Transmuting Qi into Form:

The Modern Shanshui Art of Shen Aiqi

Pi Daojian

Shen Aiqi can be described as one of the eccentric geniuses of Hubei. A true individualist, he has forged his own path all his life. He is equally at home lustily singing heroic songs as quietly contemplating the mysteries of the human and the natural worlds. But above all, it is painting that is his passion. He has been engaged in the exploration of the painting process since his youth, and in the late 1950s was already a dedicated student of the great Hubei master Xu Song’an. As the decades passed by he immersed himself in the study of the ‘six canons’ of Chinese art，creating a unique body of work grounded on the training he received under his master’s tutelage, yet very uniquely his own. For many years Shen Aiqi rarely showed his paintings to others: it was only after he celebrated his 70^th birthday that he chose to share his work with the world in a solo exhibition at the Wuhan Museum of Art—an exhibition that caused a true sensation in art circles and beyond.

Shen Aiqi’s painting is majestic and vibrant, radiating a unique sense of life-force that is tangible to all who come into contact with it. Within his works are contained organic patterns of nature and energy. The monumental grandeur of his art is the same kind of grandeur (da) that the philosopher Mencius described as emerging only when the outer form expresses the vital, radiant spirit within. This is the kind of grandeur that can only arise when the artist merges with sky and earth, mountains and rivers, fusing his life-force with that of nature. For Shen Aiqi, the process of merging with nature and then expressing this oneness through his art is one of the greatest joys of painting.

Ultimately, Shen Aiqi’s way of life and his way of art are as one: and this unity is the most critical aspect of his shanshui painting, for it is within this very fusion of life and art that the contemporaneity of his shanshui art is found. For decades Shen Aiqi led a quiet and secluded existence, immersed in the private world of his art and his thoughts. While many would find this solitary life hard to endure, Aiqi’s inner joyfulness has never been diminished by it. Most of us require a certain degree of material comfort in our lives, but Aiqi is not like most people. He is perfectly content with ‘a single dish of rice, and a single cup of drink’, as Confucius put it: his only real desire is to share the discoveries of his artistic journey with others.

Aiqi has always believed that it is crucial for an artist to be independent and self-sufficient, to walk his own path. In the 1980s, when the open-door political and economic reforms were first instituted in China, most people became obsessed with escaping the scarcity they had endured for so long and sought every means possible to improve their material well-being. By contrast, Shen Aiqi’s concerns at this time were focused on the idea that ‘man and nature are as one’. Although this concept is fundamental to the Chinese philosophical tradition, it has been largely forgotten—and indeed even rejected– by people today. Shen Aiqi, however, has always held firm to this belief in the unity of man and nature. He recognizes the critical problem that has arisen in our times, when modern civilization has artificially split man and nature apart. Tearing ourselves away from the body of nature, we have performed a fatal vivisection. We have destroyed the ancient unity and made nature into an adversary—a state of affairs that is bringing disaster to our civilization.

In the 1990s, Shen Aiqi’s philosophical and artistic journey led him to a new understanding regarding the conceptualization of the cosmic creative source. Aiqi describes this conceptualization as tai 態: the unity of energy (nengliang能量) and the heart-mind (xin心). This concept of tai expresses Aiqi’s understanding of the world, of nature and the universe.  To Aiqi, tai is the mother of the universe, the source of all things. The ancient Chinese philosopher Hui Shi (380-305 BCE) defined the universe as ‘the great oneness’ of which there is ‘nothing beyond’: yet Shen Aiqi insists that tai is a force vaster and greater than the universe. The world is full of energy, and this energy is in constant circulation: once a person merges with this cycle of energy, his life takes on authentic meaning. Shen Aiqi’s integration of this philosophical understanding into his daily life explains why the first act he performs in the painting process is to ‘harness qi’ (cai qi): this action is, in essence, a contemporary manifestation of the Daoist concept of yiqiyunhua–channeling the world’s energies and concentrating them into oneself, so that they become a source of creative, expressive power. When Aiqi paints, he first gathers into himself the qi, or energy, of nature, and then externalizes it through the dynamic forms of brushwork–dots, lines, ink rhythm, ink ‘breath’; through this visual externalization, he constructs a world.

