My Third Refrain on Yang Pass 西出陽關無故人

For some reason I seem to be fixated on desert and camel whenever I think about stories relating to Song of the City of Wei 渭城曲 ( aka Weicheng Qu) , an iconic poem by the Tang poet Wang Wei.  I believe my obsession has a lot to do with how I perceive this poem.  It is undeniable that the poetry identified the City of Wei (today's Xianyang) along the Wei River, thus not a desert.  However that city is only the location of a farewell between Wang and his friend, and the beginning of a long, grueling journey across an inhospitable desert.  The writing noted a landmark, Yang Pass, as a symbolic end of civilization beyond which lies melancholic forsakenness.  Wang felt helpless that he must bid adieu to his friend.  It is this poetic feeling of resignation and not the actual setting of the City of Wei that evoked my senses.

Having laid the groundwork for my painting in ink, I began the coloring process.  I chose the semi-sized Xuan because I wanted the color to float.  I had a sandstorm in mind.  The semi-sized paper also tend to mute the color a bit, rendering a natural haze to the painting.

I got the right hue for the sky by mixing ink and indigo, leaving places uncovered to reveal clouds.

I wanted to create a more dramatic contrast between the foreground and the distant scenery, so I darkened the stone bricks with ink.  Using side-tip technique and a uneven coverage, the darker ink helped to add more convincing texture to the stones.  I left the voids between the bricks alone, they would become the mortars.  In a way I was using the stones as an impressionistic frame for my desert. 

A much more intense perspective of inside versus outside was achieved.  Now the diminutive desert seemed less like an insert and more convincing as the view outside the sentry window.

Tidied up little details here and there, still not satisfied with my camel.  Then it dawned on me that my idea of the traveler walking with his camel was certainly endearing, or even altruistic in a sense, but the practicality of the camel as a freight hauling vehicle certainly could not be discounted.

Thus I added some provisions onto the sides of the camel.  Now a bactrian camel laden with freight being led by a traveler with walking stick is a more plausible story line.  Together they would brave the distance and any calamity that might come their way.  I mean if I was a producer making a movie about the Song of the City of Wei, this would be the last footage the audience would see as the credits are being superimposed on the silver screen; and the house lights slowly coming back on.

Since I made reference to the refrains of the Yang Pass Song, the Three refrains on the Yang Pass Theme, which by the way is a famous Guqin piece, I would like to present my three refrains from a visual standpoint:

In the top two inserts, I had the Yang Pass in the distance.  My current plot has the traveler passing through Yang Pass, heading to his final destination; a scenario more in tune with the poem. Thus my third refrain hinges on the final verse of the poem.

Safe traveling my friend!

Yang Pass Revisited

Not having a lot of places to visit due to the pandemic, I am relying more on electronic means to keep up with the real world and to let my acquaintances know that I am still kicking and breathing.  I must say that it feels good to re-connect with people whom I've grown distant for some reason.  One thing is for sure, junk mails are still annoying.

The unforeseen current events not only shut down my demonstration sessions but also threw a monkey wrench into my applications for a chance to exhibit my works.  Dates were either canceled or postponed, meaning the adjudication process was put on hold too.  One of the venue would adopt a strictly virtual environment, showcasing accepted works online, with no provision for physical viewing.  Applicants were told to spruce up their websites so that interested parties would have a chance to scrutinize works other than the juried ones.  My in-box finally popped a "Not Chosen" response from a gallery.  In the rejection email, there was the usual generic explanation and thank you for your interest verbiage but also there was something more specific to the effect that due to the prevailing events on the streets, a lot of the accepted works somehow showed people's reaction to the issues of our society, as in their facial expressions.  

What was not expected was a second communication from the gallery, trying to dispel the impression that somehow the accepted works were all portraits.  It went on to say that the call was for works that the artists deem to have left a mark.  Thus works that reflect the current state of affairs were more relevant and congruent with the mission.  

Obviously what I consider as my mark is markedly different from other people's mark.  Since I am not the person marking the mark, who am I to say that so and so missed the mark.  Some will argue that galleries and museums often dictate what is relevant art or not, thus molding and shaping the public at large.  Is this insidious systemic bias?  Who knows, let's not make a mountain out of a mole hill, right?  

Actually this reminds me of my Yang Pass Three Variations blog.  One might say that I detest the literal meaning of the poem by Wang Wei. It should be evident by now that I belong to the camp that says the poem described the parting sorrow and helplessness between friends.  Thus I subscribe to "willow" being a homophone to "stay" in the Chinese language, and dust and misty sprinkle setting the stage for an excursion, a journey that Wang Wei's friend must partake; hence Wang Wei's apprehension.  So if I was the gallery setting out a call for Yang Pass theme paintings, I would have rejected all works that would depict willow trees, travel lodges or misty wet roads.  I would say that these works are all too banal and superficial and fail to capture the essence of the poem.  Am I influencing people's interpretation of the poem or which paintings are relevant?  You bet I am.  It is my prerogative. 

