The Walking Mountain vs. Still Waters

I walked a single path for 25 years; I painted a single mountain range, stretching 28 meters on a long scroll; From sobbing to cheering, I journeyed along the course of a single stream.

Looking back, I noticed it has already been 25 years since the earthquake with the greatest intensity and magnitude in a century occurred in 1999. The 921 Earthquake inflicted the largest number of injuries and deaths in Taiwanese history and striked the lands and rivers with its detrimental, catastrophic impact, rupturing mountains and riverbeds, causing mudflows, and bringing about all kinds of shocking disastrous scenes.

In a blink of an eye, 25 years have passed. Our hearts remained strong and unyielding; our world remained affectionate and caring.

The ruptured landscapes of the mountains in Nantou have returned to their initial lush greenery after the vegetation grew back. Recalling the sight of that terrifying moment, I was determined to preserve and recreate the petrifying scene with ink and brush to visualize the historical event.

In 2000, I began recording the tragic scenes induced by the 921 Earthquake by employing Chinese ink painting as a medium to express my sense of mission and responsibility as an artist when confronting the disaster and to document the historical event as a witness while encouraging others to move on from their loss. From 2000 to 2001, I completed the “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine peaks” long scroll painting, “Remnants of the Landscape” series, “Painting the Eternal in Spiritual Mountains”, and the “Ten Illustrations of Flowing Changes” album. I paid three visits to Jiujiufeng to sketch out the blueprints of my works with on-site records and conformed to a fixed schedule everyday upon isolating myself from others to purify my body, speech, and mind especially over the creation period of “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine Peaks”. With a fully focused mindset, I eventually managed to finish this 60 x 2054cm long scroll.

The same year, setting off from Puli, I recorded the post-disaster landscapes under the assistance of Mr. Huang Xuan-Xing, cooperating with me to capture what we saw with brush and diary. Driving, we zigzagged along the muddy roads and bumpy rocks, constantly altering our directions. The hardships we faced again reminded us of our disempowered selves as humans when compared with nature. The gap between human civilization and the power of nature was so wide that we could not be judged on the same scale. The omnipotent nature has surpassed us thoroughly.

Located at the intersection of two tectonic plates and composed of unstable structures of strata, Taiwan suffers from frequent earthquakes and mudflows that have already become part of our everyday life. Residing on this island, we tend to perceive the notion of “change and constancy” and “permanence and impermanence” better due to Taiwan’s inconsistent weather and geography. The reason why pairs of opposite concepts exist is that humans’ senses always attempt to distinguish and cling to our judgments of external appearances. For example, we observe the “change and constancy”, “permanence and impermanence” in the ceaseless flow of time. However, when we deflect from the constant course of time and choose to divide it into units like year, month, day, minute, second, down to moments and fleeting instants, the formerly mentioned concepts no longer exist because each unit of time is complete and independent from the other and thereby loses the continual attribute of time. If time could be divided, then time itself would be composed of multiple connected individual time units; if not, then time would be a never ending, constantly flowing river.

“Continuous and noncontinuous”, “separable and inseparable”, “individual and whole” all refer to the same thing. Once we developed adequate keenness to understand that time could be either frozen in an independent instant or continual waves, we could purge and renew our thoughts about the combinations of opposite ideas such as “happiness and sadness”, “right and wrong”, “true and false” at that single moment.

Revolving around the 921 Earthquake, the post-disaster series initiated from my plan to wander around Taiwan and capture the change in environment from an integrated perspective, yet the actual practice was divided into steps, in which I visited the locations separately, depicted the landscapes in individual paintings, and eventually connected them, which resulted in the long scroll painting. The landscapes might seem disconnected and shattered if you look into each part separately, while enjoying it as a whole creates a reverberating harmony between the sky and land.

The concepts of “dividing” and “connecting”, “ceasing” and “perpetuating” were embodied not only through the creation but also through viewer’s appreciation of the art. Our ancestors unrolled scrolls incrementally, rolling it up on one side while unrolling it on the other, which means one could either focus on a particular section to delve deeply into the exquisite art for a while or simply skim through thousands of miles of mountains and let one’s gaze roam freely across the vast landscapes without any pause. The various ways of viewing resemble the functions on cell phones used in modern times, with which we magnify a certain detail or minimize the image to see the untrimmed landscape. An experience of epiphany in a certain instant, once prolonged, could mark a milestone in the process of self-awakening; thus, the experiences of appreciating art and perceiving the beauty of life would accumulate to eventually form an uninterrupted trail of beauty and elegance.

The most severe earthquake in a hundred years that striked Taiwan 25 years ago marked the beginning of my creation, “the 921 Earthquake Series”, as well as my attempt to present the natural scenery of Taiwan through ink painting. Since the 921 Earthquake, the deserted Jiujiufeng has finally regained its formerly exuberant foliage in 2024, demonstrating and proclaiming the grandeur of the transforming natural landscapes and the continual performance of natural principles. Disasters damaged the appearance of nature; nevertheless, nature heals on its own, craving rebirth. The continuous regeneration of life, life’s intuition of recovering, turns every breach into a new exit.

This series of creation spans across 25 years of diligence, encompassing a long scroll of vast and boundless time. From “Three Visits to Ninety-Nine Peaks” to “The Walking Mountain”, the series journeyed across the past 25 years and persisted in portraying the landscapes of Jiujiufeng, as if the mountains’ greenery has always remained the same throughout the years. On the other hand, “Still Waters” illustrates the Wu River located at the foot of the mountain, maintaining its essence whether the water proceeds in a sudden surge or a gentle flow.

Through the transforming external appearances of Jiujiufeng over 25 years and the lasting echo of the soft sounding flowing water along the coast of Wu River, I gained a deeper understanding of the vigorous and dynamic energy on the immobile mountains and the stillness in the everchanging flowing stream. Mountains and rivers work this way, so do our minds. Throughout the everlasting flux of emotions, we could attain tranquility and stillness of mind stemming from wisdom and a determined mindset by withdrawing from our string of thoughts.

Only creation can resist oblivion; Without interpretation, images are mere records. Three visits to ninety-nine peaks over 25 years, Led me to the walking mountains, And still waters.