A solo painting exhibition of Wang Qijun, which is entitled SINGING WHILE TRAVELING IN NOSTALGIA,was held in October 2016 at Peking University, during the 13th Peking University International Cultural Festival. Hardy Yong Xiang, who is a professor at the School of Artat Peking University and a deputy president of the Institute for Cultural Industriesat Peking University, wrote a foreword which was entitled A Man Traveling in Nostalgia for the volume Collection of Works of Wang Qijun, An Overseas Visiting Scholar of Peking University. Mr. Raz Barfield has checked the English version.

A Man Traveling in Nostalgia

Hardy Yong Xiang

　　Nostalgia resides in the mind of everyone. It is not merely the hometown breeding and that nourishes me but also the homeland of my mind as well as the way of seeking. It stimulates people to travel further and pursue higher. For my part, the artistic works of Professor Wang Qijun reflects the long way to seek the true essence of life. Just like Tchouang-tseu’sA Happy Excursion, it is a journey to find the spiritual homeland. The sense of tranquil, solemn, deep, and profound vitality sprouts from the works of Professor Wang Qijun, especially his series of paintings themed around the Peking opera and the Watertown's in south of the Yangtze River. Graceful, forthright, detached and faithful in nature and like a bird soaring above the heaviness of art, Professor Wang Qijun is a traveler who keeps watching the vicissitudes of life in nostalgia and a modern Tchouang-tseu wandering in the world.

　　With exacting craftsmanship, Professor Wang Qijun continuously refines his art and painting skill and expands his realm of knowledge and vision of art. With his talent in art demonstrated in his childhood, he published picture-story books when he was less than 20-years-old and scored numerous prizes afterwards. His adeptness in different categories including arts and crafts, architectural arts, oil painting, traditional Chinese painting, and calligraphy showcases his profound art of composition. Never stopping writing elegant characters, he developed his unique conception of art and theory of aesthetics. From the south of the Yangtze River to Beijing, plains to mountain cities, mainland to Taiwan, Sweden to Canada, and from the Orient to the West, he incessantly traveled physically and spiritually. What is the spirit and power that enables Professor Wang Qijun to leisurely switch and freely roam among such realms of art, living space, and culture fields?

　　In the view of Osward Spengler, a German philosopher, that sort of "free roaming" was just the fundamental symbol of the Chinese culture. He held the idea that "its classical expression is its firm adherence to the things nearby, here and now excluding distance and the future; its Faustian expression rests in its directional power with the eyes watching the remotest horizon; the Chinese expression lies in the free roaming but towards a certain goal; the Egyptian expression resides in the resolute blocking of the entrance." ①The "doctrine" of the Chinese culture is to cruise and stroll in the world of life, which is the essence of Tchouang-tseu’sA Happy Excursion, the comprehension of the sixth originator HuiNeng, the strolling in aesthetics of Aesthetician ZongBaihua and the roam of life of Artist Wang Qijun.

　　Professor Wang Qijun said he had been seeking and depicting his dreamland in free roaming. The dreamland may be the regions of rivers and lakes in south of the Yangtze River, an image in Peking opera or a perception of life. Watertown in south of the Yangtze River and the Peking opera described by Professor Wang Qijun are the artistic presentation of his dreamland. As the quintessence of Chinese culture, Peking opera manifests the mental homeland pursued by the Chinese. The civilian residence of southern Yangtze River restores the physical homeland of the Chinese. As a traveler of the original place of life, Professor Wang Qijun has delineated the mindset and local spirit of the Chinese with the Peking opera and the civilian residence of southern Yangtze River as the totem symbols, with the infiltration of the body and the mind as the images. Every time when I went to observe and emulate his works in his studio and talked with him while drinking, I tried to experience that spirit and power. As a predecessor, Professor Wang Qijun interpreted the infinite possibility of pursuit in life with his "prehistoric power". It made it hard for me to catch up with him and won my heartfelt admiration.

