The Pursuit of Flowers
It is only 12 months before the opening of the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 and both athletes and organizers are making all-out preparations. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic worldwide and the challenges to international relations, such a sports event and international exchange activities are of greater importance. As a Hangzhou native, I feel honored that the Asian Games chose Hangzhou and hope that I can do my part in the friendship of the host and make my due contribution.
As a city, Hangzhou is both ancient and elegant, fashionable and thriving. A thousand years ago, a poet Liu Yong of the Northern Song Dynasty once described Hangzhou in a famous poem: "Located in the southeast and boasting advantageous geographical conditions, Qiantang (now Hangzhou), the capital city of Sanwu (Wuxing,now Huzhou, Zhejiang province, Wujun, now Suzhou, Jiangsu province, and Kuaiji, now Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, here refers to now south Jiangsu province and part of Zhejiang province), has been prosperous since ancient times... Hills over hills around the West Lake, lingering sweet scent of Osmanthus in autumn, ten-mile lotus in summer." In this poem, Liu Yong describes Hangzhou as a robust Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) city of flowers.
A city has its representing tree and a country or a region has its floral emblems. Plants are forms of life appearing on earth earlier than human beings. Forty-five countries and regions participating in the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 all have flowers and trees that they admire. These flowers not only prove biodiversity,but also imply cultural diversity among different countries, regions, and ethnic groups. Though plants themselves cannot talk, the art of flower painting is appreciated worldwide. The vivid images of flowers remind us that only through mutual learning, friendly exchanges, a deep understanding of the traditional origins of different regions,and mutual caring and love, can Asian countries and regions create a better future together.
As a flower and bird painter, I have been working on the path of art for 65 years since I started to study painting in Hangzhou Children's Palace when I was 12 years old. I have devoted myself to flower sketching as I insisted on flower and bird painting creation in the 1960s and 1970s, and studied flower and bird painting for a master's degree in Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts from 1978 to 1980. Starting from the spring of 1975, I have been to Heze, Shandong province for peony sketching every two or three years and have done so for 14 times.I am deeply convinced that sketching is a dialogue between painter and nature. Shi Tao wrote in his On Painting by Kugua Monk that "Without tireless training, a painter cannot be free with his ink. Without careful observation, a painter cannot be free with his brush."
In 2011, my grandson Zhang Zhengze wrote a poem Tell It from The Heart for my 65th birthday, which goes:"Years ago you travelled ten thousand miles in search of flowers, worrying that the beauty would fade away.Dense or sparse, you painted these flowers through your magic painting brush in record of their images. As red as fire, as pink as glow, as yellow as gold..." Over the years, I have traveled many times to sketch flowers in European, American, and Asian countries and regions, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, The United Arab Emirates, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In 2016, on the 25th anniversary of the dialogue relationship between China and the Association Of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),I was commissioned by relevant departments to paint the national flowers of the ten ASEAN countries as presents to their embassies in China. In September the same year, I also created paintings of the national flowers of the G20 countries and held an art exhibition featuring "Lingering Fragrance above the West Lake" in memory of the G20 Hangzhou Summit. As paintbrush is a communication tool that transcends language, I myself would be seized by the joy of friends' reunion whenever I see paintings of famous flowers from all over the world. I would also be impressed by the overflowing joy, pride and homesickness of both local officials and civilians when they see the illustration of their national flower images in Chinese traditional freehand brushwork in my works.
Floral emblems are chosen both for their genetic advantage of natural selection and cultural accumulation.Athletes striving for victories for their countries and regions are as outstanding as their floral emblems. I wish the outstanding Asian young people the realization of their dreams through excellent performance in the Asian Games Hangzhou 2022. Together, let's create a better future of Asia!