In March and July-August, two abstract art exhibitions, "Chinese Maximalism" and "Rosary Beads and Brushstrokes," were held in Beijing. These two exhibitions are still discussed in circles today. The two exhibition curators, Gao Minglu and Li Xianting, are both “leaders” of Chinese avant-garde art. They are also my old friends and colleagues from Art Magazine. Judging from the exhibition scale, participating artists and exhibition title, both curators tried to pay attention to the neglected abstract art creations from various places, and summarized and summarized the overall characteristics of Chinese abstract art.
The two heavyweights are paying attention to Chinese abstract art at the same time. Even a considerable number of participating artists are "resource sharing", which naturally aroused widespread attention and discussion. Although in general there are many negative opinions, some of which are even quite sharp, and I also made some carefree remarks when chatting with my friends, the exhibition after all provides an opportunity to discuss abstract art issues in a broad and in-depth manner, and due to the two The exhibition highlights "Chineseness", so the question must also cover the understanding of "Westernness".
I have also seen the differences between Chinese and Western abstract art, and I think this difference is worthy of in-depth discussion. However, I do not want to continue the cultural line of the two old friends. I just want to talk about it from the perspective of art and art history. own opinion.
2. Is it "abstract" or "non-concrete"
When discussing academic issues today, we almost have to start with an examination of words. The original meaning of the word abstract is "pull out of". Ab (s) means "from", tract means "pull" or "pull", and tractor (tractor) comes from tract. In actual use, abstract is usually an opposite concept to concrete, referring to the rational understanding extracted from the perceptual world. Since abstract concepts and abstract thinking are relatively profound, obscure, and difficult to understand in expression, abstract is also extended to esoteric. , obscure and difficult to understand.
It should be said that naming an avant-garde art after abstract painting is a cunning strategy. It quietly pushes the obscure painting that has no specific image to the height of philosophy. When someone discovers that this is not When a shape or concept is "extracted" from specific things, but is the disintegration and pure formal composition of the shape, and therefore should be called non-fugurative, the naming relationship between the naming and the named thing has been Solidified into an unchangeable public agreement. However, the academic value of an accurate concept certainly outweighs a cunning nomenclature.
There is no negativity in the word "abstract", so we can only say that abstraction is a generalization of specific things, but cannot negate or destroy specific things. Therefore, it is more suitable to refer to the conduct of This is a highly summarized freehand Chinese painting, which indeed extracts the shape of brush and ink from the natural shape. This is not the case with the word "non-figurative". Its meaning is obviously the negation and reaction of figuration, and Western abstract painting is indeed the negation and reaction of traditional figurative painting. Judging from the clues of Western art history, the "three steps" of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity do correspond to figurative, non-figurative, and re-figurative (figurative, non-figurative, and re-figurative).
3. The transformation of Western art from concrete to abstract
The concrete stage pursues “imitation as it should be.” I only need to mention one thing here: "Imitation" is not imitation in English, but mimesis in Latin. This word first refers to the babbling of young children. Probably the learning language of Westerners is not "baiya" but "mim". , so it’s called mime-sis. "According to how it should be" means according to what the ideal or concept should be. In the Marxist theory of literature and art originated from the former Soviet Union, "imitation" is called "from life", "as it should be" is called "higher than life", and another expression of imitation, the "mirror theory", is It became "reflection theory". To put it bluntly, "imitate as it should be" means to be both like and perfect.
For hand-made art, perfection first requires a good-looking image, and secondly requires fine workmanship (marble and white marble have become the materials for Chinese and Western stone carvings respectively because they better meet the requirements for fine workmanship. Ceramics It was replaced by porcelain because the latter was more refined). The French word Beaux-Arts, which originated in the seventeenth century, emphasizes good looks. The French word beau (x) is beautiful in English. But English did not use the term beautiful-arts, but chose Fine-Arts. The word Fine does not mean "beautiful" in English, but "fine", and it also means "fine" in French. The Chinese word "art" comes from French Beaux-Arts rather than English Fine-Arts. If it comes from English, then all the art academies in China have not even taught "art" for a day, only rough-art. , that is, rough art. The painting method taught by Chinese art majors is the painting method after Delacroix, the standard of fine-arts. This painting method is definitely not fine but rough, so much so that it was called massacre de peinture at the time ( French for "massacre of painting").
