Xue Liang was born 1956 in Jingjiang, China, and graduated from the Nanjing University of the Arts in 1982. He served as Vice President of Jiangsu Traditional Chinese Painting Institute, Director of the Fu Baoshi Memorial, and, at the Chinese National Academy of Arts. In the world of contemporary landscape painting, Xue Liang's gongbi and xieyi landscapes are considered to be in a class of their own. (Gongbi focuses on showing scenery in a realistic way and describing details. Xieyi focuses on showing the painter's inner thoughts)
The premise of his paintings is usually the relationship between objects and emptiness.
Below is an interesting article about WOYOU landscape paintings and their meaning.
Landscape Painting and Woyou
The concept of woyou, or 'roaming while reclining', originates with the painter Zong Bing. According to his biography in the Book of Song, Zong's life bridged the Jin and Song dynasties, and he repeatedly refused nominations to official posts. When asked why, he responded: "I have been living among the hills and drinking the water of the valley for more than thirty years now". The Book of Song also records his travels: "He journeyed as far west as Jing and Wu, and in the south, he climbed Mount Heng, in order to embrace the resolve of Shang Ping [a noted recluse]. When he fell ill, he returned to Jiangling. He sighed: 'Now that I am old and infirm, I'm afraid I may not be able to see all the famous mountains. The only thing to do is purify my feelings, contemplate the Dao, and roam [遊 you] to them as I recline [卧 wo]', and in his chamber he made paintings of all the places he had travelled'.
Herein lies the origins of woyou. The term describes either landscape painting in general, as in A Record of Xishan Woyou, a Qing dynasty history of landscape painting; or more specifically, the landscape paintings of retired, hermitic scholars, as in Woyou Paintings of Xiaoxiang and Woyou Paintings of Xishan. Zong Bing also authored a text, On Painting Landscapes, that includes an in-depth explanation of woyou. The basic tenets are:
1) The woyou of landscape paintings is a journey of mind and matter through which one can clarify the heart and observe the Dao of Heaven, just as "the Dao of divine law, provided by wise men, gives understanding to the sages; the Dao of formal beauty, provided by landscapes, gives joy to the benevolent".
2) Painting landscapes can express the "beauty and spirituality" of the natural world, just as reading books can reveal "the logic of millennia" and "intentions beyond appearances".
3) Landscape paintings can contain "the form of paradise" within their dimensions. Gatherings at which people "deeply contemplate the hills, beaches, waters, and land" allow "wise men to reflect profoundly and experience great delight", accomplishing the goal of changshen ("smoothing the spirit").
In sum, On Painting Landscapes developed the Neo-Daoist idea of the Wei-Jin period that natural phenomena are connected to human enlightenment and drew a connection between the theory that man is an integral part of nature and the human practice of appreciating natural life. In other words, landscape paintings are interlinked with the Dao of wise men; they can facilitate the "purification of feelings and contemplation of the Dao" and "smooth the spirit", transcending Utilitarian Confucian ethics. This premise established the fundamental principles of landscape painting.
Art historical records show that landscape paintings in the Jin-Tang period were often metaphorical and didactic. Such attributes became less prevalent during the subsequent Five Dynasties and Northern and Southern Song periods as the main goals of landscape painting became the expression of natural forms, romantic scenes, and ascetic ideas. After the Yuan dynasty, as the connections between painting and calligraphy grew stronger, landscape painters increasingly focused on the skill and style of their brushwork. Consequently, the notions of woyou and changshen were displaced. It was not until the influx of Western ideas in the past century that landscape paintings became more formally diverse and the spiritual traditions of woyou and changshen underwent yet another transition.
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