High Road to the Cloud——

The Spiritual Shaping and Reflection of Jinggang Mountain and Water in Guan Shanyue's Writing

High Road Lead To The Cloud

organizer

Taicang Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, Radio, Television and Tourism

Shenzhen Guanshanyue Art Museum

organizer

Taicang Art Museum

Exhibition time

June 14th to August 17th, 2025

venue

Hall 6 and Hall 7 of Taicang Art Museum

foreword

In 2022, the Guanshan Yue Art Museum in Shenzhen, under the name of "High Road into the Cloud", injected the majestic spirit of Jinggangshan into the hot land of the Bay Area, the cradle of revolution, and the heroic city of Nanchang during the reform and opening up. In 2025, this art journey will travel upstream and stop at Taicang, a cultural hub in Jiangnan. From the coast of the South China Sea to the banks of the Yangtze River, the spark of art crosses mountains and seas, connecting two cities that carry cultural missions, and opening up a deep dialogue between the Lingnan atmosphere and the cultural context of Loudong.

Jinggangshan is the cradle of the Chinese revolution and the spiritual home of the CPC.   We use the research and exhibition of Guan Shanyue and Jinggangshan themed works to turn our ideals and beliefs into a bright light that illuminates the way forward, transforming them into a persistent pursuit of our goals, a firm adherence to noble sentiments, and a brave courage to take on difficulties and obstacles. This project was selected for the 2022 National Art Museum Collection Exhibition Season by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The exhibition focuses on Mr. Guan Shanyue's Jinggangshan themed works, with the integration of art form and revolutionary spirit as the entry point. Through the organic connection and resonance between art works and revolutionary cultural relics, it leads the audience back to the historical time and space of Jinggangshan, the cradle of revolution. It establishes a channel that combines aesthetic education and revolutionary historical education, and explores, interprets, and transmits the connotation of Jinggangshan's revolutionary spirit at the artistic level, jointly shaping and awakening the memory of a certain era.

The exhibition continues the four major chapters of the Shenzhen exhibition - "Majestic and Fierce, Starry Fire", "Pilgrimage of Sacred Sites, Full of Emotions", "Jinggang Duo Jiao, Yi Yi Yi", and "Form and Spirit Melting and Spreading". More than 30 works with the theme of Guanshan Yue Jinggang Mountain are exhibited, including the steep and peculiar "Huangyang Boundary Whistle" and the smooth brushwork of "Zhusha Chong Whistle", showcasing the painter's repeated refinement of the same theme in different historical contexts. The red landscape paintings represented by the Jinggangshan theme that emerged in the 1950s to 1970s were a common theme for artists to create landscape paintings at that time. They were a direct and pure spiritual feedback and cultural memory of a specific era after the founding of New China, and also an aesthetic image of the people's minds during that period. In the era when many masters emerged, we took Guan Shanyue's works as a starting point to glimpse the grand aspirations of the older generation of artists who used their brush and ink to jointly build a monument of national spirit.

From Shenzhen to Taicang, this exhibition that spans time and space is not only a continuation of the red art gene from north to south, but also a practice of revitalizing cultural confidence through the collection of new era art museums. May the audience here not only witness the magnificent momentum of Jinggangshan, but also understand the profound significance of using art as a bridge to build the Great Wall of national spirit between the two places.

Director of Guanshanyue Art Museum in Shenzhen: Chen Junyu

June 2025

On the morning of June 18th, the opening ceremony of "High Road into the Clouds - Spiritual Shaping and Looking Back on the Jinggang Mountains and Waters in the Eyes of Guan Shanyue" was successfully held at the Taicang Art Museum.

The leaders and guests attending the opening ceremony include Chen Junyu, the director of Shenzhen Guanshanyue Art Museum, Cao Dandan, the deputy director of Taicang Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, Radio, Television and Tourism, and Cheng Pingping, the exhibition planning director of Shenzhen Guanshanyue Art Museum. Jin Huihui, the director of Taicang Art Museum, presided over the event.

In the special lecture on "The Beautiful Mountains and Rivers: An Interpretation of Mr. Guan Shanyue's Life and Artistic Journey", Director Chen Junyu led the audience to follow the timeline and deeply appreciate Guan Shanyue's transformation from a rising star of the Lingnan School of Painting to an artistic giant. The lecture focuses on his representative work "So Many Beauties in the Mountains and Rivers", revealing the conceptual breakthrough when he and Fu Baoshi created the Great Hall of the People in 1959, analyzing his innovative techniques of integrating images such as the Great Wall and the Yellow River into the 6.5-meter x 9-meter giant scale, and demonstrating how the work became a monument to the era of new Chinese landscape painting. At the same time, through works such as "Beautiful Spring" and "The Great Green Wall", the pursuit of "writing for the times" is explained. The lecture takes Guan Shanyue's practice as the context, sorting out the concept of "compromise between Chinese and foreign" of Lingnan painting school, and presenting a cultural feast of Chinese painting inheritance and innovation to the audience.

Before the opening ceremony, Cheng Ping, the exhibition planning director of Shenzhen Guanshanyue Art Museum, brought a wonderful and unparalleled tour. Cheng Ping, with his profound professional accumulation and deep understanding of Guan Shanyue's art, leads the audience to shuttle between the exhibition halls. He carefully interprets the creative process of Guan Shanyue's visit to Jinggangshan, from the simple brushstrokes of "Chairman Mao's Former Residence in Dajing" in 1962, to the ink tension of "Zhusha Chongshao Kou" in 1972, and to the spiritual metaphor of "One of the Greener Mountains after the Rain" in 1976. He conveys the creative story, technological innovation, and revolutionary spirit behind the work to the fullest, revealing the profound connotation of red landscape art to the audience and laying a perfect foundation for the opening ceremony.