Before Delacroix, Western paintings pursued resemblance (imitation), precision and beauty, which was consistent with the pursuit of Chinese gongbi painting. Delacroix first abandoned fineness and precision guaranteed by fineness from theory to practice. He said: "Many painters, in their works, do everything possible not to express brushstrokes, but blindly pursue outlines. The reason is that they believe There are no brushstrokes in nature; but how can outlines exist?” At the same time, he also emphasized the “musicality” of the formal elements of painting: “This effect consists of a certain color arrangement, the conversion of light and dark, that is, it is caused by It can be called the music created by the painting." In order to support this "music theory", he called music "the greatest of art" and questioned the "imitation theory" based on the non-imitation of music.
Getting rid of the constraints of form and giving up the pursuit of precision is undoubtedly a manifestation of the subjectification of visual art. It is also the beginning of the end of craftsman art + didactic art history for illiterate audiences (pictographs are words for illiterate people, and hieroglyphics are is the best evidence). This period of art history lasted much longer in the West than in China. The reason is that the West did not have convenient materials such as silk and paper and literati as the subjects of creation and appreciation. Today, it is impossible for Chinese people living in backward China to discover that "dancing with writing and ink" was once a Chinese cultural privilege, because China has silk and paper and a large number of "literate and hyphenated" groups created by these two materials (parchment) This kind of expensive material can only be used to copy the most important reading material (the Bible) and create a few literate clergy); it is also impossible to imagine that the Renaissance master (master, great master) respected by the advanced West is "plugged in" The top masters and craftsmen of the medieval handicraft workshop "The Wings of Science", the so-called master piece is not a "masterpiece", but the "master's work", and the painter is not a "painter" but a "painter", even the tools It is not a paintbrush but a painter's brush, and the paint knife is a painter's scraper to scrape the mud (woodblock Tanpaila first requires scraping the mud with a cloth, and later evolved into oil painting with a base on linen), the so-called "studio" Just a medieval handicraft workshop.
I don’t know whether painter Delacroix used a “trowel knife” in “The Massacre of Painting”, but Courbet definitely turned the “trowel knife” into a “painting knife” It was Delacroix who inherited and carried forward Delacroix's "massacre of painting".
If the history of modern Western art can be divided into modernity and postmodernity, then the entire modern era is a continuous de-figuration through the continuous "massacre of painting". The importance of Cézanne and Picasso lies precisely in the fact that they respectively established Non-representational theory and practice are diametrically opposed to representation. The significance of Van Gogh lies in the fact that he actually evolved Delacroix's "Music Theory" into expressive color composition, and its expressiveness was thoroughly influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Pollock. Advancing, its color composition, together with the geometric composition of Cézanne and Picasso, leads to the so-called "hot abstraction" and "cold abstraction". Therefore, whether it is "hot abstraction" or "cold abstraction", both can be found in the work. We can see the shadow of Delacroix's "Music Theory" in the title: both abstract works like to be titled with composition number. This word means "composition" in Spanish, and it translates to "composition x number". Maybe It's because the translator didn't know or didn't pay attention to the huge influence of "music theory" on the non-reflection of modern art.
