On Why Blue is Not Just Blue, and Why Black is Not Just Black

— On Wu Ya-lun's Symphonic Poem of Blue and Black (Diptych)

Written by WANG MUTI

Humanity's understanding of color mostly drifts on the surface. When seeing blue, they immediately speak of its coldness; seeing black, they speak of its heaviness; seeing white waves, they speak of their motion; seeing reefs, they speak of their stillness. Such categorization cannot be said to be entirely wrong, but it is too rapid—so fast that it feels like staying only on the name of the color, without having truly walked into the color itself. For truly powerful colors never exist in isolation; they always manifest their depth only within a relational matrix of mutual pressure, mutual support, and mutual summons.

In my eyes, Wu Ya-lun’s pair of paintings, Symphonic Poem of Blue and Black (Diptych), is precisely not a landscape work that simply depicts waves and rocks, but a creation that elevates color itself into an event of existence: blue is not merely the ocean’s blue, and black is not merely the rock’s black. Here, the two collide and endure each other, thereby making the entire world emit a low yet majestic sound between these two forces.

What this diptych first presents to people is not narrative, but rhythm. The vast expanse of blue above—deep blue, ocean blue, cyan-blue, green-tinted blue, and blue torn apart by froth—does not lie placidly on the canvas. Instead, it resembles a whole torrent of water surging downward from high altitudes, with white crests and foam exploding within it, creating a visual vibration akin to a sonic boom. Below are massive gravels, rock formations, or objects repeatedly scoured and ground by seawater, composed of black, grey, and white. They possess heavy forms, with surfaces wrinkled, fractured, and layered—resembling both stones and shells crumpled by time, or mineral conglomerates squeezed repeatedly by the ocean tides.

The whitish belt-like space in the middle of the composition acts like a breathing valve between wave and shore, or a brief moment to catch one's breath within the overall symphony. Placing the panels side by side causes the two works to both stand independently and answer one another: in one, the momentum of the wave cuts more diagonally; in the other, it presses down more frontally. In one, the black rocks seem to cluster toward the left; in the other, they pile up toward the center. Thus, viewing no longer stops at a single frame but is forced to journey back and forth between the two paintings, like listening to two musical movements handing over a relay baton.

If asked what this work first brings to my mind, I would say that the essence of the ocean being the ocean lies not in water, but in force. The ocean has never been merely a flat surface, a landscape, or a clear azure postcard in a travel brochure. The ocean is pressure, rolling, crashing, soaking, and repeatedly battering an object until it alters its form. Wu Ya-lun clearly understands this, so this pair of paintings does not render the sea as an approachable, lyrical subject, but portrays it as a structure of near-fatal force. You can see how the wave crests churn into white above, how the foam falls in dense spray like fine dots, and how within the depths of blue, a deeper green and black churn together. This is not the surface of the sea, but looks more like a layer of the ocean’s interior briefly laid bare.

Simultaneously, the black stones below are not a shore securely "set off by the sea"; they resemble pieces of evidence left behind after the sea has spent eons continuously debating, colliding with, and wearing them down. Consequently, what the work truly addresses is neither the sea nor the stone, but that ceaseless confrontation and symbiosis between the two.

Here, I cannot help but think of Heraclitus. Heraclitus is often simplified as the philosopher of "universal flux," but his true brilliance lies in never viewing the world as composed of stable entities, but understanding it through tension, opposition, exchange, and becoming. Viewed in this light, Symphonic Poem of Blue and Black can almost be seen as a Heraclitean ontology of the sea: the sea is not a single object, nor is the stone a single object; they both merely display their forms provisionally within their mutual operation. The blue achieves its intensity because the black is sufficiently heavy; the black bears its fortitude because the blue constantly attacks. Therefore, form ceases to be fixed, and color ceases to be ornamental; what the entire canvas truly makes one feel is the world forming itself amidst mutual tugging and tearing. Heraclitus stated that conflict is not the disorder of the world, but the very order of the world itself. Wu Ya-lun’s pair of paintings masterfully visualizes this proposition: without the collision between wave and reef, there would be no such blue, and no such black.

