The Works of Yang Gang
The most distinctive features of Yang Gang, no matter if his works are in free or meticulous style, lay in the essence of simplicity, purity, sincerity and passion. He excels in depicting subjects with a mastery of brush strokes, which are free but forceful, archaic but charming, and dynamic but delicate. The brush work and ink tones of his free style painting are imposing and heroic, which enhance the vigorousness and forcefulness of the painting, resembling the resonance of the calligraphic style on the bamboo and wooden slips of the Qin and Han dynasties. Yang Gang said that the literati paintings since the Song dynasty lack a kind of archaic and naturalistic rhythm. As a result, he maintains the idea of ' archaic but new' in order to assimilate the spiritual essence of the painting in the pre-Qin ancient times with modern realism, and thus to create a new path in the art of Chinese painting.