Painting Genius
- The Academic and The Un-Academic

Text by Li Xianting

The moment I went through the name list of the artists whose works were to be included into the “ Gallery of the Artistic and the Polymathic ” exhibition. I knew immediately that it was going to be an exhibition of the masters of fine arts. In the list were not only prominent artist from various art academies but also the leading ones of the freelancers. Though here I am dividing the enlisted painters into two types – the academic and the non-academic, the distinction between the two lies only in the different identities of these artists as men in life. For instance, while Lou Zhongli, Wei Ershen and Xu Jiang are presidents of Sichuan Art Institute, Lu Xun Art Institute, and the Art Institute of China respectively; Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun and Zeng Fanzhi are all free artists. Zhou Chunya is president of Sichuan Painting School, and Zhang Xiaogang is professor of Sichuan Art Institute, but both if them are also quite active in various areas on the contemporary art stage. As a matter of fact, the co-existence of and distinction between artists of the academic and the non-academic in China could be a very interesting topic. On the one hand, most if the non-academic painters are graduates from various art school; rebels against the Chinese USSR-style academic education and apprenticeship. They share a common point which is in connection with the opening-up process of China in the past years; all of them are branded with the influence if the contemporary art trends, more or less.
　　
China recognized two prominent themes in its artistic products in late 70s and early 80s: one was the rebellion against realism; the other was the rectification of realism. Both emerged on the background of the rebellion established during the period from the Movement of May 4 th to the Cultural Revolution. The earliest trend of thought to appear as part of this tradition was the rebellion against revolutionary realism, which was represented by art exhibitions such as the “Shanghai Exhibition of Painting by Twelve Artists”, the “Early Spring painting of Beijing”, “The Exhititon of Paintings Unsigned” in Beijing, the “Painting Exhibitions of the Contemporaries”, and the “Painting Exhibition of Yunnan Shen-shool”. All of them were given in February of 1979. Traces of influence from western artistic schools of the early modernism such as the impressionistic, the fauvist, the cubic, and the expressionistic could be easily detected in these exhibitions. All of them followed the pattern of rebellion against revolutionary realism. On the other hand, these exhititions also reflected the fact that the trend of the modernistic art thought that was suppressed in the 40s and had to maintain its meager existence under the ground was emerging to the surface. Right away the contemporary painting circle felt the strong influence brought by the “Exhibition of Paintings by Twelve Artists”. After being cut away from any external connections for more than fifty years, the Chinese visitors to the exhibition received a brand-new visual impact. As editor of the Fine Arts magazine, I had the opportunity of visiting and reporting the exhibition. Chen Junde, whose paintings will be displayed in the coming exhibition, was one of the leading members of the “twelve artists”. I saw his painting “Where Stood the Bronze Statue of Pushkin” in the exhibition. It was of the expressionistic style and impressed me deeply. Since then I have had the opportunities of examining some of his other works from now. With mastery use of transparent hues and  tranquilly lyric scenes, Chen Junde’s oil paintings have a touch of Lin Fengmian’s style in his wash paintings of his late years.

