In the sphere of Chinese painting, the history of the flowers and birds painting can be traced back to ancient times. And this art has given rise to famous school of Qingteng, Baiyang, Bada, Laolian, Xugu, Eight Strange Masters of Yangzhou, and individual masters like Zhao Zhiqian and Wu Changshuo in recent time, as well as modern masters including Qi Baishi, Pan Tianshou, Li Kuchan, Tang Yun, and Guo Weiqu, who carry forward the old tradition while developing new approaches. Their heritage is so richly developed that it has become the yardstick and norm for measuring the artistic level of flowers and birds paintings. They serve as models for today's fledging painters, giving them the example to follow; and in the meantime, they are challenging the existing boundary with innovation. Therefore, carrying forward the tradition, while making innovations, has become the topic of times for today's painters. Against this backdrop, Yao Shunxi has found his own style with persistent research and exploration. His works reflect the true essence of the traditional legacy, if measured by traditional norm; and exude a touch of innovation and uniqueness by modern aesthetic standards. He has become a rising star and a top-notch player in the arena of modern flowers and birds painting, attracting people's attention with fresh introduction of works.

　　As far as I’m concerned, Yao Shunxi has demonstrated his own creativity in three aspects while producing the flowers and birds paintings. For a start, he has achieved a fine combination of artistic shaping and ease of brushstroke techniques. Thanks to his years of intensive training in the painting academy on the shaping of flowers and birds painting from different historical development stages, he is not only attentive to the characters of flowers and birds, but also to the general layout of a painting as well as the overall magnificence. In addition, his images of flowers and birds are based on skillful brushstroke techniques. With extensive learning from different schools of masters in the history and the modern times, together with a practice experience, of “consuming 3,000 piece of painting paper”, as has been described, he has developed a solid grounding for confident manipulation of his brushstroke with ease. That is why his works seem to be outliving his age with a sophisticated and soft connotation and extraordinary charm.

　　Secondly, he has achieved the combination of ink-wash painting and Chinese Gongbi style, a kind of painting with meticulous detail. Many modern painters either specialize in Gongbi, or impressionistic ink-wash painting; while in contrast, he focused on both in styles in creating flowers and birds paintings. He starts with the impressionistic ink-wash painting for flowers and birds, on the basis of which he explores the difference between paintings created with the two styles, making it possible to render paintings with a combination of both styles. Admiring his works, we can feel the delicate touch and bright colors, and an impressionistically magnificent charm and relaxed feelings, which is rarely found in modern young painters’ works.

　　And thirdly, he can properly combine sketch and creation. In his works, we can see vivid images of flowers, most notably those rarely seen in the works of ancient and modern painters, and birds. In my dealing with him, I clearly know that he takes time off every year to leave the city for the countryside in quest of materials for creation, or he leads students for the remote areas in the south, in order to sketch from nature with students in the practice lessons. Yao Shunxi has been consistently following the principle of “integrating tradition, sketch, and creation”, the teaching principle for the Chinese painting department of the Central Academy of Art. Over the years, he has developed the ability of observing the features of birds and flowers in the nature with fine details, and of improvising a painting. His abundant works of creation feature non-conformity to the conventional pattern, a unique breakthrough of predecessors in quality and glaring creativity.

　　Flowers and birds paintings by Yao Shunxi struck me as being the “Great level of flowers and birds painting” of modern art many years ago. This core of this state is “being great”---they boost the quality of being grand, bright, and vivid in terms of artistic level. In his works, the images of flowers and birds fill the whole painting, and sometimes give the feeling that they actually enlarge the painting, thus indefinitely expanding the boundary of vision. Flowers, grass, and trees are turgid, and perfect in color and vibrant. His expertise lies in fitting the images of flowers and birds into the background of mountains, land, sky and air, making them integral parts of the nature. Therefore, it is safe to say that Yao Shunxi injects his care and love to creatures of the nature in creating images of flowers and birds. What he paints is not only the bearings of flowers or birds, but the essence of life, as his paintings always depicts the richness of life and give a sense of eternity.

　　Fan Dian, vice president of the Central Academy of Art, professor, research supervisor, vice director of the Theory Committee of the Chinese Artist’s Association, and a famous art reviewer.

　　(Note: from Heritage and Integration, published in December 2003)