Artistic Silence and Context

At dusk, the sunset will not set.

I welcome the breeze that comes slowly, raise my eyes to look at the sky will be reflected in layers of haloed blood red to a golden sunset, quietly into the park.

The wind blew gently again, and I had a face-to-face, and lightly slipped past me. I wandered in the park because my mood was depressed. The teacher had been criticizing me for my lack of progress in my skills and lack of enthusiasm for learning during the past two or three months.

Suddenly, the melodious sound of the guqin came, like a bitter sigh, but with some meaning that people can't help but be attracted to it, softly telling something.

I slowly walked across the lake with the sound of the zither and entered a bamboo forest. It was an old man, his face wrinkled like a knife into the general, marking his old age, eyes slightly closed, eyelids down, waist straight, a pair of wrinkled hands full of calluses now stroking the guqin. The instrument was placed on the long stone chair, while the old man was sitting on a small wooden bench. The strong tones of the zither seemed to go through the forest and then fly high into the sky.

As I listened, people began to appear in pairs at the edge of the bamboo forest, young couples with their toddlers; grandparents or grandparents with their toddlers; couples holding hands ...... as they walked past the old man and me. Their whispers, small footsteps, and laughter ...... all made me look at them. But the old man, still hands stroking the piano, not looking away.

A song just rested a song again. He began to look impassioned, his eyes began to open, eyes full of passionate emotions, exuberance, and self, as if the surrounding people or pile of no trace have nothing to do with him in general.

The sound of the zither rose and fell like a tide, and in the sound of the zither, it was as if one could hear the life of a man, the vicissitudes of a man. This time, the old man wiped his zither and played another very bleak tune. In the song, the individual syllables are like cuckoo blood, as if the sunset of the fallen blood is poignant. My eyes were moistened and tears slipped down from the corners of my eyes.

The old man slowly played the last note, and then slowly wiped the instrument with a small piece of cloth, as if he was wiping a precious treasure.

The instrument and the old man, or a long time together, right? It is no wonder that the old man took the zither as his confidant. Jiang's qin fiction says: "Among all the instruments, the qin has the best virtue. The zither is not only a musical instrument but also a spiritual way of life for meditation and enlightenment! At this time, the old man finished cleaning the zither and put it into another long box, and he walked out of the bamboo forest with the zither.

The shadows of the old man and the zither became more and more distant.

Suddenly, from the stone steps below the bamboo forest, a conversation floated into my ears. "This old Chen I heard that his daughter asked him to help in Shenzhen, saying that there is no one to pick up his nephew from school. He just does not go." I looked around and saw a granny in a blue dress with a dark floral pattern, holding a little boy of about three or four years old in one hand, while talking to a granny about her age, wearing beige short sleeves with black semi-shorts. That granny's right hand is holding a pink and jade girl about four or five years old.

"Yes, this old Chen head, really a bit strange. I heard that he must go to the ferry every Saturday to meet his friends, that's why he doesn't go to his daughter's place."

"Well, what's so good about this piano, I don't know, even the nephew can not care ......"

The two old men walked away, their words from my ears like a light wind just swept by. And the sound of the zither, the sound of the old man's zither just now has been echoing in my mind. The old man, who considered the zither as a part of his life, was no longer an object of leisure, but his spiritual support.

When I think of my sketching lessons, I never considered sketching an important thing, and I never quietly drew with my mind. It turns out that whether it is learning the piano or sketching, it is a rare and valuable state of mind to be able to meditate on one's art on the way to learning the art.

Quietness is the only way to show the fragrance of life.