The rectification of realism fell into two trends at that time. One represented by the school of the “painting of scars” of Sichuan Art Institute. Opposed to the realistic style of the Cultural Revolution period that aimed to over-beautify the social reality and establish “lofty, great and omnipotent” heroes, the school put the emphasis of its works on humanity and truthfulness. As we all know, truthful reality is never possible in art. The truthfulness that those artists pursued was actually a mere psychological truthfulness. As a whole generation, they went through the Cultural Revolution and the movement of going to the countryside to be reformed. The later opening-up of China made them feel a pain from an inner scar. Consequently it was only natural Revolution period in a louder voice through their paintings. They turned to the insignificant (the unimportant characters and subject matters), the painful (the expression of their psychological pains), and the backward (the reality of poverty and backwardness) both as channels to express the psychological truth of their hunger for truthfulness and humanity and as weapons to drive out the conception of the Cultural Revolution realism cultivated into their heads during that great social havoc. Both Luo Zhongli and Zhou Chunya were representatives of the school of “painting of scars”. In early 80s I went to Sichuan several times to interview such painters as Luo Zhongli, Chen Conglin and Zhou Chunya. To report my interviews with them was the main idea for the January issue of the Fine Arts magazine in 1981. I used Luo Zhongli’s “Father” as cover of that issue and Zhou Chunya’s “Half of Life” as inside front cover. Then the social back fround for their “scars” faded out gradually. Lou Zhongli has painted in his local color style till today. Since the mid-80s, he has enriched his style with a local fairy tale touch or local ballad sense. Into the rustic simplicity and plainness of his paintings was added the taste of fairy tales. At the same time, Zhou Chunya tried expressionism when he was in Germany. The green dog truthfully reflects the emotions of his inner life, while the Taihu stones are not without a touch of sensuality.

The second trend of the rectification of realism is mostly reflected in the paintings by Chen Danqing and He Duoling. The attempt to go beyond the Soviet Union pattern of realism back to the European realism and to seek for nutrition widely in the contemporary realism is obvious in their efforts. Then the transition from the trend of “scars” to real life and local colors. Conveying a strong sense of sentimental nostalgia, “The Spring Breeze Is Awake” by He Duoling had its influence on a large group of artists when it came out. Axtually he is a person of subtle feelings and you can always find a touch of melancholy in him. In some of his paintings of 1983, he resorted to western surrealism for the first time and thereby created a style of fine imagery that could only be found in traditional Chinese poetry. His paintings female bodies in this exhibition are expressions of his sentiments and melancholy. Viewing his works, you have the sensation that can be experienced only when you read poems composed in Song Dynasty which are of a graceful and restrained style.

While I was paying close attention to the above trends in the early 80s, I was not so careless as to ignore those Chinese artists who were vigorously experimenting on modernism. When doing the report on the school of the “scars” in Sichuan, I happened to see several of Zhang Xiaogang’s paintings. Immediately I was impressed by the passions expressed in them. They almost gave me the same sensation as I had when viewing Van Gogh’s paintings. Believing that there was great promise in this artist, I always introduced him, his styles and his works on the most prominent pages of the magazine I edited. Though Zhang Xiaogang has had several changes in his styles since the 80s, he has always been a pioneering figure in the field of Chinese modern art. He adopted the traditional Chinese folk portraying style in painting “A Picture of the Whole Family” and based his work on the traditional group photo pattern when a picture of the whole family was taken. The painting would make the viewer associate the kinship connection in Chairman Mao’s time with the Confucian clan tradition. The numb yet calm expressions on the faces of the characters in the picture was in perfect accordance with the smoothness and coolness of the brushwork and the neutral gray color of the whole picture. The images in “The Picture of the Whole Family” would give you the feeling that they were the miniatures of the Chinese people. The painting seemed to convey the message that the Chinese society was organized in the same pattern as a patriarchal family was. Thus it gave the viewer a sensation of sophistication peculiar to the Chinese people: though fate kept playing practical jokes on them ( they were even subject to the swings of unpredictable political movements),they were always calm to take these jokes without laughing or crying, because they were self-sufficient and they were quite satisfied with their self-sufficiency. It would remind you of a philosophical Chinese saying that teaches you how to live your life: to be contented is to be blessed.

Though “Softly I Knock at the Door” by Yu Xiaofu was not accepted by the 6th national exhibition of works of fine arts in the mid-80s, nonetheless it was regarded as one of the most outstanding paintings in the eyes of most artists. With a unique way of shaping, Yu Xiaofu endowed his works with vitality and a certain sense of animation. He has stuck to this way of shaping till now and has made it one of the markers of his style.

