Avatamsaka Mirror
By Yang Jian
The first glance at Sang Huyao's paintings brings to mind a particularly cold winter from my childhood, when the river was frozen, and we could skate to school. Along the way, I would see Sang Huyao's paintings, either on the frost patterns that formed on the poor windows of that era, or directly in the paintings themselves. This often makes me write these two lines: "You give me cold, I give you frost." However, Sang Huyao's paintings are not about climate, not about physical phenomena, nor about psychological states. They are purely spiritual art, not the ice flowers and frost patterns I see, but a mirror that is hard to fathom at first glance, a mirror, not an ice crystal or frost pattern. These ice crystals and frost patterns are not a real world; the real world is what the Master Fazang, who founded the Huayan School, described to Empress Wu Zetian: "Though the golden lion has birth and death, its golden essence is without birth and death, hence it is called non-arising." Sang Huyao's paintings are a mirror of non-arising, a mirror that takes on all forms yet transcends all forms, a mirror of non-arising.
What do we see in Sang Huyaoyao's paintings? No images, just as climbing a staircase without handrails, only square blocks repeatedly overlay, in various colors or near colorless grays, without the images we expect to see. Sang Huyaoyao no longer needs images; he aims to break them, from images to no imag es, a transformative journey. From images to no images, it is a moment of absolute transformation, a process that is extremely long and difficult. Repeatedly painting squares is equivalent to repeatedly canceling images, no longer relying on images to conv ey meaning. Instead, repeatedly painting squares is to allow will to be preserved on the canvas. When images disappear, they give way to will. At the same time, repeatedly painting squares is also to allow emotions to fade, and to allow the self to fade, l eaving only the squares, nothing else. Why do this? Why repeatedly smear and repeatedly depict? Why repeatedly paint squares and immerse oneself in them? Why repeatedly add color and repeatedly make it colorless? The purpose is singular: to become, no, to revert to a mirror. Because the years that have lost or obscured this mirror are too long, it is necessary to restore a mirror that is spotless, without addition or subtraction, without birth or death, a mirror of Avatamsaka. What is Avatamsaka? Avatamsaka is you within me and me within you, a mutual fusion with no difference, each being a mirror, light equally and integrally interpenetrating.
Drawing squares over and over, immersing oneself in the squares, is to avoid being controlled by emotions, fate, Annoyance (fan Dao, a term that can be translated as' troubles' or 'annoyances'). It is not to find oneself, but to lose oneself completely, to reac h the Vast and Profound, to revert to a Avatamsaka Mirror, that original mirror, that mirror from the beginningless past. Drawing squares over and over, immersing oneself in the squares, why do we do this day after day, year after year? The reason is simple: to revert to a mirror, to achieve Weiming (enlightenment at the beginning of the Great Learning), to become a clear mirror, a mirror without dust, a mirror that can reflect heaven and earth. This is the ultimate goal of art. Can there be anything more fundamental or transcendent than this? Therefore, no gift is more precious than the Huayan Mirror created by Sang Huyaoyang. Repeated work, repeated drawing of squares, repeated cleansing, is to make that mirror a clear mirror, a mirror without blemish, a mirror without dust. All changes in th e world are irrelevant to these squares; they are just fleeting clouds on the mirror, just drama and illusion. Perhaps we can say that the process of completing one of his paintings is a process of purification, a process of crystallization, both happening simultaneously. On that smooth Xuan paper and that noble silk, Sang Huyaoyang's Avatamsaka Mirror is both ancient and new, because it is the original we have long forgotten, it is you and me, it is ourselves. Have you seen it?
Shang Huya did not paint the sun, but you can see the sun in his paintings. He depicted the world under the sun, which could be vivid, dim, or transparent. Under the sun, mirrors and ice blocks warmed and supported each other, reflecting and illuminating e ach other. He abandoned lines and used only squares, which was pioneering. With the simplest squares, he created a new world, and it was monochromatic. Each square was a mirror, reflecting the sun’s light. Abandoning lines and using only squares was his cr Eation, achieving a world where one mirror encompasses myriad mirrors. Have we ever seen such a world in art history? He used a monochromatic world to resist a chaotic, colorful world that blinded the eyes, and a chaotic world to resist a world of distinctions. He approached the original point of human and world interaction through near-total silence, being silent and ho lding his breath, using the most expressive form of expression through non-expression. In his work, non-expression is the most abundant expression.
