A1-2: Under the moonlight
【 Explanatory Story 】

There's in china a tremendous storage of romantic stories that all are in subject expressions of shades of the moonlight, for the moonlight, the Mother Nature's nurturing, nurtures them all; and the moon is their final destination. Things most ordinary would be witnessed most extraordinary, as long as they are under the light: it veils them into the mystique of them being transfigured into a world of tranquility; meanwhile, it touches the deeps of one's sentiments and sets free his imagination. Like a free bird the imagination flies, so is the case of A1-2.

It's outside a farmhouse corner, somewhere in countryside, but right under the moonlight. It may have been viewed as an abandoned corner, but, to a well-cultivated eye as to our painter's, it was a beautiful scene, ethereal and revealing, that he jubilantly waved his brush for art, and making in his impressionism brushstrokes like this, lyric and in serenity; and in his transmogrification of it, the twig of orchid blossom seemed as yet a floral crown, and the vertical lines a symbol of an elegant figure of a bride, and the leaves the very bridegroom bowing to the crowned queen his bride for her beauty.

Do not argue with the size of the leaf but try to enjoy it, for it is of a vivid imagination of his: transfiguration of the bridegroom who is but the artist himself. As for the accuracy of the size, Lin Yutang remarked:

We must remember that the Chinese painters did not want mere accuracy of detail. Su Tungp'o (1036-1101) said, "If one criticize painting by its verisimilitude, one's understanding is similar to that of a child." But taking away mere verisimilitude, what has the painter to offer us? what after all is the purpose of painting? The answer is that the artist should convey to us the spirit of the scenery and evoke in us a sympathetic mood in response. That is the highest object and ideal of Chinese art. We remember how the artist makes periodic visits to the high mountains to refresh his spirit in the mountain air and clean his breast of the accumulated dust of urban thoughts and suburban passions. He climbs to the highest peaks to obtain a moral and spiritual elevation, and he braves the winds and soaks himself in rain to listen to the thundering waves of the sea. He sits among piles of wild rocks and brush-wood and hides himself in bamboo groves for days in order to absorb the spirit of the things as it is instilled into his soul, and recreate for us a picture, "surcharged with moods and feelings, ever-changing and wonderful like nature itself.