Cao Yingwang Exhibition ——Boundless
Cao Yingwang in the Eyes of Renowned Artists
Zhang Aiguo
Deputy Director and Professor, Department of Calligraphy, China Academy of Art
In the early autumn of last year, I saw paintings by Cao Yingwang in Shenzhen. At first sight, I marveled at the traces of Wu Guanzhong in the dense and light shades of ink with colored strokes on his paintings, and thus I admired it again and again. In the summer of this year, when I gave lectures and held an exhibition in Zifeiyu Art Museum in Shenzhen, Yingwang has showed me dozens of paintings with several inscribed. On his splendid paintings were lively, delicate water towns and scattered cities - another big progress he had made since last year. In his early years, Yingwang started to meet distinguished calligraphers and painters, and with abundant collections，he became knowledgeable and visionary, respecting traditions while not being hedged by conventions. Therefore, once he paints, you could feel the extraordinary artistic conception in his artworks.
Cai Xianliang
Doctoral Supervisor and Professor, Jinan University Curator,
He Xiangning Art Museum
Cao Yingwang’s paintings not only depict the landscapes of Jiangnan water towns such as Zhouzhuang, Wuzhen and Xitang, but also convey his attachment and nostalgia to villages in Anhui including Xidi and Hongcun. His fascinating paintings have soft brushstrokes, natural beauty and a clean style. Hence, one who wishes to acquire the essence of painting should study artworks extensively and, moreover, “travel over mountains and rivers to widen the horizons.”
Song Yuming
Honorary Chairman of Shenzhen Artists Association
Former Director of Shenzhen Art Museum
Frequent reminiscence for Jiangnan is a feeling that one who has grown up or lived for a while in Jiangnan usually senses. The development of a painter is always tightly correlated to his life experience, which is just corresponding to the growth of the young artist Cao Yingwang. Born in Anhui Province, Cao was influenced by the culture of Ancient Wan from his childhood. “Living in a house facing the sea, with spring blossoms.” Such romance and ambiguity from the poet Hai Zi has infiltrated into his mind during his early time. Dribs and drabs of the fancy in Jiangnan water towns frequently appear in his paintings -- ancient villages, rivers, and wispy cooking smoke.
Water town is emotion-recalling. All the paintings Cao creates are presenting the vitality of towns in Jiangnan -- bridges, boats with a black shield, trees, wooden windows and wild gooses; buffalo boys, ospreys, moonlight, dark stone bricks, wooden doors, and a young lady holding a paper umbrella. His style is breezy and florid, embodied with touching details.
Zou Ming
Famous Chinese Landscape Painter
Professor of Shenzhen University
Water town in dream is a kind of artistic image. Walking into the water town pieces of Yingwang, we can feel that his dreamlike Jiangnan is teemed up with a kind of vitality, the vitality of mind, breezy and bright. Yearly experience in Jiangnan for Yingwang is a kind of accumulation and nourishment. Water towns in his paintings present a kind of familiarity for Jiangnan people, by which he implies his sense of daily life and his intellectual romance. Spotting bright color among the inky tracks, he creates harmonic contradiction, cultivating a sense of sunshine we are used to meeting in life. That is admirable.
Ma Shunxian
Famous Chinese Flowers-and-birds Painter
Vice-chairman of Shenzhen Artists Association
It’s reasonable for dear Yingwang to choose Jiangnan as his descriptive object. The intense flavor of Jiangnan is presented so marvellous by him, and only people who know about Jiangnan can truly taste the beauty in it. It is fair to say that he perfectly pictures Jiangnan, while Jiangnan also gives birth to his artistic achievement.
Ju Zhiru
Director of Xiling Seal Engraver’s Society
Host of “JUSHUOHAOKAN” at Shenzhen TV Station
I cannot help but stop in front of these exquisite and delicate paintings. The themes of them, which are different from that of Wu Guanzhong, are rich in Jiangnan characteristics; and the inspirational pictures will definitely be adored by the people.
Chen Xiangbo
Vice Chairman of Guangdong Artists Association
President of Shenzhen Artists Association
Curator of Guan Shanyue Art Museum
His paintings are more about Jiangnan water towns where he lived and studied. Water accompanied by mountains becomes elegant, and mountains accompanied by water become vivid. It is also the characteristic of Jiangnan people. Frequent reminiscence for Jiangnan has been the most commonly expressed theme and feeling that Mr. Cao cannot discard. The wave of nostalgia leads his stroke, constructing homes with white walls and black tiles, building the bridges stretching across the rivers and burgeoning the willow with swallows flying by. He paints the Spring in Jiangnan with brush and ink in soft pastels. The scenes are poetic and the layout is delicate. The lines are powerful and accurate while the branches are strong and winding. The fresh green of early spring, thin mists, black tiles and white walls of small villages all sing in a harmonious and brisk tone. The changeable, but tranquil state stands the painters out and satisfies the art lovers, endowing the painting a lyric appeal. Recently, he has also indulged in sketching, constantly absorbing nutrition from nature, which is commendable.
