括囊無咎 坤卦六四 六四:括囊;無咎，無 譽
Kun: The fourth SIX In a situation full of worries, as long as you are gentle and keep your duty, behave cautiously while keeping your mouth shut, you can stay away from disasters and avoid sin. But there also will be no reputation at all.


In Speak and Act Cautiously, Peng Kanglong paints flowers and landscapes not just in sequence—a flower scene, for example, followed by a landscape—but integrates both flowers and landscape into the same scene. These novel combinations create striking juxtapositions of space and scale never before seen in Chinese painting. In the opening passage of the handscroll, for example, he renders a king protea flowerhead towering impossibly over mountain foothills receding into the distance; or, in the ending passage, he paints vibrant cerulean blue peonies transforming into distant mountain clouds rising above a mist-filled river valley. In scene after scene, we are confronted with impossible juxtapositions of scale and distance made possible not by combining but by transcending historical categories, styles and methods.

If in the beginning third and ending third of Speak and Act Cautiously Peng Kanglong explores the juxtaposition of the near distance of flowers with the far distance of landscape, in the middle portion of his composition he introduces a third distance between flower and landscape—namely, that of the garden. Indeed, the center of the scroll is dominated by a massive garden rock rendered in pure ink engulfed in a sea of dazzling brushwork depicting foliage shimmering in the bright light of day. Whereas Peng Kanglong depicts his flowers in landscape wild and solitary, in the center, protected within the intimate space of the garden, his flowers mix and mingle, their colors pleasing and harmonious, his brushwork lively yet exquisite. Peng Kanglong’s exploration of the handscroll, therefore, is not just an intimate space for the monumental but a monumental space for the intimate.

The experience of intimacy is not just a question of subject matter, composition and space, but of painting process—specifically the use of brush and ink. To appreciate Peng's virtuosic brush-and-ink-work, one must get very close to his works and immerse oneself in the intensity, spontaneity, discipline and utter freedom of his color, ink and line. As the handscroll format requires close viewing, Speak and Act Cautiously thus serves as an ideal foil for Peng Kanglong’s brush and ink. In many passages, Peng Kanglong fills his composition to overflowing with his virtuosic double outline and texture stroke brushwork. Normally in flower painting, the space around a plant or flower is left "untouched" or "empty"—liubai and kongbai in classical parlance—but in many passages, Peng Kanglong fills this empty space with his dense, energetic brushwork. Here, he employs caoshu or "cursive" and specifically kuangcao or "wild cursive" strokes to fill his space. These wild cursive texture strokes are not employed in a daxieyi or "boldly calligraphic" expression but rather in a dense and refined, virtuosic performance—brimming with energy but at the most minute and intimate scale. Paradoxically, his paintings still breathe, not with the emptiness of untouched paper but rather with the translucent, luminescent light of his dilute color-and-ink tones. 

Indeed, in his use of brush and ink, Peng Kanglong doesn’t differentiate between landscape and flower or even form and space; landscape texture strokes can be used to render flowers, flower lines and dots can be used to render landscape forms, and brushwork of any kind can even be used to render both light and space. All painted forms and even empty space are simply opportunities to explore the possibilities of brush and ink.

在《括囊无咎》中，彭康隆并非按照顺序依次绘制花卉和山水，而是将花卉与山水融合在同一画面中。这种新颖的结合，带来了空间与比例之间极具冲击力的并置，而这种并置在中国绘画史上前所未见。例如，在手卷的开端，一朵硕大的帝王花立于山巅，看似不可思议，却又奇妙地过渡到以淡色渲染的群山延伸至远方。在手卷结尾，三朵明艳的蔚蓝色牡丹变幻成远处的山云，升腾在弥漫著雾气的河谷之间。如此奇幻的场景逐一展现，令观者体验到远近与大小之间的不断切换与碰撞，这不是通过对不同历史题材、风格与方法的简单结合而实现的，而是需要超越这些分类之间的界限，方能达到意料之外的视觉效果。