Between Ink and Illumination: Lixiang Zhang’s Chengxiang in a Global Horizon

This essay examines Lixiang Zhang’s (張立翔) Chengxiang (澄象, Purified Image) series as a pivotal case for understanding how contemporary Chinese ink painting redefines abstraction within global modernism. Through comparative dialogue with Mark Rothko and Isamu Noguchi, it argues that Zhang’s art transcends binary distinctions between East and West, tradition and modernity, materiality and transcendence. Drawing on Zong Bing’s (宗炳) theory of chenghuai weixiang (“purify the mind and savor images”), the study situates Zhang’s practice within a continuum that unites Daoist-Buddhist meditation and modern abstraction. While Rothko’s color fields express the existential sublime and Noguchi’s sculptures transform landscape into spiritual space, Zhang’s ink paintings internalize both impulses—transforming the dialectic of void and form into a contemplative field of illumination. His work demonstrates that abstraction is not the monopoly of Western modernism but a shared visual language through which diverse traditions seek spiritual clarity and inward stillness.