Crystal, a crystallization of time, space, mind, and emptiness, or a crystallization in gray, green, red, or colorless, he must have endured the cold for a long time, pondered deeply for a long time, transformed himself profoundly for a long time, and repeatedly knelt and stood up countless times to achieve such a dazzling crystallization, to blend his hometown and foreign lands into one, to unify the two, and to merge you and me into one.
In Sang Huyao's paintings, one cannot see any emotions. He excels in using gray tones, and within those grays, emotions are even harder to discern. Instead, they provide a place to settle emotions. The indescribable and inconceivable blocks only find their absolute form within the grays. Only the absolute can be free of emotions, and only emotionless art can settle and subdue human emotions. Sang Huyao's art is emotionless, which is its most outstanding feature. It is precisely because of this emotionlessness that he achieves a true and authentic expression.
Heaven attains oneness and becomes clear, earth attains oneness and becomes tranquil. The painting of oneness is a seamless whole, a clarity that emerges after I am gone, reaching clarity in emptiness. This stream of clarity is clear and distinct, carrying on the tradition of Wang Wei and Ni Yunlin, embodying purity and cleanliness, though without form, just a faint stream. Tranquility of mind and forgetting thoughts, like nurturing a child, solitude once again creates a life field of ice and jade purity. It is solitude that allows him to return to the ancient secret stream of purity. The stream of purity is a narrow path, drawing squares day after day is also a narrow path. Only through the narrow path can one reach the absolute, only the narrow path is guarded by solitude. Completing the artistic wish in one square after another is a powerful resolve. The crystallized squares become a powerful resolve, the deepest and most fundamental prayer. Continuously contemplating and recognizing these squares, always in mind, until light emerges. In every square, there is the radiance of the mind, in every square, the radiance of other squares, squares illuminating each other, independent yet interdependent, light merging with light, light reflecting light, forming a vast world of luminous self-nature. Endless squares, endless mirrors, endless light, internally and externally clear, mirror light perfectly integrated, all phenomena gathered in the palm of the hand. He comes to crystallize, he comes to illuminate.
He did not paint the dust, but only a mirror. He did not paint the dream, but only the mirror. This mirror is inherently pure and transcends time and history. It responds to objects as they come and do not retain them when they leave; it merely reflects. A lthough he painted many colors, those colors only served to reflect—reflecting gray, green, orange, and every other color without changing itself. Sang Huyao painted this mirror that never changes, a mirror of Avatamsaka, a mirror that every person inheren tly possesses and has twenty-four hours of presence but rarely notices. It is the mirror of the universe, the mirror of all things, though used daily, it is often unknown. Wang Yangming said, "This heart is bright," referring to this mirror. Mirrors are ev erywhere, light is everywhere, and the light interweaves layer upon layer. The light in Sang Huyao’s paintings is not sunlight but the light of this mirror, thus the light in the painting interweaves layer upon layer, seemingly mirror light but actually th e light of one’s true nature. It is the harmony of one’s true nature that ends each of Sang Huyao’s paintings and yields the fruits of his art. His art is an X-ray of the highest chaotic world, facing beauty and ugliness, facing ease and adversity, his hea rt remains as calm as a mirror of Avatamsaka.
Just reflecting without attachment, seeing the world in a block and a block in the world, the finite containing the infinite and the infinite containing the finite, majestic without distinction, Equal without a center yet everywhere a cente, cool without annoyance. R, seeming like a block, actually a mirror of the heart, countless, profound, wonderful, and vast, countless such mirrors, countless Avatamsaka mirrors, vast without boundaries, small without centers, entering the mysterious, in the inconceivable, though made by humans, it seems naturally created.
February 28, 2025
