In all of my travels across Asia, I've been able to encounter a great divide in the schools of thought accepted and appropriated throughout the artistic communities. There seems to be some kind of popular definition-battle between critics, artists and galleries who are on one of two very opposite sides. On the one hand, there are the classicists otherwise known as the purists or traditionalists. This group proudly associates historical and ancestral art with a higher form of culture in their society. I've observed this trait to be most true in some areas of China, where the elder generations all but venerate the calligraphic-looking 'mopit' paintings of olden times. They put such a high regard on the idealism of these artists from past time periods, that any deviance from the prescribed standard insults the way art is supposed to be viewed. Not that everyone is like this- but there are extremists in every field of human culture, art included.



On the other end of the range, we see a bunch of people who love to experiment with combinatory learnings from different sources. They possess eclectic tastes that govern their direction when creating new artworks and exhibition pieces. Many people describe them as post-modernists or contemporary practicioners, and a majority of them belong to generations significantly younger than the group I previously mentioned. Milenials are also often times a part of this second category of artisans. A greatly appreciating view towards westernized movements can sometimes drive many artists to integrate into their works- values, messages and even techniques foreign to their forefathers' cultures.

It's just an observation that I've made, nothing else. There are of course, middleground people who simply appreciate that art can actually be one thing, while being another. There is no real limit to creativity. We can't predict it by putting it into a a set of definitions and restraining people to follow our schools of thought.

When I was young, I used to think that art was this big, extravagant thing. I thoought that artists were people who could not be explained, and were often out-of-this-world crazy in some aspects of their personality. It was only later on in life that I discovered the passion they share for creating wonders and sending messages with a language that is unspoken by words. Ideas are best conveyed by pieces that catch the mind's eye rather than sentences that fall on deaf ears.



Art is a mode of communication. It's beauty can come forth in tens of thousands of ways. Whether it be through the multitudes of possible interpretations of a work, or through the sheer magnitude and gravity of a masterpiece's meaning, depth and significance to a society. It seems that this very strange part of human capacility- the skill to draw, paint, sculpt, imagine.. is often overlooked by those who fiercely believe that logic and reasoning are the only keys to understanding our condition as moral and mortal creatures on this earth.

Both modern and traditional art movements have their place in the history of many societies, conveying importance in whatever those people held dear at the time. Traditionalists often render works that perfect their imagery of certain beliefs and aspects of cultural heritage. Modernists on the other hand, scrape at the possibility of the new, engaging in the contraversial, testing the limits of people's understanding, and challenging the norms to which we have all come to live by.

Every type of information is only made useful when it is spread to more than a single individual. I feel that art is one of the main ways that information is spread. It might not be the most direct way to do this, but it can be the most striking, the most impactful, and certainly the most beautiful of any method known to man in this day and age.

"Distant Memory" A Painting by Chinese Artist Zhang Xiangming, Oil on Canvas