The painter Zao Wou-ki (1920-2013) once said that ‘A good painting breathes’. This is the case with all Aiqi’s work: whether he is using splashed-ink (pomo) or some other method, every form he paints is infused with breath. This sense of ‘breathing’ implicit in his work probably derives from Aiqi’s creative methodology of ‘harnessing qi’, a methodology that arises organically from his very way of life, as he lives and breathes in harmony with nature. To me, Aiqi’s creative methodology can be summed up as the ‘transmutation of qi into form’, which follows a direct trajectory from the most ancient and elemental concept of Chinese art—the idea of ‘breath-resonance’ (qiyun). Within this concept of breath-resonance is contained the idea that painting is infused with and animated by the same kind of life-force that animates humans, and indeed all living beings. The overarching goal of Shen Aiqi’s contemporary shanshui painting is nothing less than the physical/visual expression of this living, breathing presence. Watching Aiqi paint, one might feel that his is a completely unrestrained, almost cathartic process, but in fact it is far more than this. For Aiqi, painting is a vital necessity of his inner, energetic life-force as well as of his daily life: it is the way he expresses his being-ness in the world. Yet at the same time, he also wants to use his art to shake people up—to awaken them–by giving them a kind of powerful visual shock. His painting at first glance seems abstract and formless, but in fact it has both pattern and form that extend beyond the painting surface itself. This pattern and form come into being through the artist’s complete energetic investment in the act of painting, through the rhythm and ‘breathing’ of the ink forms; and, ultimately, they manifest through in their emergence in our minds and hearts.

Aiqi is both deeply imaginative and keenly observant. His scope of investigation is broad, and he has made a special study of the body’s meridians (or energy channels) as defined in traditional Chinese medicine, discovering in the process that the meridians and arteries of the human body are closely aligned with those of nature’s ‘body’.

In Aiqi’s view, the mountains also have a beating heart at their centre, and so in his paintings he creates many radiating meridians, constructed of ink lines and ink dots which are in essence the physical/visual vehicles by which he harnesses, or perhaps responds to, the energy channels of the world. But whether a harnessing or a response, his creative methodology can always be defined as the transmutation of qi into form.

Aiqi’s use of the traditional brush-methods of Chinese calligraphy to create visual constructions whose vibrant aliveness shocks and stimulates the viewer is the most critical aspect of his shanshui painting. The Qing-dynasty artist Fang Shishu (1692-1751) wrote that ‘The world is created through the heart-mind, and the hand brings the realm of the heart-mind into form; this is the realm of emptiness. To manifest the void in solid form is the essence of brushwork. This is why, through their brushwork, the ancients were able to materialize the pure colours of the mountains and the elegant shapeliness of the trees, the lively tumult of the waters and the glistening skin of the rocks, creating a realm of spiritual, energetic vitality existing beyond the physical boundaries of sky and earth.’[1]

Since the Yuan period, China’s greatest artists have used the shanshui form as a vehicle to express the vitality of their brushwork, and have used brushwork to express the innermost realms of their minds and hearts. Shen Aiqi is a faithful follower of this heritage. In formal and structural terms his brushwork fully realizes the bold and unconstrained style of his teacher Xu Song’an; yet at the same time from these elements he has woven his own uniquely expressive mode.

The myriad forms and transformations of Aiqi’s paintings twist and turn like withered vines; come crashing down like falling mountain rocks; splinter and crackle like the biting autumn wind; or float as lightly as the moist spring rain. His work stimulates and enchants, and at the same time it is permeated with an energy and vitality specific to our age. This is why Aiqi’s art both captivates and challenges the modern aesthetic perception, and yet goes even further to stimulate a kind of soul-searching in the wake of the encounter. It is through this kind of impact that Shen Aiqi can be said to have broken new artistic ground and opened up a new expressive sensibility and conceptual dimension that further validates the importance of Chinese painting in a contemporary context.