4. The road of abstract art in China
The "depicting the spirit with form" proposed by Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty of China is actually very close to the ancient Greek "imitation as it should be". That is to say, it solves similar problems without copying nature. The difference is that the former emphasizes the activity of God as an object, while the latter emphasizes the physical perfection of the object. However, Gu Kaizhi's "Theory of Form and Spirit" uses the word "write" (to describe spirit with form), which represents the rapid expansion of the literate class after the invention of papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and began to end the early art history of illiterate painters + illiterate audiences. Illiterate painters or craftsmen can only draw (paint) but not "write" (word). Only the literate class can "write". This word "writing" has been continuously used and consolidated by Gu's later painting theories, such as "writing form with form" (Zong Bing), "writing with transfer and imitation" (Xie He), "writing the vertical and horizontal aspects of landscape" (Emperor Yuan), "writing with form" (Zong Bing), "writing with form" (Xie He) "Writing scenery hundreds of thousands of miles away" (Wang Wei), and terms such as "writing bamboo", "freehand brushwork" and "sketching from life" appeared, and even the imported Western painting methods were also labeled as "sketch", "realism", etc. .
The "writing" of the literate and hyphenated people will certainly not be like the illiterate painters and Western illiterate "painters" who pursue resemblance, good-looking and exquisiteness on ready-made themes, because these are not "written" Purpose. The purpose of "writing" is to express the thoughts, concepts, feelings, etc. of the writing subject, and to express the writing subject's "magnificent thoughts" and "spiritual spirit" (Wang Wei), which is to "free the mind" rather than "write the form with form" . Therefore, when craftsman-style concrete realism developed to the level of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" in the Song Dynasty, the criticism of "discussing paintings based on shape, seeing and seeing children" (Su Shi) came, and the "artistic conception of "poetry in the painting" came "Shuo" emerged. At the same time, the exploration of artistic conception in Tang poetry and Song lyrics also provided necessary conditions and aesthetic values. The "artistic conception theory" obviously puts more emphasis on the subjectivity of painting. "Ide" itself represents the subject of creation, but this kind of subject is the same as the object "context" and is restricted by it, not a subject who can do whatever he wants.
The artistic proposition and pursuit of following one's heart is fully reflected in what Ni Zan of the Yuan Dynasty said: "The servant is called a painter, but he writes carelessly, does not seek resemblance, and just chats to entertain himself" and " The remaining bamboos are used to express the joy in the chest." What he said, "painting is the next best thing to writing," clearly illustrates that "painting" means "writing" and "writing" means expressing oneself. However, due to the recognizability of "writing" itself, "Xi Xin" cannot completely exclude "shape resemblance" and become completely non-image. Chinese cursive script is also restricted by the recognizability of "writing" and cannot become the so-called "resemblance". Abstract calligraphy”. Therefore, "between likeness and dissimilarity" has become the unbreakable bottom line of Chinese painting. If it is too similar, it is not "writing" but "painting". That is the matter of illiterate painters; dissimilarity violates the identifiable principle of "writing" , then it’s not “writing” but “painting”.
In fact, the "writing" quality of Chinese painting has been fully reflected and fully discussed in the "Six Methods" proposed by Xie He. Among the "six methods", there are "four methods" that are suitable for both calligraphy and painting. The only ones that are suitable for painting are "response to the image of objects" and "according to the category". The most important first method of "vivid charm" and "ancient brush use" are definitely the same rules as calligraphy. In addition, there is the word "write" in the "transfer and transfer model writing" mentioned earlier. As for Chinese calligraphy and painting, they all start from copying. They all write by remembering the form (having a confident mind) rather than observing and recording (sketching). They all leave ink on the blank instead of modeling on the background color.
It is precisely because of this "writing" quality that the value of Chinese stone tablets is higher than that of stone statues (whether they are Chinese stone statues or Western paintings and stone statues, they are basically visual codes provided by craftsmen or masters for illiterate audiences).
