Written by Yu Yuani
Translated by Lin Bao Jia
Edited by Ralph Hammann
Every city has a landscape, and every life has a type of custom. Lin Bao Ling, who lives in the busy city with beautiful scenery and experienced the indifference of human nature, is depicting the cityscapes which he has experienced through his paintings. In his slightly weary eyes, the beauty of the scenery is a little unrealistic. The whole city and the lights and shadows move constantly. This instant beauty which makes us dizzy is consistent with French poet Charles Baudelaire's(1821-1867) view of the transience of Modernism -- a type of transitory, temporary, coincidental means of expression. His artistic goal is to grasp the light that cannot be grasped. He uses the cityscape, the image of the crowd and light and shadow, as platforms for expression and then he uses the artistic approach and method of expressing images step-by-step to suggest undertones of his feelings and thoughts. In a concrete way, he uses blurring and flowing techniques to express the sense of alienation beneath the brightly-lit city, and then continues to highlight his inner spiritual world in the paintings.2