Ultimately, what Shen Aiqi seeks is to share both his artistic discoveries and philosophical his thinking with others. This is why he eventually moved out of his studio to paint in the open air, between earth and sky, utilizing his unique methodology to create these huge, masterful paintings through which he seeks to knock on the door of our hearts and minds. From my understanding, Aiqi’s method of painting out in the open air is an extension of the concept of ‘harnessing qi’ that he first began to work with 30 years ago. He has always believed that man and nature should not be in opposition, that they are in fact not binaries, but are as one. His working method infuses his paintings with a strong sense of performance, setting his art apart from that of his shanshui forbears. But this element of performance is also quite different from that of modern Western ‘action painting’. This is not only because Aiqi paints out in the open air, in the midst of nature. The key issue is that Aiqi’s paintings are the direct expression of his emotional and spiritual state in the moment；and by extension, they also channel, through the actions and methodology of the individual artist, the response of traditional Chinese culture in confrontation with the age of economic and technical globalization on the one hand and the existential state of modern Chinese society on the other. His works are materialisations of Chinese philosophical thought, of traditional views on nature, and on the relationship between man and the universe. In this sense, Shen Aiqi’s shanshui painting can be considered as a form of Chinese contemporary art.

(Translated by Valerie C. Doran)

[1] The exact quotation in Chinese is: 因心造境，以手運心，此虛​​境也。虛而為實，是在筆墨有無間，故古人筆墨具此山蒼樹秀、水活石潤，於天地之外另構一種靈. See Fang Shishu’s original text Tianyong’an suibi (天慵庵隨筆).

一氣運化  依氣成象

沈愛其的現代山水畫藝術

皮道堅

沈愛其，湖北奇人也。一生特立獨行、與俗寡諧，愛唱大江東去，好究天人之際。他少喜丹青，上世紀50年代末師從湖北中國畫大家徐松安先生。數十年如一日孜孜矻矻精研“六法”，創作成果充棟，然其謹承師訓，鮮少以作品示人，七秩以後方在武漢美術館舉辦個展，遂引起圈內震動、圈外轟動。

沈愛其的畫大氣磅礴，能讓人感受到某種獨特的生命境界、生命格局和某種獨特的生命氣象。沈愛其畫中的“大”，也就是孟子所說的“充實而有光輝謂之大”的那種“大”。這種“大”通常是畫家把自己和天地、山川聯結在一起結果，沈愛其畫畫就是把生命與自然融匯在一起，作總體上的表達。將藝術和自己的生命狀態結合在一起可說是沈愛其現代山水畫藝術的最大特點。