The long-term tradition of "writing", the strong values ??of "writing" and the prescriptive nature of "writing" have enabled Chinese artists to watch Castiglione and Pollock break through the "too similar" and "not the same" "Like" these two boundaries, but I only choose Western varieties that suit the taste of Chinese pen and ink. The ones before Delacroix were "too similar" and were "foreign gongbi" with craftsmanship, which is not necessary; the ones after Picasso were "not similar" and were "foreign deceptions" that did not have the recognizability of "writing", also No; between the two is the "foreign freehand brushwork" between "similarity and dissimilarity". Therefore, the Xu Beihong-Su style system is actually the Western painting version of this "Qi Baishi compromise", which together can be called "Qi Baishi-Xu Beihong compromise", or "Qi Xu compromise" for short.
This "Qi-Xu compromise" system has been convincingly embodied in the exclusive absorption of Western paintings by Qing Dynasty painter Zou Yigui and contemporary painter Wu Guanzhong. Zou Yigui advocated "similarity in form" and "intelligence through subtleties", and criticized Su Shi by name and name for "taking similarity in form as wrong", "just saying that it is acceptable to outsiders". The Western oil paintings he saw at that time were in line with his idea of ??"paying attention to detail" and could play a role in "waking up" and preventing beginners from going astray by "discriminating similarity in appearance". However, because it does not meet the rules of "writing" ("but there is no writing skills"), although it has the advantage of meticulous workmanship, it is also infected with the problem of craftsmanship, so it cannot be regarded as a good work ("Although the craftsman is also a craftsman, Therefore, it is not included in paintings"). Here, Zou Yigui obviously regarded the Western paintings at that time as "foreign fine brushwork" with craftsmanship. If the work he saw was the "foreign freehand brushwork" of Delacroix's painting method, he could not say that "the brushwork was completely lost". At most I just want to say that Western painting techniques are different from my Chinese ones. Later practice proved that Chinese artists did appreciate and even worship the foreign brushwork pioneered by Delacroix. Wu Guanzhong is a famous "formalist" in Chinese contemporary art. He opposes "contentism" in which content determines form and form serves content. Therefore, he fully affirmed the artistic value of Pollock's pure form and incorporated it into his own artistic practice. Forming a Pollock style "between similarity and dissimilarity".
It is young artists who have taken the step towards complete non-representation, breaking the recognizability of "writing" regulations. This late breakthrough was both difficult and easy. The difficult thing is that the Qi-Xu compromise system supported by the old and new traditions is strong and solid, and breakthrough is not easy; the easy thing is that the thousand-year experience of "brush and ink" in Chinese calligraphy and painting and the "brushstroke" experience of oil painting introduced, digested, and absorbed on this basis have enabled Chinese artists to Have good artistic sense and ability to grasp the sense of proportion in the creation of "Abstract Ink Painting" and "Abstract Oil Painting". But as the resistance of old habits gradually weakened, the familiarity of brushstrokes made Chinese artists relatively slow in the non-figurative aspects of smooth materials and non-figurative geometric compositions, making the sense of handiwork always outweigh the sense of industry in their works. Of course, the theoretical and practical strength of global figurative symbolic works including ready-mades, performances, etc. has also largely weakened the exploration of non-figurative fields by Chinese and even global artists: the combination of purely formal elements seems to It has become a designer’s patent.
5. Visual value: the value of non-representational art works
I do not deny the disadvantage of non-representational art in terms of theoretical and critical support. This is because it actually creates It is just a "visual value" that serves the eyeballs. It is difficult for ordinary viewers to see the reason, and it is difficult for critics to make sociological connections and explanations (this is consistent with music that purely serves the auditory). This is probably abstract art. The main reason why he also lost momentum for development after completing a fatal blow to the Renaissance realism tradition.
In English, "value" and "value" are both the word value. In fact, visual art first provides us with a comprehensive visual value with distinctive characteristics. This visual value determines the visual difference between a work and other works, telling us that this work is not other works. The so-called representational works mean that their visual value constitutes the things in our visual experience, while the visual value of non-representational works only constitutes the work itself and does not constitute anything in our visual experience.
