YANG YONGLIANG/GALERIE PARIS-BEIJING
IN CHINESE TRADITION mountains buzz with the energy of qi, draw rain clouds to the rice fields, provide shelter to the immortals and are pierced with caves and grottoes that lead to Taoist paradises of harmony and plenty. All that, at first sight, seems intact in this work by Yang Yongliang. This is a species of digital photograph. But its peak-and-sky-and-water combination reaches back to a brush-and-ink landscape art that first flourished in the fifth century. “My pictures are timeless,” Yang, 37, says. “There is no light, no shadows, and you can’t tell the time of day.”
If this image were transported back to the Southern Song Dynasty, it would be read as a “one-corner” picture, which works to draw the gaze away from the center of the frame. To ancient eyes, nothing would be out of place. Except the pylons. Except the cranes. Except the houses, gathering where the moss and crooked pines should grow.