Xinjiang, known as Xiyu or Western Regions in ancient times is located along the ancient Silk Road. With a vast territory, Xinjiang has exotic scenery and habitations, extensive deserts, blazing and towering Turpans, vast grasslands, and steep ice-covered mountains. Xinjiang is a land inhabited by multiple ethnic groups and is rich with the cultural splendors of these groups. Influenced by the cultures of China's Central Plains and the Buddhist and Islamic cultures, Xinjiang has developed into a region with unique diverse social and cultural characteristics.

　　Xinjiang's cultural traditions are a part of China’s civilization, showing a melting pot of multiple cultures and multiple religions. Xinjiang is also an immense geological museum of our nation. Its Kunlun Mountains, the Tianshan Mountains, the Gobi Desert, the river landscape, prairie oases, and the varieties of cultural treasures of the four ancient civilizations of mankind have bestowed Xinjiang with unique artistic charms. Xinjiang, with its resources of invaluable art treasures, is known as an undeveloped virgin land of China's landscape painting. Art is carved in every inch of the land.

　　"If you can draw Xinjiang well, you can depict the entire world"—this is a declaration of the critical importance of Xinjiang's landscape.

　　Xinjiang occupies one sixth of China in area. There is a saying: "one cannot be aware of China's immense land without coming to see Xinjiang." Unfortunately, there is no record or art collections of Xinjiang's landscape in the history of Chinese landscape painting. The geographic features of Xinjiang's landscape are different from the mountains and waters depicted in classical Chinese landscape painting and do not have the same landscape features as southern China. As a result, classical painters did not paint Xinjiang. Not many modern artists have tried it either. In exploring Xinjiang's landscape, there are no theories, or techniques of traditional paintings to borrow, no path or models to follow. As landscape painters of the deserts in Xinjiang and the Western Regions, we have the responsibility and mission to break through with new forms of landscape painting to depict Xinjiang's mountains and rivers. Due to Xinjiang's unique geographical features and its diverse cultural backgrounds, it is a wise choice and admirable goal for a painter to borrow from and absorb the outstanding art achievements of ancient and present times, and to explore and establish new forms and artistic languages that would integrate the ancient and the modern, China and the West—thus ushering in a new future for our artistic world.

　　A great sage once said: "Drawing from the Tang and Song styles, blending the colors of Dunhuang, and focusing on the indigenous characteristics of a region, would give birth to a brand new Chinese painting. This is a path with unlimited potential……"

　　Art originates in life, but is much more than life. It has long been the artistic ideal and social responsibility for artists to create masterpieces that would demonstrate the pulse of the times and inspire the masses. Now is the time that the creation of Xinjiang landscape painting enters the stage to fully reflect social realities. It is time that we research and experiment, focusing on the region, the culture of the nation, vision effects, and originality. When creating Xinjiang's landscape, we should start with sketching and pay attention to the impact of life on the creation of the Xinjiang landscape. We need to explore new artistic techniques and art forms. "Only the most advanced creations of a nation can be shared by the world." While firmly carrying on the excellence of our cultural tradition, we need to courageously break away from the traditional way of thinking, and to foster new ideas and new ways in depicting the sublimed beauty and solemnity of the great Xinjiang mountains and rivers. Only this type of art can embrace the spirit of the times and manifest the aesthetic values of the East.

　　The soul of a nation lies in the nation's creativity. Originality is the eternal life of art. Growth and development are the everlasting truth. The creation of Xinjiang landscape painting must reflect the times and involve broad issues of concern to the world. It requires great vision, deep thinking, extended layouts, and spectacles embodying Eastern aesthetics. It must convey both the essence of contemporary "Chineseness" and the "Spirit" of the Western Regions. The creation of Grand Xinjiang Landscape Painting and the establishment of its theories will be achieved on the condition that we approach this subject with intensified awareness of the power in life and the solemnity of the Western Regions, as well as the consciousness of the beauty of the universe and its ecology. We need to ensure a transformation of the depiction of the material world of cultures and customs to a spiritual rebirth. We must deepen our understanding of culture and history, and acquire the meaning of life so that we will be able to create and expand our artistic world with pioneering spirits. `

　　My artistic creation is nourished by the fertile soil in Xinjiang. The magnificent Xinjiang is my second hometown. My exploration of Xinjiang heavy-color landscape painting over twenty years has awarded me following realizations:

　　First, focusing on the uniqueness of the region, taking a road that has not been traveled before, and having dialogues directly with nature are of the primary importance to the creation of Xinjiang landscape painting. Whether during  ancient times or during the modern period, the success of a painter and the formation of his style originate in his research of his own region. No artistic creation can be separated from the influence of the artist’s own life and the environment the artist lives in. The key to artistic creation is to collect, process, and refine artistic subjects. Xinjiang is advantageous for an artist to grasp and express the uniqueness of the region. Here, the artist is able to get close to life, to cherish life experiences with nature and the land, and to express his enlightened emotions with completely new techniques.

