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