画家千嶂手中的那支笔表现得轻松自如，山水、花鸟、任务，无所不能，尤其精于“花脸”的表现。

The painting brush of the Chinese artist Qianzhang paints easily: mountains, waters, flowers, birds, human figures – there is simply nothing that the brush fails to paint. Above all, it feels most at home when painting hualian.

“花脸”，又称为“净”，是戏曲表演中的一个行当。京剧中的净分为正净、副净和武净。人物的忠、奸、善、恶、侠义都可从那张脸上表现出来，它的本身就是一种符号化的立体艺术。把这种立体艺术移栽在纸上，使之变为平面艺术的，在画界也不乏其人。一种是依样画葫芦，在纸上画着真真切切的脸谱，另一种是戏曲人物画，把特定的脸谱和特定的人物结合起来，颇有舞台速写的韵味。

Hualian, also known as jing, is a major role in China’s theatrical¹ performing tradition. In Peking Opera jing includes the categories of leading, assisting and military jing. A particular way of painting jing’s face represents a particular identity of the concerned role in a play: it may be a loyal, wicked or good man, or a villain², or a chivalrous³ hero. The masked face itself is a symbolized⁴ work of stereoscopic art. The effort of transplanting stereoscopic art on paper to produce works of plane art is not an isolated⁵ phenomenon in the art community. Such work, more often than not, follows one of the two approaches, one of which is to create on paper an exact copy of a masked face, and the other to paint a theatrical figure portrait, casting a particular figure in a mask, quite similar to the work of stage sketches⁶.

而千嶂笔下的花脸不是这样，他离开了特定的人物、特定的脸谱、特定的剧情，以超越的视野，横扫大笔，洋洋洒洒，把花脸画的更加抽象化，夸大了花脸的象征意义，进入一个试图表现人类心灵的全新境界。在进行这种艺术探索时，画家有着独到的悟性和心得。他跳开了传统戏剧花脸的那种凝固的程式，为古老的花脸艺术架起了通向现代人心理的桥梁，泼写着人世间的喜怒哀乐。这个从平面到立体的过程，形成了时空艺术的瞬间闪现，天真烂漫而不悖理性精神的美学，使画家的思想自由驰翔，令其笔下生辉。

Qianzhang’s hualian, nevertheless, represents a different approach to painting. Feeling himself from the rigid⁷ commitment of being truthful⁸ to stereotypical⁹ theatrical figures, masks and plots, he paints quite freely and skillfully. His more liberal vision gives birth to the kind of hualian which is characteristically more abstract and more lavishly¹⁰ exaggerated in terms of its symbolic¹¹ meaning. In this brand-new realm the artist attempts to best reveal the mind and soul of mankind. In his search for a particular mask-painting art, the artist works with a unique understanding for his object of creation. Ignoring the frozen traditional formula, the artist remains¹² dedicated¹³ to constructing a bridge that connects the ancient art of hualian mask painting with the psychology¹⁴ of the modern man, brushing out human joys and sorrows. The transition of the theatrical mask art from a plane form to the present stereoscopic model represents the instantaneous flashes of the so-called time-space art.

醉汉是写不出诗的。太清醒了，也写不出诗的。画画也是这样，总是在似醉非醉的状态忠进入佳境。我总说千嶂的花脸有醉的韵味，那是一种朦胧美与流动美的结合。说它是朦胧的，那是墨彩交融而非混沌不清。书法用笔的参入，给画带来了流动的节奏。这是一种刚与柔、动与静、清晰与朦胧相统一的艺术效果。

An intoxicated¹⁵ mind writes no poems. Nor does a completely sober mind. It is also true of painting. The best state of creation is one when the artist is partially¹⁶ drunk and partially sober. When I say Qianzhang’s hualian smells of drunkenness, I mean that to be an embodiment of obscure beauty with flowing beauty, obscure as the result of mixing ink and color, obscure but not murk. His calligraphic paintbrushing brings flowing rhythm to the work of mask painting, thus achieving an artistic¹⁷ effect of a harmonious¹⁸ combination of firmness with gentleness, of mobility¹⁹ with tranquility, and of precision with obscurity.