“85运动”兴起之前，在中国画界最引起注意的一位具有现代风格的画家是湖北美术学院的尚扬，有一位评论家这样评价尚扬的艺术：“虽然尚扬的作品还没有达到毕加索的生命张力、马格利特式的绝顶机智和塔匹埃斯式的自由贵族气质，但他身上同时拥有三者的细胞却是毋庸置疑的，只不过顺理成章地转换为中国文人的表达方式罢了。”尚扬当时已不年轻，作为一个中年画家，他既有对现代艺术的敏感，又有着深厚的中国文化修养，它的画几乎不能用任何一种风格来概括，但能明显感到一种现代艺术精神的存在。也可以说，他用一种现代艺术的语言重新阐释了中国的民族精神。尚扬油画的成名之作主要以黄土高原为题材，但他沿袭的不是陈丹青的《西藏组画》和罗中立的《父亲》的思路，不是对现实的再现。他的作品也不同于袁运生和田世信的原始主义风格，画中看不到任何对民间艺术样式或形象的搬用。他以黄土和黄河为意象提炼出极为概括的形式，通过形式本身的张力高扬了一种本土文化的精神。尚扬能够从众多表现黄土和黄河的画家中脱颖而出，恰恰在于他不是再现题材，而是表现形式。但形式又不单纯是抽象的视觉关系，而是在半抽象的形象上凝聚了一种精神的力量。因为在那些形象中，黄土高原的人物形象特征和地貌生态特征都转换为形式的张力，直接通过视觉的感受唤起那种凝重而久远的文明意识。尚扬20世纪80年代中期的作品呈现出统一的风格，在抽象化程度上主要分为两类。稍早一些的作品较为写实，如《拉话儿》（1982）、《峪里》（1982）和《爷爷的河》等。这些作品都以黄褐色为基调，场景与情节都极为简略，从生活化的场景中又显然能够感受到形式的潜在话语。如果与几乎同时的罗中立的《故乡组画》做比较的话就可以看到，虽然两者都是变形，但罗中立的变形集中表现了农民的憨拙和淳朴，尚扬的变形则是强化地域形象中的文化特征与视觉特征。粗犷的笔触象征了地貌与形象的沉重，黝黑的色块则是沧桑岁月在肤色上的反映，非三度空间的场景构成强化出坚忍的生存条件。另一类作品是在这个基础上的进一步抽象，如《黄土高原母亲》和《老辈》（1984），人物形象经过变形处理，几乎与背景融为一体。这种融合不是形象的重叠，而是形式的类同和匹配，既使人感受到抽象的形式张力，又领悟到黄土文化的雄浑与粗犷。显然，尚扬不是情绪化地表现自我，而是在研究了抽象艺术语言的基础上，对于抽象化的表现形式的一种自觉选择。在尚扬看来，人的问题是艺术表现的主体。他的黄土系列之所以具有强烈的艺术感染力，就在于他不是简单地复制和修正视觉形象，而是突出了人在这种生存环境下的生命力，在抽象化的形式中凝聚了人的生命力，形式也就人格化了。以后十多年的艺术发展中，尚扬始终站在中国现代艺术的前沿，这与他将现代造型语言与对民族文化的深厚情感的深刻的人道主义情怀是分不开的。
　　（摘录自易英著《从英雄颂歌到平凡世界 ——中国现代美术思潮》）

　　Form and Life Tension
　　Yi Ying
　　Long before “85 Movement”, the most attractive modern style drawer in Chinese drawing extent was Shang Yang who came from Hubei beaux-art college. A critic appraised Sang Yang’s art as that: “Although Shang Yang’s works didn’t reach the level of Picasso’s life tension、Magreit’s top wittiness and Tarpisy’s free noble strain temperament, it can not be denied that he had the cells of the three. He followed a rational line to changed them into the express fashion of Chinese literators well.” Shang Yang was not young at that time, as a middle aged drawer, he had both the sensitivity of modern arts and the profound culture of Chinese civilization. It is hardly to sum his paintings up with any style. We can feel the subsistence of modern art spirit obviously. It is to say, he used a modern art language to explain Chinese ethos newly. Shang Yang’s famous canvases mostly based on the subject of Huangtu altiplano, but he didn’t follow the thought of Cheng Danqing’s Tibet group drawers and Luo Zhongli’s Father. They were not repeat of reality. His works were not the same with the original ism style of Yuan Yunsheng and Tian Shixin. There were not any remove of folk art mode or image. He abstracted very general form from loess and Yellow River, and he uplifted a sort of mainland cultural spirit through the strain of form itself. Shang Yang can talent showing himself from many drawers expressing loess and Yellow River, just because he didn’t repeat subject but to express form. But form was not just abstract visual relationship, It agglomerated spirit force on the semi-abstract. Because in these images character visualize and physiognomy zoology characters all turned into formal strain, awaking the dignified and faraway civilized consciousness through visual recept. Shang Yang’s works of  middle 1980’s turned on the same style which sorted into two kinds based on abstract style. The earlier works were almost created concretely, such as Chatting (1982), Yu Li (1982)  and River of Grandfather . These works, whose scene and scenario were significantly curt, were based on snuff color. From the living scene of these works, the modal and potential language was exhibited apparently. If they were compared with Luo Zhongli’s a set of drawing of country, which was created almost at the same time, the followings were obvious: although they were both transmogrification, Luo Zhongli’s transmogrification mainly exhibited the simple and honest of farmers and Shang Yang’s transmogrification intensified the culture characteristic and vision characteristic of regional image. Straightforward brushwork symbolized the heaviness of physiognomy and image, swarthy color was the reflection of Years of Great Changes on complexion, and the non-tridimensionality’s composing of scene strengthened the persevering conditions of survival. The other sort of works were further abstracted on this basis, such as Huangtu Gaoyuan's Mother and Elders (1984) . The character images were almost incorporated with backgrounds after dealt with by transmogrification. This incorporation, which made ones feel the abstract strain of format and realize the majesty and straightforwardness of loess culture, was not the superposition of images, but the sameness and matching of format. Obviously, Shang Yang did not exhibited himself emotionally, but self-consciously chose the exhibition form of abstract on the base of having studied the abstract art language. In Shang Yang’s opinion, people are the main body of the art exhibition. His series of works about loess were provided with strong power of art. That’s because he did not simply copy and correct the vision image, but gave prominence to people’s life force on this survival environment and agglomerated people’s life force on the abstract form. The form was impersonated because of that. Shang Yang all along Standed on the front of Chinese modern art in the art development for later more than ten years due to his modern shape language and the deep humanitarianism state of mind of the deep emotion of race culture.
　　(Excerpt from Yi Ying: From Hero Song of Praise to Ordinary World---China Contemporary Ideological Trends of Art)