- Size：33.8 × 91 cm
- Material：Ink and color on coarse silk
- Year：2024
- Price：台幣 NT$144,000
- Depiction：
Raw Silk, Moss Dots, and Ink Dots
Since 2018, Yang Hsin-Shou has been working with raw silk, a material with a slightly rugged texture, shifting from traditional ink splashing techniques to broad brushwork, allowing for greater freedom and expressive force in his paintings. The naturally scattered black specks on the raw silk, along with the artist’s deliberate placement of ink dots in the final stages of creation, differ in intention from traditional moss dots (tai dian).
Moss dots are typically used to convey depth in mountain landscapes, serving not only as a technique to render the texture and patterns of natural elements but also as a means to enrich compositional layers, enhance spatial perception, and balance the overall composition. Through variations in density, moss dots create a sense of atmospheric depth, infusing the painting with vitality and poetic resonance.
In contrast, the ink dots in Yang Hsin-Shou’s work can be seen as the distilled essence of nature, encapsulating the energy of the universe. They act as a stylistic filter, imbuing the painting with a texture reminiscent of mica flecks scattered across the surface of granite. The natural black specks embedded in the raised fibers of the raw silk merge with the artist’s carefully placed ink dots, transcending spatial constraints and marking traces of time and rhythmic movement.
This raw silk, treated with a light alum and glue solution, accentuates the clarity of its texture, making it particularly suited for boneless (mo gu) landscape painting. The interplay of ink and pigments creates layers of depth, while the silk fibers allow subtle shifts between concealment and revelation, adding an intriguing visual dynamic. Due to the scattered fiber structure, when viewed from a distance, the artwork evokes the sensation of gazing through a bamboo screen in a scholar’s studio—each horizontal fiber strand resembling the slats of a woven blind, subtly framing a scene where nature and cultural contemplation harmoniously intertwine.
Read the full article: https://www.yiyun-art.com/viewpoint/viewpoint-202414