The flooding of the surrealistic style was one of the features of the 1985 fashion. Viewed from the aspect of the language employed in this fashion, it was a transition from the narration of local realism to subjective imagism. The forming of this language pattern could be traced in Ding Fang’s works and He Duoling’s works painted in 1982 and 1983. However, it also means that the intensive training of the use of basic realistic skills received by a large number of students of art schools and institutes as a result of the 1985 fashion enabled them to readily accept surrealistic, symbolic and imagery language patterns without abandoning those realistic skills. It provides a shortcut for the transition from the academic to the non-academic. Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang were both representative of this trend. At the same time, artists in art academies were also under the influence of this style. Wei Ershen and Wang Yan were examples. The influence can be easily found in “Good Morning, Mongolia” and “A Boy Seeking for Balance in the Dusk” which won them awards in the 1989 national exhibition of works of fine arts. (The philosophical sense in the title of the latter work indicates the dominating style of the 1985 fashion). Only they put a stronger emphasis on the delicacy of the form and the mastery of skills. At the same time they took in and made use of the style of religious paintings of medieval Europe and the early Renaissance period. Thus their works are endowed with a classical taste. The style of Wei Ershen’s recent works goes even nearer to that of the European religious paintings of the medieval period and the early Renaissance period. The portrait of the male photographer can be easily confused with portraits of the early Renaissance period. Maybe the artist intended to show through his paintings that all the contemporaries would become classical in the eyes of the future generations. Classicality sis a taste and has in itself a certain eternity. The shapes in Wei Ershen’s painting that look like stone carvings would indeed touch the heart of the viewer with a sense of eternity. The paintings he brings to this exhibition are all works of his old style. However, they are closer to everyday life, or they would give you the impression that the painter is trying to grasp certain images of everyday life these paintings. People in his paintings are all in a leaning posture. This is a peculiar label of the painter. It reflects people’s psychological feelings in the modern society.

Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun and Liu Xiaoding were important representatives of the post-1989 cynical realism and political bop. After the 80s, the quick process of commercialization in China has shattered the socialist ideology into pieces. In his “ The Great Criticism” Wang Guangyi points the lance of cultural criticism widely practiced during the Cultural Revolution directly at the commercializing signs of the west. The juxtaposition of the two creates a sense of humor, absurdity and irony. In fact the influence of Wang Guangyi’s painting is felt not only by artists but also by the common people. As a form of discourse that is of a Chinese character and is capable of breaking an ideology, it has been widely adopted by many TV series and movies such as I Love My Family and Living and other literary and art works. It has been become a popular catchword. It proves that Chinese people have found a special way of escaping from the everyday life infiltrated by ideologies. The significance of Fang Lijun’s paintings lies in the image of a “bald cynic” created by him. This image has become a classical language sign. It reflects people’s common existential sensation of idleness and cynical humor in China in the late 80s and the early 90s. It is quite possible that the intellectuals both of the east and of the west have all become somewhat cynical, for in face of the world today we feel more and more helpless. So we laugh at this world, but maybe we are just laughing at ourselves by laughing at this world. We have to be cynical. Since the late 90s, Fang Lijun has worked on many large prints. He began his career as a student of the print art. He always hoped that he could achieve certain break though in print. Print, especial woodcut is traditionally regarded as only suitable for small art works such as illustrations for books. However, Fang Lijun did not believe in this tradition. He was determined to create whole independent works of this art. And there must be scale and style in these works. In the terms of techniques, it is quite difficult to maintain the scale and the smoothness of cuts at the same time in the creation of woodcut prints. He overcame this difficult by using tools such as the electric saw. Thereby neither strength nor style was in lack in his prints. He made a great contribution to the development of the making of prints. Liu Xiaodong is also one of those painters who betrayed the general trend of the 80s and adopted a different attitude in his artistic creation. He directed his attention to people’s feelings towards their daily existence and always focused his paintings on scenes of idleness and commonness from people’s everyday life. Liu Xiaodong was influenced by the English painter Freud, but due to the different attitude he had taken, he was able to enjoy freedom and liberty when he worked. At the same time, he successfully combined the rigidity of the academic and the flexibility and liberty of the non-academic very well. The paintings by Liu Renjie have a common point with those by Liu Xiaodong: they are all inclined to focus the artists’ attention on the state of people’s daily existence. They are also different in certain way: Liu Renjie pays more attention to the strangeness between people in public places while Liu Xiaodong does not. Strong and beautiful sunlight in paintings always reminds me of paintings about the Soviet Union in the 40s and 50s or the vast wilderness of the American West. However, Liu Renjie handles the sunlight in a different way. He uses it as a contrasting element. The brighter the sun shines in his paintings, the stronger the sense of people’s shiftlessness and their indifferent to each other.

