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Tang Shangsong
Tang Shangsong
Personal Profile
Tang Shangsong (courtesy name: Huai Kong), born in 1978 in Guangxi, currently resides in Beijing. He graduated from the School of Chinese Painting and has been devoted to Chinese painting creation for over two decades. He is a National First-Class Artist, a member of the Guangxi Artists Association, a researcher at the Chinese Ink Art Research Institute, and a council member of the China Contemporary Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting Academy, and is regarded as one of the outstanding young painters in contemporary China.
He has traveled extensively across the vast lands of China, visiting famous mountains and rivers, experiencing the hardships of rural life, and moving tirelessly between landscapes through all seasons. His brushstrokes are imbued with deep emotion, composing a series of splendid landscapes. Building upon the foundations of ancient painting, he has conducted in-depth research and exploration, integrating traditional heritage with modern realism. In addition to employing block-like forms to shape structure, he utilizes ink techniques such as outlining, pressing, dotting, scraping, texturing, and washing to depict the harmonious beauty of nature. Through meticulous attention to detail, he reveals the grandeur of mountains and rivers, enhancing the sense of authenticity of nature in his works, transcending conventional forms of Chinese painting. His art reflects the mutual illumination of ancient civilization and modern spirit, while also expressing the artist’s philosophical contemplation and profound emotional connection to national history and culture.
As the ancients said: “Learn from nature externally, and discover inspiration internally.” The modern master Huang Binhong remarked: “It is better to learn from the ancients than from oneself; it is better to learn from nature than from the ancients.” “Learning from the ancients” refers to understanding and comprehending traditional ink art, while “learning from nature” means observing and experiencing the objective world—stepping out of the studio to make nature one’s teacher, entering life, and depicting the humble scenes of rural landscapes and the myriad phenomena of nature. In his works, one cannot help but feel his deep affection for nature and his keen observation of natural growth and transformation. He has guided himself toward a distinctive creative style that blends modern aesthetics with literati landscapes, through the study and absorption of traditional techniques and texturing methods, continually enriching his technical vocabulary and expressive forms. Thus, he inherits the essence of Chinese painting and forges his own unique artistic language, aiming to elevate the quality of his artistic subject matter. Through layered ink washes, he achieves a rich, substantial texture. With sparse, weathered, and effortless brushwork, he outlines rustic dwellings, mountain streams, springs, pavilions, pines, and cliffs. His works predominantly embody the inner qualities of clarity, leisure, stillness, and peril, grounded in the traditional aesthetic of light ink and faint color, with themes of wild mountain forests, ancient cypresses and pine-clad cliffs, streams and boats moored in tranquil waters. He creates amidst mountain springs and valleys, meticulously crafting every detail—from composition and brushwork to ink and color integration—infusing his works with weight, grandeur, majesty, and profundity, interpreting and analyzing the harmonious beauty of nature through an artistic lens. His mountains are graceful, waters are beautiful, forests are lush, winds are fresh, stone paths wind quietly, ancient sites rise unevenly, streams murmur gently, and the sounds of nature echo. His paintings overflow with refined elegance; all elements come alive under his brush, vibrant and dazzling, embodying a profound reverence for life. Though ideals and sentiments are intangible, they dwell among the natural mountains and waters, hidden within brush and ink techniques, shaping the spirit of secluded mountain forests, steadfastly pursuing realms of spiritual resonance, qi韵 (vital energy), character, and transcendent imagery, with life itself as the foundation.
He has traveled extensively across the vast lands of China, visiting famous mountains and rivers, experiencing the hardships of rural life, and moving tirelessly between landscapes through all seasons. His brushstrokes are imbued with deep emotion, composing a series of splendid landscapes. Building upon the foundations of ancient painting, he has conducted in-depth research and exploration, integrating traditional heritage with modern realism. In addition to employing block-like forms to shape structure, he utilizes ink techniques such as outlining, pressing, dotting, scraping, texturing, and washing to depict the harmonious beauty of nature. Through meticulous attention to detail, he reveals the grandeur of mountains and rivers, enhancing the sense of authenticity of nature in his works, transcending conventional forms of Chinese painting. His art reflects the mutual illumination of ancient civilization and modern spirit, while also expressing the artist’s philosophical contemplation and profound emotional connection to national history and culture.
As the ancients said: “Learn from nature externally, and discover inspiration internally.” The modern master Huang Binhong remarked: “It is better to learn from the ancients than from oneself; it is better to learn from nature than from the ancients.” “Learning from the ancients” refers to understanding and comprehending traditional ink art, while “learning from nature” means observing and experiencing the objective world—stepping out of the studio to make nature one’s teacher, entering life, and depicting the humble scenes of rural landscapes and the myriad phenomena of nature. In his works, one cannot help but feel his deep affection for nature and his keen observation of natural growth and transformation. He has guided himself toward a distinctive creative style that blends modern aesthetics with literati landscapes, through the study and absorption of traditional techniques and texturing methods, continually enriching his technical vocabulary and expressive forms. Thus, he inherits the essence of Chinese painting and forges his own unique artistic language, aiming to elevate the quality of his artistic subject matter. Through layered ink washes, he achieves a rich, substantial texture. With sparse, weathered, and effortless brushwork, he outlines rustic dwellings, mountain streams, springs, pavilions, pines, and cliffs. His works predominantly embody the inner qualities of clarity, leisure, stillness, and peril, grounded in the traditional aesthetic of light ink and faint color, with themes of wild mountain forests, ancient cypresses and pine-clad cliffs, streams and boats moored in tranquil waters. He creates amidst mountain springs and valleys, meticulously crafting every detail—from composition and brushwork to ink and color integration—infusing his works with weight, grandeur, majesty, and profundity, interpreting and analyzing the harmonious beauty of nature through an artistic lens. His mountains are graceful, waters are beautiful, forests are lush, winds are fresh, stone paths wind quietly, ancient sites rise unevenly, streams murmur gently, and the sounds of nature echo. His paintings overflow with refined elegance; all elements come alive under his brush, vibrant and dazzling, embodying a profound reverence for life. Though ideals and sentiments are intangible, they dwell among the natural mountains and waters, hidden within brush and ink techniques, shaping the spirit of secluded mountain forests, steadfastly pursuing realms of spiritual resonance, qi韵 (vital energy), character, and transcendent imagery, with life itself as the foundation.
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Tang Shangsong