幾十年來沈愛其一直沉浸在自己的繪畫與思考空間裡，人不堪其憂，愛其不改其樂。一般人對現實的物質享受都是有需求的，而愛其不同於一般人，他可以“簞食瓢飲”，他只希望自己的發現能與人共用，他認為藝術家就是要保持一種自在自為的生存狀態。 1980年代改革開放初期，當絕大多數中國人都在為改變物質生活的匱乏處心積慮地向大自然索取之時，他卻提出“人天本一”。 雖然這原本就是中國人的哲學觀，但現在卻被許多人忘卻、拋棄。愛其堅持這種哲學觀認為人和自然本來就是一體的，是後來我們人為地將它們分開了，把自己從自然裡面剝離出來，使之成為自然的對立面，這樣就給人類帶來了災難。1990年代，愛其有了他新的發現，他認為“態”是宇宙之母，是萬事萬物的根源，“態”表現愛其對這個世界的理解，最能夠代表他的自然觀和宇宙觀，在愛其看來“態”是心和能量的統一。儘管中國古代哲學家惠施認為宇宙是“至大無外”的“大一”，但沈愛其卻堅持認為“態”比宇宙更大，這世界是一個充滿能量的世界，而這種能量又是在不斷迴圈的，人一旦參與到這個迴圈裡面，生命就有了意義。他之所以要去“采氣”作畫，就是出於這種哲學思考，就是為了表達他對生命的這種理解。他的這種理解實際上是老莊哲學“一氣運化”的現代版。愛其從自然的萬事萬物之中把“氣”納入進來，再通過點、線、墨韻和墨氣，外化出去構成一個世界。趙無極曾說：“好的畫是有呼吸的”，愛其的畫就是這樣，不管是用潑墨還是用其他作畫方式，都有呼吸感。這種呼吸感或許就來源於他的創作方法論——“采氣”，來源於他的與大自然共呼吸的生命觀與藝術觀。他的這種創作方法論，按我的歸納即是“一氣運化，依氣生象”，這是對中國人最古老的藝術觀“氣韻生動”的直接傳承。所謂“氣韻生動”，意指畫和人一樣是有生命的，人是有氣韻的生命體，畫也是有氣韻的生命體，沈愛其現代山水畫藝術的整體藝術表現就是營造這活的生命體。沈愛其作畫在旁人看來極像是無拘無束的宣洩，其實並不儘然。他的作畫除了是自己生命與生活的一種需要外，更多是想通過自己的作品震動他人，在視覺上給人一種刺激和震撼。他的畫乍看大象無形而實則有形，形在畫外。這種“形”是通過他的宣洩，通過他作品的墨韻與墨氣對我們心靈的沁透不期而至的。他是一個想像力極其豐富而又善於觀察的人。他研究中國傳統醫學經絡，發現人與自然，經絡血脈相通。在愛其看來，大山裡面也有心臟，所以畫了很多像經絡的畫，他的那些墨線和墨點就是他對經絡世界的把握，或者說是一種反應，而他的創作方法論則依然仍是“一氣運化，依氣成象”。

以中國畫傳統繪畫的書寫性筆墨營造視覺上給人以刺激與震撼的活的生命體，是沈愛其山水畫藝術的重要特質。清人方士庶說：“因心造境，以手運心，此虛境也。虛而為實，是在筆墨有無間，故古人筆墨具此山蒼樹秀、水活石潤，於天地之外另構一種靈寄。”（語見方士庶《天慵庵隨筆》）元以來的中國山水畫大家，又多借山水之體格來表現筆墨，借筆墨來抒發胸中的塊壘。沈愛其很好地繼承了這一傳統，他的筆墨形體發揚了其師徐松安先生“健筆淩雲意縱橫”的豪放灑脫風格，又能獨具機杼自成一格。它們或如萬歲枯藤穿插纏繞、或如高山墜石驚心動魄；或乾裂秋風、或潤含春雨，變化出沒多端，意趣盎然。然其動勢、性象、表情前無古人，洋溢著時代的生機與活力，能有效地激發現代人的審美感知，有令人迴腸蕩氣之功效。以此之故，沈愛其的山水畫藝術為現代藝術開拓了一個新的呈現情感、表達觀念的維度。與此同時，沈愛其也以自己的藝術實踐證明了中國畫筆墨的現代價值。

耳順之後，沈愛其渴望自己的發現能讓更多的人體會到，渴望把自己的想法與更多的人溝通，於是他走出畫室在戶外作大畫，採取在天地之間畫大畫這種特立獨行的方式去敲擊他人的心扉。據我所知，這種戶外作畫的方式就是愛其30多年前提出的“采氣”之概念的延伸，他一直認為人和自然不應該是對立的，人和自然是一元而非二元的。

這就令沈愛其的藝術表達與前人的山水畫藝術很不一樣，使它們帶有某種行為的意蘊。但這和現代派的“行動繪畫”又不可同日而語，這不僅因為愛其是在戶外的天地之間作畫；關鍵在於愛其的畫是其當下心境意緒的直接表達；是中國傳統文化面對今天這個經濟與技術全球化的時代，面對中國人現在的生存狀態以一個藝術家的行為方式所作出的反應。它們體現著中國人的哲學思考、自然觀，尤其是對人與世界關係的看法。

從這個意義上說，沈愛其的現代山水畫應該就是中國的當代藝術。