However, relying solely on "force" to explain this work remains insufficient. For it is not merely dynamic, nor merely majestic. An even deeper layer lies in how it allows the viewer to experience how weight is written out by color. Most of the time, we assume that black is merely the color most easily associated with weight, while blue is more readily linked to fluidity, transparency, or a sense of distance. But in this pair of paintings, blue possesses equal weight. That churning blue above is not a light, transparent watercolor, but an entire sheet of existence pressing down—thick, deep, and heavy, almost as if the entire sky were crashing down into the sea.

Meanwhile, although the black gravel blocks are composed, they are not dead weight; their surfaces still bear luster, cracks, white highlights, dampness, and folds. Therefore, they do not resemble inanimate objects, but rather a weight that still encapsulates history. This brings to mind Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the world's thickness. Merleau-Ponty argued that the world is not a flat optical phenomenon, but possesses a flesh-like thickness. Wu Ya-lun’s blue and black possess exactly this thickness: they are not pigments attached to a surface, but are as if the world itself has acquired a body, pressing its weight directly onto the viewer’s senses. Standing before this pair of paintings, one is not just looking at colors, but feels as though one is being struck head-on by them.

I also wish to discuss the title "Symphonic Poem." This title is excellent because it pulls us out of our habits of viewing landscape paintings. If titled "Waves and Reefs," the work would easily be read as a description of nature; if titled "Coastline," it would be too focused on scenery. However, once "Symphonic Poem" is introduced, the entire work is immediately elevated to a level concerning sound, rhythm, movements, and polyphonic structure. The splashing foam at the top of the canvas is like the treble section, dense and rapid; the churning blue in the middle is like the swelling of strings, advancing layer by layer; the black reefs below form the bass section—steady, echoing deeply, and massive.

The diptych format functions even more like the counterpoint of two movements: seemingly in agreement, yet harboring subtle differences; resembling variations on a theme, yet each retaining its independent rhythm. Borrowing from Arthur Schopenhauer, the reason music is elevated above other arts is precisely that it can directly touch the will and inner movement of the world without needing concrete concepts. If so, then Wu Ya-lun’s pair of paintings is not merely "resembling music," but is attempting to make color and matter directly become a musical existence—not an audible melody, but a visible rhythm, a visible intensity, a visible repetition and suppression. When looking at the painting, it is as if one is simultaneously listening: listening to the high frequencies of shattering spray, listening to the deep, rumbling resonance where the wave surface turns profound, and listening to the black stone silently enduring and responding.

Yet, I am reluctant to read this work solely as a magnificent theater of nature. For what truly makes it endure prolonged viewing is that it does not simply paint the sea and the stone as a simple dichotomy. Though those black stones appear battered by the waves, they also appear to have been nurtured by them. That they are so folded, so rounded, so stratified—does this not demonstrate that the sea is not merely a destroyer, but simultaneously a sculptor?

At this point, I think of Gaston Bachelard. When Bachelard discussed water, he never viewed it merely as a weak element; instead, he repeatedly pointed out its enduring, permeating, and profoundly world-altering capacity. The sea in Wu Ya-lun's painting exhibits a highly Bachelardian duality: it appears violent on the surface, but harbors an astonishing patience within. It is not the wave's first arrival, nor is it the reef's first time enduring it; their relationship is not an accidental collision, but a prolonged mutual shaping that can almost be termed destiny. This gives the work a depth beyond momentary drama. It does not just paint "the wave of this moment," but depicts the process by which wave and stone, after countless repetitions, have become what they are today.

From the perspective of modern Taiwanese aesthetics, a particularly intriguing aspect of this work is its handling of a subject with such modern intensity and texture using the medium of ink and color (caimo). Ink wash is traditionally suited for spirit resonance (qiyun), negative space (liubai), layering, and the interplay of the solid and the void. Yet Wu Ya-lun takes it toward a highly material coastal scene: the folds and three-dimensionality of the reefs, the flying spray and impact of the wave crests, the coexistence of transparency and turbidity deep within the blue—all demonstrate that the artist not only masters the blending of ink and color, but pushes the traditional medium toward a tactility akin to geology and the ocean.

This is by no means easy. For if one is not careful, ocean waves easily fall into realistic clichés, and reefs can become overly illustrative. The success of this work lies in its retention of the ink tradition's emphasis on "qi" (vital energy): you can recognize it as the sea, yet it goes beyond the mere physical object of the sea, allowing you to feel an overall climate synthesized from atmosphere, dampness, water-light, salinity, and momentum. Therefore, the "symphony" of this work lies not only in the counterpoint of imagery but also in the polyphony of the medium: the settling of the ink, the transparency of the color, the explosive scattering of the white, the deep swirling of the blue, and the heavy pressure of the black—each performs its own role while harmonizing with the others.

