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Lin Fengmian

 


Lin Fengmian

                                                                                                                 -  Constantin Severin (Romania)

 

my art was an intense story about harmony colour and emotion

twinned in the celestial promontory that unites the West with the East

but how difficult it is to embrace in one heart two worlds with different roots

and how acute the loneliness is when you wander aimlessly on the paths between them

accompanied only by the music of the ample and rhythmic movements of the brush

at a time when history was the Cinderella of the world

I banished my nightmares by painting the Lady with the Flute on rice paper

 

everything I learned in Paris from Van Gogh's professor Matisse and Modigliani

I melted frantically into the crucible of Chinese sensibility and spirituality

stone engravings from the Han Dynasty drawings on Song and Yuan porcelain

they directed my hand and the inner rhythm of the light gushing from the depths

but the fear of being cursed in the newspapers forced me to destroy with jets of water

expressionist paintings from Pain and Humanity series and throw them in the toilet

my suffering absorbed in the prison cell all the Pain of Mankind

 

I painted Chinese feelings with Western techniques and visions

and I described human despair through female nudes

with contorted figures and expressionist screams worthy of Munch

and in the four years behind bars I found my inner self

despite all the persecutions humiliations and punishments

and I searched anxiously for a nest for the soul on plants portative

a place pulsating like a heart between the thunder bird and the bird of paradise

 

I shaped my character by meditating on Lao Zi's words

and I defended myself against the plagues of the century with all goodness and love

alone I watched my thoughts words and actions

and in the powder of love stories and memories of China Paris Munich and Hong Kong

I searched restlessness and desperately the inner music

even when the trail of history's blood entered my orbits

and it flowed in myriads of red hourglasses through the pores of the rice paper

 

in the absence of art music and stories the social blood dries up

only the love of creation kept my heart serene in the midst of the storm

and it made me roam spaces beyond the visible world

and when the brush sometimes touched Oedipus' half-open eyes

I shuddered to feel that man is stronger than destiny

and I supported my soul with the most beautiful memory

the winged rainbow of hundreds of Mandarin ducks from my native village