness of the sky and the purity of the clouds into a flat picture, with not too many ups and downs and flips in the form of things, but just the constant juxtaposition of the same brushstrokes and techniques, which allows for the expansion of a soft atmosphere up to the edges of the canvas.

Singing “Flowers”

Seeking some new features from the form and spirit mixed up in things is what artists have been trying to do since modernism, which can stimulate our perception, and also meet the need of the world in a race against time to bring unknown inspirations to the brain that likes novelty and adventure, or to bring some calm and eternal features to the era of short videos.

The “Flowers” played on a loop in the exhibition hall are empty, mellow and down-to-earth, singing the gentle tonality of Gansu’s folk songs. A pure local dialect or folk song with an expressive nature can be comparable to various forms of language in the world, and give cultural feedback in visual arts. The “flower child” provides that artistic component that is semi-unique and semi-elegant.

“Painting from nature is not about reproducing the object, but about realizing the sensation.” 3 Like Paul Cézanne, he selects from a world of many forms the ones closest to his life and his own spirituality to realize the highest sense of harmony he desires. Guo Longyao captures something universal from the nature of Northwest China and organizes it into his own language with a rigorous writing style, showing the state of existence of apricot blossoms, field ridges, houses, and clouds, just like the state of life of the local people.

“Flowers” is not an imaginary world, it is hidden in a specific place in the real world, where natural objects exist year after year, day after day. Maybe “Huaer” is just a fantasy, but no one can deny that its core is the unchanging need for peace and quiet.

Dreams

One afternoon, while wandering in the field, I had a dream under the almond blossom tree, and was awakened by the birds. Artists cannot perfect the beginning and end of real problems by dreaming, but they can use the dream-like texture to realize the balance between art and reality, or use the language of art to “smooth out,” “cut off,” and “deal with” the discontent in the real world. The language of art is used to “smooth out”, “cut down” and “deal with” the dissatisfaction of the real world, which is not a kind of glorification, but also sometimes in line with the radial direction of the goal of critical reflection: to let more people live in a peaceful age, and to permanently abandon those arguments of right and wrong that are constantly recycled and performed.

“Flowers” shows one’s northwest, the nature in the eyes of the apricot blossoms. Guo Longyao’s paintings do not have a negative connotation, but have an anarchist perspective, a naturalistic concern, and even the spiritual characteristics of “The Story of Peach Blossom Garden”, in which he presents a constant state of natural objects.

Painting is as free as the operation of thought

In his eyes, the natural world is complete and slow-paced, and he has no differentiation of things, but just draws one stroke after another calmly, traces the mother of apricot blossom in his heart over and over again, imagines the rhythm of breathing, passes through the body to reach the interface similar to the cultivation, and demonstrates some kind of continuity in his mind in the process of reconstructing the nature.

Like Cézanne’s paintings of apples and Mount St. Victor, his paintings also have a rational rhythm, such as repeatedly observing and feeling a few natural objects and depicting his own understanding of them, with a strong identification with materiality flowing in his blood – a tree, a cloud, a pale blue sky, a line of quiet rows of field ridge …… all have the naturalness and calmness of life in a constant time frame. These slightly rounded apricot blossoms and gentle and dense chapped brushwork, growing out of the warm season, are fresh and bright with some childishness, innocence and integration.

“Painting should be as free as the workings of the mind “4 and should follow the latest trends of thought, but there is always a distinctive zeitgeist standing in front of us, which cannot be ignored, but as long as the painting can connect the vivid forms of life with the spirit, then it is free from any inhibitions, and can do nothing.

Notes:
1. “Mi’s Cloud Mountain”, Mi Fu’s “Big Rice Dots” and Mi Youren’s “Small Rice Dots” were used to depict the lushness of the mountains and forests and to paint the foliage of the trees, but they could only be used to render the atmosphere, not to depict the structure. But they can only be used to render the atmosphere, not to depict the structure, so they need to use the “pima chapping method” to draw the outline of the mountain before using the rice dot chapping.
2, 4. “Paul Cézanne, Liberator of the Heart”, p148. 3.
3. Cézanne’s letters to Emile Bernard, Courier de France, p247 and p248