Exhibition: Speaking for Mountains and Rivers - Yaming Sketches Exhibition Period: March 27-26, 2026 Location: Beijing Academy of Fine Arts Museum In the spring of 2026, the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts Museum welcomed a date that transcends time and space. As the 67th project of the "20th Century Chinese Art Masters Series Exhibition", the "My Generation of Mountains and Rivers - Yaming Sketching Works Exhibition" takes the audience back to the era when Chinese painting was searching for new life in the midst of change, with more than 60 sketches spanning 40 years. Each artwork in the exhibition hall is like a postcard sent from the past - the 1960 Three Gorges Night Navigation, the 1974 Hanoi Flower Market, the 1983 Siberian Forest, and the 1997 St. Peter's Basilica - they quietly hang on the wall, but clearly tell a story about exploration, courage, and faith. Sketching Tour: The Starting Point of the Legend of Mountains and Rivers In September 1960, Yaming, then Vice President of Jiangsu Provincial Chinese Painting Institute, and President Fu Baoshi led a sketching team of 13 old, middle-aged and young painters from Nanjing to embark on a three-month "23000 li" journey. This collective sketching across six provinces and more than ten cities has been recorded in the history of Chinese art. The sketching team visited, toured, created, and exchanged ideas along the way, jointly exploring the core proposition of "how traditional Chinese painting brushwork reflects real life". In the exhibition, a special set of exhibits stands out - the "Steel Collection" consisting of 10 paintings. This is a sketch created by Yaming after visiting and collecting materials at Chongqing Iron and Steel Plant and Wuhan Iron and Steel Company, showcasing the smelting process of "molten iron and steel flower". In these works, Yaming cleverly combines the ink rendering of Chinese painting with the blank space on paper, depicting the reflection of the furnace and the heat of the molten steel. As he himself said, "This book is not a traditional figure painting, nor is it a landscape painting, nor is it any other category. This new art form is endowed by the times and life." The significance of this set of works lies not only in the innovation of the subject matter, but also in proving that traditional brush and ink can fully express industrial civilization - who said that steelmaking can only use the highlights of oil painting? The ink blending of traditional Chinese painting can also convey the temperature of molten iron and steel flowers. At the same time, during his sketching journey, Yaming also created excellent character paintings such as "Discharge from the Hospital" and "Old Guerrilla Member in Northern Shaanxi". The novel "The Old Guerrillain of Northern Shaanxi" depicts the image of an old man wearing a white sheep belly headscarf with minimalist lines. His face is thin and his gaze is resolute. The background of the loess plateau is treated with light red landscape techniques, creating a symbiotic relationship between the characters and the land - this vast plateau is not only a land that nurtures revolutionaries, but also a witness to their fighting years. The movie 'Discharge' is even more lively: two donkeys carrying an old woman and a young woman in red clothes wade through the water, with the elderly hiker following closely behind. The cave dwellings and river valleys in northern Shaanxi are faintly visible in the light ink. There is no deliberate portrayal of heroism, only the warmth and strength flowing in ordinary scenes. Exotic Sketching: Measuring the World with Chinese Brush and Ink. If "20000 to 3000 li" sketching is Yaming's exploration of "how Chinese painting reflects real life", then over the next 40 years, he traveled to nearly 20 countries for sketching, which is a response to the question of "whether Chinese painting can express the world". In 1953, at the age of 30, Yaming set foot abroad for the first time. Afterwards, he traveled through Southeast Asia, Europe, America, Australia, and other places, using a brush to paint the scenery of mountains and rivers around the world. In his "Seventy Years of Self reflection", Yaming wrote: The mountain and river temperament, charm, and spirit of different regions and countries come from a single brush, indicating that the claim that "traditional Chinese painting has national limitations" is not valid. In the exhibition hall, the "Hanoi Flower Market" created in 1974 presents the lively scene of the flower market in Vietnam before the Spring Festival with a full frame composition - bamboo hats, audres, and vermilion flowers and trees, with characters shuttling through them and lively postures. Yaming outlines the characters with concise lines and creates a festive atmosphere with strong colors, bringing the fireworks of exotic markets to life on paper. The contemporary film 'Vietnamese High School Students' depicts three barefoot girls in a more serene tone, with bright smiles and relaxed postures, conveying a vibrant vitality. The trip to Northern Europe in 1983 was another peak of Yaming's exotic sketching. The Siberian Forest depicts a straight and upright coniferous forest with charred ink and dry