During the 80's in the 20th Century, Ai set his artistic vision on the gaunt Tibetan Plateau. It's a snow white world; Tibetans are everywhere, so is the cold and solitude. Ices cracked under his feet, cold wind blowing withered weeds, as if the silence from afar is dominating how he feels at that moment. The sense of a hard-to-describe solitude covered all over the picture. This shows that he had found materials at the Tibetan Plateau to express his inner self during that time.

Surrounded by such a spiritual atmosphere, through his lively and delicate realistic language, Ai had recreated that mysterious and solitary image, which is what he's good at. During the process, he elevated his realism technique to a more mature and delicate level, he can freely use it or put it away, fuse it with void and reality, he is emphasizing the charms from the artistic language inside the paintings, and the compartment of the counter and lines. Ai's realistic languages inside his oil paintings were gradually accumulated to a valuable level, and thus formed his own special native soil.