The conceptual naturalism of Jiang Bao Lin comes to the fore in his highly individual renderings of landscapes. He never distorts reality, but rather creates a concrete conception(yijing) of it, which is a synthesis of his spiritual feeling for the specific structural character of each geographical spot. We are invited to share new insights and new ways of looking at landscape painting as a representation of a philosophical idea originally based on the concept of linearity generated by the interaction and complementarity of yin and yang, the two polar forces of nature which are traditionally believed to affect and unite all the different parts and details of a landscape composition. Consequently, he develops the old artistic notion, which says: When you join something in a picture, you must also think of the forces that make it expand.

When emphasizing the interplay between abstract and concrete elements, and between linear, rhythmic designs, he visualizes the dynamic forces of nature in a way which is truly avant-garde. Sometimes he concentrates his mind on the nature of one specific mountain built up by contrasting rhythmic, whirling black veins finally crowned by a poetic stanza in black or red. Yet another step further towards the abstract is taken by his highly individual so called ‘outlined landscapes’(baimiao shanshuei). Here the volume, depth and grandeur of a mountaineous landscape is symbolized by a repetition of connected zig-zag lines, or whirls, combined with shades of smooth colours. Sometimes only one empty spot in the composition evokes an impression of a lake and takes us back to reality. In other composition a few trees or stones or houses do the same. Sometimes we are puzzled whether the empty spot are lakes or clouds or both, Jiang Bao Lin plays with our creative responses. He steadily investigates the possibilities of structural description by ingenious simplification and concentration of nature’s own vital nerve. Lines and colours are included in a strong excitement with each other keeping the experience of reality even when they are as most abstract.

What is the underlaying idea behind these modern compositions? In a colophon to one of his outlined landscapes he gives the following explanation : - The ancients knew how to paint outlined figures and flowers but they did not paint outlined landscapes. Jiang Bao Lin knows that one of the most important things for an artist to offer his public the tremendous pleasure of rediscovery, how to enjoy and experience new aspects of the everyday. Thus, he decided to prove that the ancient art of Chinese landscape painting could be renewed and changed, and meet the visual needs of his own time, by fusing new elements of linear composition with traditional concepts. During the creative process that followed he investigated how the line had been applied in traditional Chinese folk arts like New Year prints, paper cuts. Wall-paintings and ancient painted bricks and stone-engravings of the Han Dynasty(206 BC – 220 AD). He further studied Western oil painting techniques and linear designs in order to expand the visual conception of Chinese brushwork and inklustre (bimo).

Inspired by these investigations he successively broke with conventional landscape designing and created something new and exceptional. The illusion of space, distance and deep perspective in his new compositions is ingeniously created by layers of geometric forms built up by the vitality and motion of undulating, light grey inklines threading their way through the smooth-coloured painting surface like wriggling snakes or whirling smoke. These designs are modern in substance but antique in conception, a highly treasured qualitative criterion in the history of Chinese painting. In fact, Jiang Bao Lin has succeeded to develop the visual capacity of the calligraphic inkline, reinforcing the very basis of Chinese inkpainting. This is a great artistic achievement which really deserves global recognition. His recent works demonstrate with accuracy that we should no longer admit any prejudice about, or make any qualitative distinctions between, what is national or international. These landscape designs are not only decorative and meditative in the broadest sense of the world, but they have, at the same time, the artistic strength of breaking through all cultural barriers by the sheer vitality of their formidable abstract features.

Jiang Bao Lin offers us a contemplative world of its own where the blackness of the ink and the purity of the colours are a joy to the eye, while the apparent simplicity of the drawing gives peace to the soul. He demonstrates that art and life belong to each other and that the world can be transformed by art.