lines, with dense tree trunks extending upwards, creating a vast and profound sense of oppression. Two tiny characters are highlighted in light red, appearing even smaller in the vast forest, highlighting the grandeur of nature. Morning Light "depicts the water town of Stockholm, Sweden, with sparse withered trees, exquisite houses, and misty forests, conveying the tranquility and poetry of Nordic mornings through Eastern ink and brush. The scenery of "This Scene on Xiren Island" is even more interesting - two seals are painted in a blend of dark and light ink colors, with a charming and silly appearance. Groups of seagulls fly over the sea surface outlined by dry brush, which is a rare subject in Chinese painting, but it is painted so naturally and vividly by Yaming. And 'Ah! Iceland' uses a strong vermilion hue to depict the contours of volcanoes, forming a strong contrast with the scorched and withered wasteland, vividly portraying Iceland's geological features of 'ice and fire'. The cultural landscape of Europe is also an important subject matter for Yaming's brushwork. The novel 'Moscow University' outlines the magnificent silhouette of Stalinist architecture with light ink lines, while the thick ink trees in the foreground obscure the bottom of the building. It not only embodies the traditional charm of the combination of mountains and rivers, but also highlights the dominant position of the architecture, achieving a dialogue between Eastern brushwork and Western modern architecture. The St. Peter's Basilica outlines the columns, domes, and carvings of Renaissance architecture with more precise iron line drawings, while the foreground carriages and pedestrians are highlighted with light colors, filling the solemn religious building with a human fireworks atmosphere. Artistic belief: The core belief that runs through Yaming's entire life of creation is that 'Chinese painting has rules but no rules'. This sentence is both his artistic proposition and a summary of his lifelong practice. The so-called 'laws' refer to the adherence to the spirit and aesthetic core of traditional brushwork. Yaming's life sketches, whether depicting cave dwellings in northern Shaanxi or water towns in northern Europe, whether portraying steel workers or Southeast Asian girls, always maintain the ink and brush charm of Chinese painting - the bone strength of lines, the layering of ink colors, the ethereal nature of blank spaces, and the creation of artistic conception. These essence of traditional literati painting have never been absent. The so-called 'undetermined method' refers to the flexibility and adaptability when facing new themes, new lifestyles, and new regions. When painting "Iron and Steel Collection", he used ink painting to depict the reflection of the fire; When painting 'Siberian Forests', he used vertical lines of burnt ink to depict the straightness of coniferous forests; When painting 'Ah! Iceland', he used vermilion to depict the warmth of the volcano. The law has no fixed law, and shape is shaped by objects. It is this open attitude that keeps Yaming's writing alive and lively. The proposition of the New Jinling School of Painting that "brush and ink should follow the times" is most fully reflected in Yaming. The 'era' here not only includes the production scenes during the socialist construction period, but also includes the cultural perspective that went global after the reform and opening up. From "23000 miles" to more than ten countries on four continents, Yaming proved in his lifetime that Chinese painting can not only establish a legacy for mountains and rivers, but also capture the world. The curator of the exhibition "Postcards Across the Century: The Power to Healing Hearts" likened the exhibition to a "postcard that travels through time and space". This metaphor is just right - these sketches are postcards that Yaming has sent back over the past 40 years, recording the places he has walked, the scenery he has seen, and the friends he has made. And today, when these works meet the audience at the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts Museum, they are endowed with new meanings. Standing in front of these paintings, what we see is not only a painter's skill, but also the cultural confidence of an era. In the transitional period of Chinese painting in the 20th century, when some people doubted whether traditional brush and ink could express real life and go global, Yaming gave the answer with a brush. His works tell us that true tradition is not rigid dogma, but an endless spirit; True innovation is not about abandoning tradition and starting anew, but about embracing a new life and world with an open mind, rooted in the soil of the nation. As stated in the conclusion of the exhibition, "I hope these beautiful landscapes can help you forgive some unhappy things." This may be the best summary of Yaming's art - he spent his whole life pursuing and recording beauty, and beauty ultimately has the power to heal people's hearts. When we walk into the exhibition hall in the spring of 2026, facing these "postcards" spanning more than half a century, we not only feel the charm of art, but also a painter's deep and lasting love for life and the world. (New Society)