　　Professor Wang’s cultural ideal is to demonstrate the perfection of the Chinese aesthetic, which stands as a vital spiritual wealth of the Chinese nation as well as valuable strategic resources in modernization. "The Chinese aesthetic stresses indirect expression of the theme, relating reasons in emotions, conciseness, comprehensiveness, compactness, control, and magnificence, and highly values the unification of knowledge, emotions, meanings, and actions. We should stick to China’s cultural position, carry on the gene of Chinese culture and show the aesthetic style of China."② Although he had traveled in Western countries for years and had been immersed in the artistic uproar of post-modernism, he still stuck to Chinese culture and traditions and safeguarded China’s art classics among the grandiose narration of the Oriental and Western cultural conflicts and the real look, sentiments, and experiences of individuals. His paintings feature a regularity, elegance and rhythmic vitality, overflowing with the rhythm of life. He adopted the regular architectural structural language and figurative painting skills to draw the civilian residence south of the Yangtze River and integrated the true construction of the civilian residence with the poetic freehand of life in the region of rivers and lakes. The mix of the "real imagination" and the "reality of imagination" creates a unique artistic conception of the region south of the Yangtze River and the aesthetic images.

　　Similarly, Peking opera also originated in the region of the Yangtze River, developed to be the quintessence of the Chinese culture, and became the definitive art form showing the value of the Chinese culture. The male lead, female character, painted-face character, middle-age male character and clown as well as the skills of singing, speaking, acting, martial arts performances, and dancing integrate the gentility of Jiangnan and the forcefulness of northern China. Together, they, combine to create the profound cultural value and spiritual connotation of the classic spirits of the Chinese art. Professor Wang Qijun, with his unique insight, selected Peking opera as a theme of painting, devoted himself to exploring it, and diagrammatized and depicted his thinking elaborately. No matter the long stroll drawing several lifelike characters or the works of individuals of different postures, he concentrated his painting on the female characters, applied the superb technique of modern figure drawing in themed painting of Beijing and traditional Chinese opera, depicted exceptionally ingenious artistic figures, exhibited the life sentiments and art aesthetic feelings of the opera figures and presented to us a lively world. It is at once an aesthetic image, and a world of art. The double aesthetic state created in the painting themed on Peking opera by Professor Wang Qijun coined a brand new symbol of Peking opera.

　　The dialogue, mutual fixation, and lingering love between Peking opera and the civilian residence foster the images of water towns in the south of the Yangtze River and the mountainous and riverside hometown in his mind. Just as philosophy is a theory heightening the realm of life, so art is the path to this end. Professor Wang originally applied the totem symbols of Peking opera and the traditional dwellings in south of the Yangtze River and found life alive with vigor and vitality in the living space of the physical residence, and in the mental room housing the soul. It was not only his experience of life but also the portrait of his life, and additionally, his exploration into life.

　　Professor Wang is a scholar-type artist and an artist-type scholar. The dual identity of artist and scholar are harmoniously integrated in him. The deep feelings of a scholar and the strong spirits of an artist allow him to focus on the realities and indulge himself in his dreams. Well learned, capable, humanistic, and aloof from the world, he displays a calm disposition; full of wit and artistically gifted, he speaks and acts cautiously and in propriety. Entwined with the scientific and artistic spirits, he is a versatile craftsman, a hermit of dedicated learning of the Chinese art and a traveler walking in nostalgia of Chinese culture.

　　From September 2016, Professor Wang will begin a new stage of life and immerse himself in such a paradise of culture as Peking University, in the capacity of an overseas visiting scholar, in a bid to seek the spiritual resources of the traditional Chinese culture and depict the mental portraits of the sages and masters. On the occasion of the 13th Peking University International Culture Festival and the activities in celebration of the 120th anniversary of Peking University, Peking University will hold a special solo art show of Professor Wang Qijun’s paintings in October 2016 to demonstrate to all the teachers and students of Peking University and the social personages, Professor Wang’s pursuit of life and meditation on culture. It will unveil the spiritual vicissitudes. Although it is just a beginning, it boasts great significance.

　　Herein is the foreword.

　　(The author is a Professor in the School of Art of Peking University and a Vice President of the Institute for Cultural Industries, Peking University)

　　①[Germany] Osward Spengler. The Decline of the West, Vol.1, translated by Wu Qiong. Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2006, p167-168.

　　②Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China: Xi Jinping’s Key Speech at the Forum for Literature and Art, Xuexi Publishing House, 2015 Edition, P29.