Zeng Fanzhi is also one of the leading figures of the 1989 art trend. In his early years he was under the influence of the German expressionists, especially Beckman. After painting the “Harmony” series, he established his own style. Through synthesis he secured for himself a language feature of the symbolic expressionism. Masks are the symbolic signs most frequently found in Zen Fanzhi’s works. With all those expressive brushwork after being processed with a drawknife, his painting would always guide you to a sense of calmness. The whole work, including the fray color and the sea background, would male you feel that the artist is trying to hide a certain kind of emotion of his. However, the effect is that all the viewer’s attention is led to the spastic hands of the character who apparently has trouble trying to decide what to do with his own hands. Thus into the calmness is woven a touch of unease.

Xu Jiang and Wang Yigang both experimented on the language system of the abstract art for years in the 80s. Then Xu Jiang turned his attention to art notions in his painting. He also paid attention to cultural dialogues. For example, he stuck ready-made leather shoes and cloth shoes onto the canvas to symbolize the interlacing and colliding relationship between different cultures through the arrangement of the shoes on the canvas. Xu Jiang brings his political series to this exhibition. The subject matters of the series are the cold war, the end of the cold war, the Brandenburg Gate of Berlin-the most representative building of the cold war and the end of the cold war-and related incidents. One of the paintings describes the barriers built by East Germany along the border between East and West Berlin around the Brandenburg Gate during the cold war. Another shows the scene when the German people rushed through the Gate to hug each other the moment the cold war was over. The most interesting one and also the last one of the series is the one in which the Imperial Tower was being rebuilt. The messages are obvious: the cruelty of the cold war, the hope for peace after the cold war was over, and the worry the rebuilding of the Imperial Tower aroused in the hearts of the people of the world. Random lines and the flaming color give the paintings a sense of fierce fighting in a battlefield. Wang Yigang takes a different route. He turned from the abstract art to bop art. In his works he pieces together gaudy colorful cloths of the countryside style, fashions, revolutions and other cultural images into a painting to express the confusion and boisterous taste of today’s commercial culture.

The modernization of art has stimulated the Oil Painting Department of the Art Institutes to establish the 4th Studio to explore the expressionistic style in oil painting. Wang Yuping is one of the most outstanding students of the Studio. He is now professor of the Central Art Institute. His early works were mostly about every life. He successfully integrated the expressionistic skills into his own paintings and filled them with the taste of the daily life easiness and randomness. A fish-shaped human being and a shape seemingly to be a toy creates an atmosphere of childish innocence for the works he brings to this exhibition. Mao Yan is a very talented young artist. His works of the late 90s have a unique trait: usually portraits of nervous people with rough and irregular lines that belong only to him. Presumably they are portraits of Chinese people at the end of the century. Those people have experienced numerous political movements and confusions about the value of their own existence. In Mao Yan’s eyes these people are overburdened with the hardships of life and therefore have grown skinny and nervous. Though we are already in a new century, the strangely uncommon angle of view of these portraits and the perplexed and numb expressions on their faces are only more striking image of the grayness in their hearts and signs of their emotions and psychological complexes. As visual signs of the inner feelings, their facial expressions seem to be fading, evaporating, decaying. It is a portrait of an era the expression of which is disappearing.