Thus I felt inspired to have another try at painting Yang Pass, based on Wang Wei's poem.  Allow me to repeat my translation of that poem:

The city was shrouded in a light sprinkle, settling the dust of the road.

Willows by the inn sprouting green color.

Bottoms UP, let's finish yet another drink, 

beyond Yang Pass there shall be no old acquaintances to be found.

As I noted in my past blog, Yang Pass is a military outpost on the southern branch of the Silk Road.

I imagined it to be a stone fortress by a desert that goes on forever.  A most inhospitable environment.

I want to elicit the feeling of abandonment and destitute by giving the desert some context.  I chose to frame the desert through an window from the outpost.  Through this opening I hope to instill a feeling of departure, of distance and of an incessant intrepid crossing.

I laid down the blocks of stone with ink, side-tipped fashion.  I chose such archway hoping to reflect an Islamic motif, since the outpost is on the Silk Road and I imagined the architecture could reflect adjacent foreign influences.

The massive stone blocks were easy to paint, and should offer a stark contrast to the proportionally diminutive, yet relentless sandy desert.  

The poem alluded to parting of Wang Wei from his friend, who was traveling by himself now.

I don't know what his friend would choose as transportation, but I think a camel is more likely than a horse, since it involved trekking a desert. 

I chose a bactrian camel.  I had no way of knowing, just thinking that two humps are better than one. Naughty, Naughty!  Don't forget the 17th of August is National Hump Day for the States.

I also thought that walking with the camel would be more endearing than riding it.  The poem implied that the traveler would be hard pressed to find any old acquaintances, thus walking shoulder to shoulder on equal footing with another being, a camel notwithstanding, could be a more likely sentiment.

Oops, my lawn grass is stilling growing despite the upheavals out there.  Time to mow my yard.  Good place for an intermission.  

Three Variations On The Yang Pass

Music and poetry are intertwined with Chinese Brushing paintings in the sense that they often inspire each other.  Scholars in the past were expected to excel in painting, writing poetry and calligraphy.  It was not uncommon then, for the artist to write a painting with strategic void spaces and garnish that with verses of calligraphy.   When I was studying Chinese painting, one of the routine was to paint something according to a poem.

Three Variations On The Yang Pass is a musical piece that is rich with history.  This iconic piece has been adapted for different musical instruments and instrumentation, both eastern and western and even choral adaptations.

The musical piece was borrowed from a poem by Wang Wei, a Tang dynasty poet.  The poem was incorporated into music, and subsequently amended with lyrics and 3 refrains, thus the three variations.   The poem is about Wang Wei seeing a friend off, and Yang Pass is a strategic stop for this intrepid journey.  The Pass was a military installation in the old days, and a sentry post on the southern branch of Silk Road.

Wang's friend was assigned to a outpost that is far from the heartlands of China.  The location of that outpost would have been today's Kuqa county in Xinjiang, China.  Wang supposedly said goodbye to his friend at what would be today's Xi'an.  I looked up Google map and the journey from Xi'an to Kuqa is a 36 days trek on foot crossing an arid landscape; nothing to sneeze at.

The following is the Google map showing the points of interest:

White dot is the starting point, Xianyang (Xi'an)
B is Yang Pass
A is the final destination, the outpost at Kuqa

I shall attempt to translate the poem that Wang wrote for the occasion of saying goodbye to his buddy:

The city was shrouded in a light sprinkle, settling the dust on the road
Willows by the inn sprouting green color
Bottoms up, let's finish yet another drink
Beyond Yang Pass there shall be no old acquaintance to be found

It is customary for Chinese to host a farewell dinner and a welcome home dinner for the traveller.  The welcome home affair is aptly named "Dust Cleansing Dinner".  In other words, retiring the grime and obstacles of the journey taken.  In this poem Wang cleverly borrowed the dust theme to pave way for his friend.  He was proclaming even the sky opened up with a gentle shower to settle the dust, meaning there would be nothing to hinder a smooth voyage.  A good omen.

The word inn painted a picture of travel, and willow is a homonym with the Chinese word "stay".  When Chinese present a willow twig as a token for the traveller, it is an expression of not wanting to part company and hoping the traveller would stay a while longer.

Thus the first two verses of the poem seemed to have depicted rain and inn and willow but Wang was actually setting the stage using metaphors.  He was supplying the prerequisite of the emotional content, priming our lachrymal ducts for what's to follow.

So let us say bottoms up to yet another drink, and how many drinks have we had?  This is your last drink for a while, buddy,  because soon you'll have no one to drink with.  That's gut-wrenching!

Such is the desolate destitute, please, won't you stay for me?  Don't go!

Wang ached.

Parting is such sweet sorrow is a line from Romeo and Juliet, expressing the affection between a man and a woman.  In Wang's poem, there is resigned sadness, for a closeness soon to be beyond reach.

That was my inspiration for my paintings

I also tried painting just one camel, with Yang Pass much closer in the landscape, trying to describe the post-farewell stage of the journey, amplifying the solitude

The two versions side by side