　　Second, keeping the distinctive cultural characteristics of the nation and using colors as a point of penetration. Xinjiang is a land with splendid natural colors. In this land, one can find almost all the geological terrains and landforms seen in the world. Therefore, color is the second important element in Xinjiang landscape painting, second only to the form. The world-famous Dunhuang art, the breathtaking Kizil Cheonbuldong, the splendid treasures of Xinjiang Altai mountain rock paintings, grottoes, costumes of ethnic groups, religious architecture, art designs, and folk art are all composed of magnificent colors. They are artistic sources of our nation's diverse cultures.

　　Naturally, the heavy-color motif is essential in the creation of Xinjiang landscape painting. We need to rid ourselves of traditional constraints and prejudices, focus on emotional description of nature's brilliant colors, and extensively absorb the influences of both domestic and foreign arts. Ink is color; color is ink.  There is no Xinjiang without colors. Chinese art always stresses symbolic and cultural meanings in colors. Xie He's belief in "using colors of different kinds" has had a significant impact on the development of the studies of colors in Chinese painting. Chinese ancient paintings have left a rich tradition of ink and colors.

　　In drawing Xinjiang's landscapes, I seek to emphasize the way of using color inks—not only to apply colors of different kinds, but to use colors with emotions. I use colors as a medium of artistic expression to modernize traditional color imaginations. I try to change the tradition of isolated use of colors and to blend to tradition and modernity, ink-wash and colors so as to render multi-layered and real-life feelings in my paintings. Manet once said, "Colors are a matter of interests and emotions." In the modern world, Van Gogh is the most famous master of applying colors. In his paintings, Van Gogh infused emotions in his colors. The emotional rhythms of colors in Van Gogh’s paintings have been responded to with enthusiasm all over the world. Colors not only manifest the spirit of an artistic object, but also transcend the artist's viewpoint of life.

　　My third realization is that "Brush and ink should follow the times." In other words, we ought to create an ink language of contemporary world. Tradition is a spiritual wealth. The Renaissance is not simply a returning to the ancients. It would be odd if, in our era, ordinary people wrote in the language of the oracle-bone inscriptions, and read the "Three Character Classics" every day. With bush and ink, you can travel everywhere in the world. Without them, you will get nowhere. But ink should not the means and the end. It needs development.

　　When I was a child, I saw potteries painted with brushes by our ancestors 6,000 years ago in the Gansu Majiayao ancient tombs. At that time, there was no written language in mankind. Is not such multicolored pottery the origin of human art? The brushwork for Xinjiang landscape painting must liberate itself from the traditional "calligraphy style" and the "ink complex," and follow the techniques of sketch painting, because sketch painting emphasize explorations and diversity. Figure paintings and landscape paintings by Huang Zhou, Li Keran, and many others all belong to this school. Their paintings did not jeopardize the evolution of art.

　　In addition, in the creation of a new ink language we must realize that although ink has its own aesthetic value, the function of ink language is to serve the subject matter. To think otherwise would make the creation of Xinjiang landscape painting hopelessly trapped in debates over the use of ink, and in the cyclical "Gyro-like" game in art. In my view, the overemphasis and protection of ink in traditional Chinese landscape painting is, in reality, an escape and avoidance from an artist's responsibility to carry out an equal partner's conversations and communications with nature, and a denial of the artistic existence of Xinjiang and its mystic and unique features of desolation, boundlessness, and grand ups and downs, as well as its spiritual intensity. Can you imagine, how Huang Binhong and Qi Baishi would feel if they had lived to see Xinjiang? We must honestly ask ourselves: Can Chinese traditional ink painting adequately convey the feelings of the inner beauty of the vast Gobi Desert and steep mountains in Xinjiang? Thus, the creation of a new ink language and the development of ink techniques are a grave subject matter in the  creation and practices of Xinjiang landscape painting in the future.

　　Fourth, making an effort to create an art form of contemporary beauty. When form serves content, it is necessary to break through the traditional schema. This is another challenge in creating Xinjiang landscape painting. Since China's economic reforms and opening-up, the theories and practices of “Form Beauty” in art founded by Wu Guanzhong and Zhou Shaohua have affected the artistic world beyond words. "Form Beauty" in art has generally been regarded as a landmark in contemporary Chinese art. It has introduced a "sperm bank" for Chinese art for the next century. It has ushered in a transformation of modernity in Chinese painting. When creating Xinjiang landscape painting, we ought to infuse our unrestrained artistic imaginations and genuine feelings for the life of our era into the art forms of Xinjiang landscape painting, and display a new artistic concept of Xinjiang landscape painting, a concept that is characterized by modern aesthetic trends and the tastes of the times. Such artistic creation has no masters to follow, nor theories to borrow, but will usher in a brand new form of spiritual beauty of the Xinjiang landscape that has been unseen in traditional art forms.

