Wang Mansheng: Moonlight on Stones : Curated by Dr. Chao Ling

Beginning 20th May 2022, Fu Qiumeng Fine Art is pleased to present “Moonlight on Stones,” the gallery’s first solo exhibition devoted to the Asian American landscape artist  Wang Mansheng (b. 1962). Wang uses self-invented organic painting materials, in addition to conventional ones, to explore contemporary forms of landscape and finds enchanting and enlightening visual structures to embody his perception of nature.

Born in Shanxi, China, and a graduate of Shanghai’s Fudan University in classical Chinese literature, Wang became a professional artist after he immigrated to the US. Drawing on traditional sources from his Chinese heritage, observation of landscapes throughout the world, and immediate experience in the Hudson River Valley, Wang has developed a distinctive visual language, deeply enriches the philosophical connotations of landscape painting, and brings a traditional Chinese subject into global context with his unique perspective and practice. 

On view through 23rd July, "Moonlight on Stones” features 19 paintings selected from Wang’s “Night Mountain” and “Ancient Trees” series. These pieces, executed between 2008 and the present, are on display for the first time. Each work in the “Night Mountain” collection is inspired by a line from classical Chinese poetry. The relationship between text and image–a traditional scope–has been enacted in a novel way through the artist’s sensitivity and intellectual interests. The “Ancient Trees” collection represents his consideration of longevity and form. In intimate contact with the ecosystem of the Hudson River Valley, he makes brushes and ink out of local organic materials to paint objects found in the area while demonstrating his reflections on lines, shape and texture. 

Wang Mansheng (b. 1962) was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi, a city in northern China. He graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai in 1985, majoring in classical Chinese literature. He then worked as editor, director, and producer for documentary programs at China Central Television in Beijing for 10 years. This job gave him opportunities to travel to different parts of China, each with a unique, enchanting landscapes, and to introduce them to audiences in visual language. Wang immigrated to the Hudson River Valley area, less than  an hour’s train ride from New York City, in 1996. Even though he began to study calligraphy and painting at the age of seven, he did not become a professional artist until he moved to the US, where he “assembles” and abstracts landscapes from around the globe into pictures of the substance and essence of landscapes. The selections from his “Night Mountain” collection, which are on view in this exhibition, are successful demonstrations of an initially traditional Chinese subject’s exploration and projection of global and intellectual landscape art. The exhibition features works from the “Night Mountain” series as well as paintings of Ancient Trees executed with self-made reed brushes.

Before digging deep into this quotation, which is also the caption, or the unwritten, out-of-the picture colophon, for the cover painting, it is important to point out that what Xie Lingyun did with landscapes in words is what Wang Mansheng is experimenting with in images. Classical poetry provides Wang with a mode of reference for dealing with landscapes. On the one hand, painters and writers represent nature in the Greek mimesis and Latin imitatio at the same time—the creators  both go to the real landscapes and learn from artistic tradition. On the other hand, Xie Lingyun’s philosophical way of achieving knowledge about the ultimate dao through looking at landscapes is relatable for contemporary artists who are increasingly sensitive to the human mind and body in the ecosystem. When looking at the awe inspiring “designs” of Wang Mansheng’s evening mountains, another easily overlooked fact about Xie Lingyun’s landscape which probably inspired Wang is that the mountainous areas in the medieval period were not simple, sublime and beautiful, they were also dangerous and hazardous. In his “Rhapsody of Mountain Dwellings,” Xie Lingyun described all the directions of his mountain estate–deep mountains with low visibility in bad weather and predatory beasts that frequently endangered mountain dwellers. Rhapsodic genre’s structure of categorizing and covering all aspects of the subject helps the poet put unorganized and unexplored natural territory into order, and further in line with his philosophical perception. The painter works in a similar manner. Wang’s imaginary representation of mountains builds primarily upon shapes and brushstrokes conventionally accepted in the history of landscape art—with individual creativity realized with new painting utensils. What the poetic caption adds to the painting’s meaning is the philosophical depth that poetry can evoke much better than picture alone.

Such principle can be roughly termed as ziran 自然. It is often translated as “nature” but it also means “self so”. Natural objects embody the principle by being at their due places. What Xie Lingyun has shown in the poem is that natural objects can be read as imageries of the dao.Wang Mansheng does it in a visual way using the writing of characters, or calligraphy, as a medium. When viewed from a certain distance, the positioning of white shapes of moonlight resembles an abstract work of calligraphy. For example, the two blocks of white wash in the upper middle resemble the beginning part of a vertical stroke. They create a visual effect like flashlights shedding light on a scroll of calligraphy. (By the way, flashlights revealing part of an ontological being is Frege’s metaphor for epistemology.) They vary in thickness and darkness; they are parallel to each other but not in a rigid manner; the spacing between them is carefully rendered so that they create a visual link but not a crowded cluster. These are in fact the key criteria when judging and appreciating works of calligraphy. If we do view the entire image as an abstract and partially moonlight-lit calligraphy in white, then just like Xie Lingyun, Wang Mansheng uses linguistic symbols to demonstrate natural principles. 

天池海在山頭上，百里鏡空含萬象。

丘處機《長春真人西遊記》

Celestial lake on mountain’s top,

Hundred li mirror holding ten thousand images.

Qiu Chuji (1148—1227)

Diary of Travels West of Changchun Zhenren

2013, Ink, Walnut Ink, Tempera, Acrylic on Paper, 14 × 11 in (35.6 × 27.9 cm).

The innovatively and unusually made materials urge the artist’s body, which is trained by tradition, to re-define and re-discover the interactive mode with the painting media. Moreover, using reeds to paint similarly botanical but texture-wise widely different trees requires an exceptional control of brushes. It is an insightful presentation of how to capture the traces, lines and texture of nature on paper, after conceptualization and execution with his hands. This is, after all, the ultimate task of artists.