I am even willing to go a step further and say that what is truly depicted in this pair of paintings is not just a coastline, but how existence endures battering yet still retains its form. The reef is moving not because it has never been wounded, but precisely because its entire body is evidence of having been hurt. Those folds, fissures, cross-sections, and curled skins—are they not the history of every single impact? Yet they do not collapse; rather, precisely because they have been repeatedly tormented, they have acquired their current strange and majestic appearance.

This brings Friedrich Nietzsche to mind. Nietzsche always maintained that life grows strong not by avoiding conflict, but by acquiring its own shape through endurance, transformation, and transcendence. Read through Nietzsche, these black stones are not merely stones by the sea, but symbols of a life that, having experienced force, bruising, and repeated trials, still refuses to disintegrate. They have never escaped the waves, nor is it possible for them to do so; but precisely because they do not flee, they finally forge for themselves a shape that cannot be easily replaced. The black in the painting, then, is not the black of death, but the black of endurance; not the black of despair, but a black that has not dispersed even after approaching the brink countless times.

But if one were to emphasize only the steadfastness of the black stones, one would miss the strange mercy of that expanse of blue. For although the waves are fierce, they are also beautiful; although they batter, they also illuminate; although they press down, they still carry transparency, faint light, and the tremors of life all along the way. This inevitably leads me to Emmanuel Levinas’s reflections on the Other. The truly powerful things in the world are not always those that I conquer, understand, or use to prove myself; the truly powerful is often the Other that I cannot fully master, yet am compelled to face.

The sea is such to the reef, and the painting is such to the viewer. Standing before this pair of works, the viewer is actually encountering a form of alterity: the power of the sea is not designed for me, nor is the weight of the black stone born for me; in viewing, I can only slowly concede that I am not the center of this world, but merely a late-arriving bystander who happens to witness this dialogue between blue and black. This mode of viewing therefore carries a certain ethical implication: it forces one to restrain oneself, to withdraw slightly from the habit of explaining everything, and instead face a world that does not need to prove the rationality of its existence to me.

For I have never believed that we look at paintings merely for the sake of the painting; ultimately, it is to see how we coexist with the world. The reason Wu Ya-lun's Symphonic Poem of Blue and Black prevents me from departing for a long time is perhaps that it articulates a certain metaphor for being human: life is sometimes inevitably like the black stone—enduring repeated impacts, covered in wrinkles, its shape far from smooth; sometimes it is like the blue wave—closing in, surging, too strong, too deep, entirely beyond even one's own control.

Yet, what truly matters is perhaps not whether I am the stone or the wave, but whether I understand that the world never operates on a single note, but always forms its own rhythm within the mutual endurance of different forces. If everything seeks only to be flat, there is no depth; if everything seeks only to be still, there is no form. It is precisely between blue and black, motion and weight, light and pressure, fragmentation and endurance, that a symphony truly worthy of being called life slowly takes shape.

Therefore, when I look at this pair of works, what I ultimately read is not merely the sea, nor the stone, but a deeper proposition:

Blue is not the opposite of black, and black is not the endpoint of blue; they mutually press in, mutually torment, and mutually complete each other. And the world, amidst these forces that have never reconciled yet remain forever interdependent, emits its sound.

Summary Analysis: Wu Ya-lun’s Symphonic Poem of Blue and Black (Diptych) utilizes ink and color to construct a force field where blue ocean waves and black reefs act in counterpoint and collide with one another. The blue in the work is not a lyrical sea color, but a surging, oppressive, and permeating existential force; the black is not merely a simple, heavy reef, but a wrinkled, stratified, and diachronic form acquired through the repeated battering of the tides. The diptych format allows the two paintings to echo each other like musical movements: the white waves above scatter like a treble section, while the black stones below resonate steadily like a bass section, forming a truly visible "symphonic poem." Viewed through Heraclitus's philosophy of universal flux and Bachelard's material imagination of water, the work depicts not the coastal landscape itself, but how the sea and stone, in their continuous confrontation and mutual shaping, generate the rhythm and weight of the world. Overall, this is a mature masterpiece that elevates color into an existential order and transforms landscape into a philosophical arena.