　　Lin Mu once said: Chinese painting is currently stuck in an embarrassing situation. We are accustomed to the appreciation of "ink plays," namely, trivial ink-and-wash paintings produced by literati. Some of our renowned painters are, in fact, no more than the insignificant "ink-play" painters, whose works fail to show the holistic beauty of forms or artistic conceptions. Because of the popularity of literati painting, it is rare to have painters who would paint vast scenes. Masterpieces with the subject of history and the times almost are extinct in China’s national painting today. Too few changes have taken place in Chinese painting over history. "Innovation" is almost our daily topic in conversation. Almost every painter believes in his own innovations. But overall, changes in Chinese painting are too small and too few, to the extent that amateurs or foreigners could hardly tell whether a painting was made by a contemporary, or by an ancient artist. Perhaps this is the reason why there is limited interest in Chinese painting among foreigners—alas!

　　Fifth, focusing on artistic expression, and focusing more on discovery. There is no artistic creation without discovery. The exotic and mystic scenery in Xinjiang is not available elsewhere in the country. Xinjiang is a land of boundless deserts, the Gobi Desert, grand oases, magnificent mountains, and grand rivers. Like an  enchanting Uighur girl whose face is covered by a veil, Xinjiang is full of mystery and temptations! There is much to explore and to discover in creating Xinjiang landscape painting. Over the past sixty years, artists of the previous generations have made great efforts researching Xinjiang's landscape. These efforts should be acknowledged. But they also have produced casual works that carelessly depict the pastorals and the tourist scenes under the so-called slogan: "Be in Xinjiang and Paint Xinjiang." Such casual works are stereotypic imitations of the traditional ink-and- wash landscape painting by literati. They are no more than "selling dog’s meat with   sheep's head."

　　In the name of "inheritance and innovation," such works follow the moods of the ancient painters in depicting contemporary realities. They, in reality, only show a pseudo-tradition and misrepresentation of the times. Such paintings would only mislead younger generations. We wonder if such copy-machine-type paintings are able to stand the test of history. The bottom line is that the creation of Xinjiang landscape painting needs to establish a holistic view of broad visions and large layouts covering areas that expand from the north to the south, and, in the meantime, needs to be shrewd about minute details. The breath-taking beauty of Xinjiang's landscape will emerge only in the paintings of the artists who have both superb artistic skills and genuine understanding of the universe, life, and our national spirits.

　　Artistic conception manifests the charm and soul of an artwork. "A painter stands at the heights of a culture." When an artist makes choices of the values in his art and his artistic directions, the wisdom of the artist lies in "the deep structure of a culture’s psychology.” Self-awareness of the culture is the decisive force that propels the artist towards his final destination. Xinjiang is located at the intersection of the four major human civilizations. In addition to its unique natural scenery, Xinjiang has unlimited resources of human civilization, our national history, and cultural experiences. Currently, lack of cultural understanding has resulted in the phenomenon of a rapid degeneration in artistic creation across the country. Therefore, the creation of Xinjiang landscape painting demands in-depth exploration and research of the multi-cultural inheritances of this region. We must keep an open mind searching for common artistic values and commonalities of mankind. We must have a vision of cultural ideals in the creation of an ideal culture and stress an artist's cultural understanding and the ability to fully express the beauty of that culture. Literature is civilization. A man with literary skills but no understanding of civilization is not regarded as a man of letters. To maintain the artist's integrity and independent thinking, an artist must overcome the fear for the suspicion that he "knows only the Han, but not Wei or Jin." Following the great cultural traditions of our nation and   promoting the great cultural spirit of the nation are the foundations in creating Xinjiang Cultural landscape painting.

　　The Western Regions of China are a fascinating place for painters. It is a place of artistic inspirations. Here, an artist could reach the peak of artistic achievements. This is because Xinjiang keeps its original ecological environment, where nature and human beings co-exist in harmony. Protection of the ecological environment is the eternal theme in contemporary artwork. The 21st century is a century of innovations. It is also a century of artistic flourishing. It is not only a mission and a sacred task for Xinjiang indigenous artists but also a call by the era to all the landscape painters across the country to adhere to the combination of tradition and modernity, the abstract and the concrete, ink-wash and colors, and Chinese and Western influences in depicting the magnificent beauty in Xinjiang. Such paintings will demonstrate both the power of China and the "Spirit of the Western Regions." We look forward to having groups of painters who are well-established in the skills of traditional painting, but are not restrained by tradition; who demonstrate both the insights of life and the consciousness of the era. A school of Grand Xinjiang Landscape Painting is emerging in China!

　　(This speech was delivered in April 2008 at the Peking University Centennial Auditorium Lecture Series, and was revised on June 12, 2012, at the Qing River in Beijing.)