INTRODUCTION

 

The river in the south of the river is frozen in its flow. This was the first thought that popped into my head when I was confronted with Mr He Li's works - related to both the techniques used in the creation of these works and the temperament they contain. ‘Where do I go back to with a rowboat? My home is in the yellow-leaf village of Jiangnan.’ This poem is from Su Dongpo's Two Songs on Autumn Scenery Painted by Li Shinan. Jiangnan as a water town and Jiangnan as a poetic assemblage - water, fluidity, stillness, poetry, history, solidification, and return - constitute the cultural genes and visual archetypes of the aesthetics of Jiangnan.

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Jiangnan's affluence and culture give the land a paradisiacal charm: missionary Wei Kuangguo, who came to Hangzhou in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, said: ‘Truly, rowing a boat and swinging on the lake is more comfortable and pleasant than anything else in the world. It is not surprising that the Chinese call this place and this city paradise, the Garden of Eden.’ Yes, there are both ‘small bridges and flowing rivers’ and ‘the rain of apricot blossoms on one's clothes and the wind of willow on one's face’.
These images and lines are intertwined on the canvas, and in the solid colours and momentum, a kind of Jiangnan comes out.

Jiangnan is a kind of temperament, not only in the tea ceremony, lyrics, elegant artefacts and courtyard paintings of Song Dynasty. It is refined and presented by artists, and can give birth to the charm of calmness and elegance in different carriers. ‘Zhaojun is not accustomed to the distance of Hu Sha, but secretly remembers Jiangnan and Jiangbei. I wish I could return to the moonlit night and turn it into this flower.’ The secret love is transformed into a silent work, flowing and solidifying in the long river of time.

- Song Zhe