A man of action

Before artist Yang Gang passed away at the age of 73 in 2019, he had been looking forward to the Winter Olympics which will be held in his home city.

Since 2000, Yang had drawn athletes when he watched live broadcasts or rebroadcasts of the Winter Games on television. He left a body of work consisting of more than 400 drawings, which celebrates the dynamics and perseverance of those striving to compete in the Olympics.

Yang once said: "I love the Winter Olympics. It is like an international Naadam (a festival of traditional games of the Mongolian ethnic group) on ice and snow that promotes world peace and the well-being of humankind."

Yang lived in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in the 1960s and '70s, and traveled to the heart of extensive grasslands there. He invested time in capturing on paper the vigorous, instant movements of animals, such as horses, and people participating in sports, such as horse-racing and wrestling.

A selection of works on winter sports created by Yang between 2000 and 2018 is on show at the Beijing Fine Art Academy, where Yang used to work as a resident painter.

The exhibition, Constantly Emerge and Grow, at the academy's art museum, ends on Thursday and will be held at the Shenzhen Art Museum from Jan 20 to Feb 15.

The series by Yang gives full expression of his passion for painting and sports.

He learned about horse-racing in Inner Mongolia and used to swim in Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing. He combined his enthusiasm for sports with his passion for sketching and found it a great pleasure to explore the variations of lines to present the feeling of freedom, energy and speed while people engage in athletic competitions.

Wu Hongliang, director of the Beijing Fine Art Academy, says when he first saw Yang's exhibited drawings in 2018, he was mesmerized by Yang's ability to freeze on paper the instance of motion when it happened.

"The details under his brushes and pens also present the weight of the human body, delivering a sense of volume, spirituality and eternity," Wu says.

Those close to Yang say his depictions of athletes, as well as of herdsmen living on the grasslands, are exuberant with heroism.

Yang Xiao, his daughter, says that of the main characters from the 14th-century classical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, her father felt great admiration for Guan Yunchang, a respected military general known for his loyalty.

Yang Gang's favorite novels included And Quiet Flows the Don, the epic work by Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov, and The Call of the Wild by US novelist Jack London, which inspired in his work "a heroic, romantic touch combined with idealism".

Yang Gang's paintings of grassland life and sports are also on show and one can sense a philosophical outlook that dominates his work. He once said: "While on the grassland, I was moved by a state of men and the universe in profound unity. It continues to be a spiritual haven for me."

Shi Guoliang, a painter and Yang Gang's former schoolmate at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, says: "He was righteous, kind and sincere, and when doing art, he was persistent and industrious."

For his drawings, Yang Gang sourced inspiration from Chinese calligraphy as a highly expressive art form in which the varying speed and pressure of the pointed brushes lead to a variety of styles. He found the balance between letting free and controlling by hand while practicing calligraphy, a shared tactic with some sports.

Dong Zhenghe, his widow and a calligrapher, says Yang Gang practiced calligraphy for three to four hours a day after he turned 50, and he was influenced by Huaisu, an eminent Buddhist monk and calligrapher from the eighth century, who specialized in writing the cursive script of caoshu.

"Yang Gang loved to paint sport motifs as he was fascinated with the beauty of fleeting moments and wanted to present that, and to hail the power of life constantly emerging and growing," Dong says.