The Importance of Technique

These two videos give demonstrations and discusses of methodology, one of Yang Yongliang's digital layering and the other of traditional split-brush or 皴 (cūn) technique. Yang's method of digital overlay reiterates and recalls the layering split-brush technique. 

In the first video, Xiang Hong explains the tradition behind the split-brush technique while giving a visual demonstration. As Xiang layers his brush strokes, the texture of the natural world slowly appears to create rocks and mountains. In the second video, Yang discusses his intentional reinterpretation of traditional works. The specific works mentioned in the video can be seen in the "Daoist Implications" section of this exhibition. Yang explicitly mentions the split-brush technique as an inspiration for his own layering methods.

In pen and ink landscape painting, 'cun' is both a type of method and a type of expression. Painters used the split-brush method as a way to shape the structure of mountains and to depict texture. In the hands of Chinese painters, the split-brush method became a stylized practice and technique of depicting landscapes. [1] As 'cun' is both a technical method and an embodiment of the artist's temperatment, Yang Yongliang ingeniously takes the concept of the traditional landscape painting and contradicts it with the modern urban scene. His works have the same visual characteristics of the split-brush painting method, with layers upon layers adding visual interest and texture. Rather than layering brush strokes however, he employs layered photographs. Upon close examination, the mountains in Yang's prints are layered buildings, the individual digital elements acting as a 'cun' inspired technique.

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[1] Eric Lu, "Yang Yongliang: Synthesis of Digital Landscape Painting," MING (June 2013).