Radiant Peaks.
Zhang Chi is a renowned ink painter who studied at the feet of the late Chinese landscape painting master Lu Yanshao (1909-1993). Today, she serves as a researcher at the Shanghai Institute for Culture and History, an advisor of postgraduate students at the Institute of Art Research at East China Normal University, and a member of the China Artists Association.
Integrating traditional techniques with modern elements, Zhang’s works are best known for their urban landscape themes. For instance, the 70-meter-long scroll Spectacular Shanghai of 2019, now kept in the collection of the Shanghai History Museum, presents a panoramic view of this Eastern metropolis.
With ink and brush, Zhang delves into the ideal landscapes she sees in her heart. On the seemingly mundane surface of Xuan paper (Chinese rice paper traditionally used for calligraphy and painting), she injects an ethereal quality into traditional landscape painting. Her latest work Radiant Peaks stands as a poetic fusion of art and philosophy, unfolding an eternal dialogue on the essence of nature and the order of the cosmos.
In Zhang’s paintings, viewers can feel the rhythmic breath of the primordial universe. Behind the rock formations outlined by light ink looms the eternity of time and space. While blurred washes of lilacs and turmeric cascade between the sky and the mountains below, like a dialogue between starlight and morning glow. Not constrained to the expressions of traditional ink painting, her eclectic creations resonate with the famous quote written by the Chinese eighth century painter Zhang Zao, “Learn from nature while drawing on one’s inner world.” This approach instills fluidity in still mountains and solidity in drifting clouds, striking a dynamic balance in the composition.
The color scheme displayed in each painting exhibits the artist’s pilgrimage in understanding nature. A gradation of amber shades dominates the middle section of the painting, evoking both the first ray of dawn piercing through the forest and ancient memories sealed deep within layers of rock. Violaceous blocks lurk at the bottom, suggesting both the racing rhythms flowing through the earth’s veins and a reflection of the cosmic void. This superimposition guides the viewers’ gaze back and forth between the rolling mountains and swirling nebulas, leading them into a Zen-like state of utter aloofness.
The most impressive aspect of Radiant Peaks is the dialogue it constructs between traditional ink paintings and the universe. An 11th century Chinese painter once said that the best landscape painting gives viewers an on-the-site feeling and even urges them to dwell in it. This is how many feel when they look at the mountain views under Zhang’s brush.
In this work, we catch a glimpse of the most fundamental power of art. When Zhang puts aside theoretical constraints and follows her heart in running the brush freely across the Xuan paper, every stroke becomes a verse of the artist’s dialogue with the cosmos, and every blank space a passage for the universe’s echoing response. By delivering an overwhelming aesthetic experience, Radiant Peaks ignites curiosity, contemplation, and inquiries about the larger world, ultimately granting us the power of spiritual transcendence.
Zhang proves that any display of bravura is merely the result of the artist transforming their mind into a clear and bright state and allowing the universe’s very essence to be manifested through paint and ink. In every encounter between brush and paper, there is an opportunity for humanity to appreciate timeless beauty.