When visual value constitutes the things in our experience, we become able to use our views on things to interpret, appreciate or criticize the work, including its ideological and technical aspects; when visual value is only a purely visual component, we become The experience of things will lose the ability to interpret the work, and at the same time, the level of production technology will not be felt, but different visual values ??will definitely provide different visual feelings and visual psychological effects.
Visual values ??are "bound" to the things they express in concrete works, and to specific practical functional forms in design. Only in non-representational works, visual values ??are antagonistic. meaning, if there is any "binding" component or "added value", it can only be a vague visual psychological factor, commonly known as visual experience. In daily life, this kind of visual experience is with us almost all the time. The most common one is our choice of clothing. The same style of clothes has different color values ??for us to choose from. Each color has a visual that is irreplaceable by other colors. Value, at this time, the color value is converted into visual value. In the same way, visual values ??such as composition and mechanism can also be directly converted into visual value. This value in a purely visual sense is difficult to state in words. Our confirmation of this value is usually expressed by "I like it" or "I am amazed".
In fact, there are a lot of indirect confirmations and affirmations of visual value in ancient Chinese painting theory and painting criticism. For example, the use of "sparse can make a horse race, airtight" is used to confirm the visual value of the layout, and the use of "power can penetrate the back of the paper" is used to affirm the visual value of the layout. ", "A dry pen thirsts for ink", etc. are used to affirm the visual value of ink marks, and "Desolate, cold and distant" is used to affirm the visual value of artistic conception, etc. However, when entering the non-representational field, traditional descriptions and evaluation terms are almost all invalid, and this indirect method of value affirmation also becomes invalid, thus creating a huge critical dilemma. As for contemporary art, once it loses powerful criticism, the artwork is reduced to an ordinary commodity, thus being in an irreversibly weak position in the competition with figurative works.
In fact, the visual value of an abstract work of art is its visual value, just like the visual value of clothing is the visual value of clothing. The unique value of a specific work lies in its visual difference from other works. The artist's creativity only lies in the fact that he provides an unprecedented visual value, and the greater the visual difference from the works that have appeared in the past, the better.
6. The significance of formal change from the paradox in "Homage to Cézanne"
In 1900, French artist Maurice Denis (1870-1943) Creating a work titled "Homage to Cézanne" expresses the artist's admiration for Cézanne in the Nabi style's figurative symbolic way. However, this way is exactly contrary to Cézanne's artistic ideas and artistic practice. Because Cézanne’s path is a path that denies the theory of imitation and leads to non-representation. Therefore, the real homage to Cézanne was Picasso, even though he did not paint a painting specifically in homage to Cézanne. I believe that if one person uses classical Chinese to write an article "paying homage to vernacular Chinese", and another person uses vernacular Chinese to write an article "paying tribute to classical Chinese", or uses vernacular Chinese to write an article opposing the use of vernacular Chinese, we would rather believe that Writing in vernacular Chinese has a greater significance of negating classical Chinese writing, and the article that uses classical Chinese to support vernacular Chinese negates the content of writing in which it advocates vernacular Chinese. In other words, Denis expressed his admiration for Cézanne by denying his art.
The above analysis shows that the way of expression is more revolutionary than the content of expression. Ready-made products, surrealism, photorealism, conceptual photography, video art, performance art, etc. are all changes in the way of expression. And bring out the new. This is true for the production of artworks, and it is also true for the production of non-arts. The so-called industrial revolution is first of all a revolution in the mode of production, not a revolution in the "content" of production. Social revolution is also a revolution in the way society is organized and operated, rather than destroying some social "content". The reason why China's peasant uprisings have no revolutionary significance is precisely because they do not change the way society is organized and operated. The result can only be a so-called "change of dynasty" that changes the "content" of rule. The next question is whether the avant-garde significance of non-figurative art in China has ended and should be replaced by concrete works such as ready-mades, performance, conceptual photography, video art, and figurative oil paintings.
The noisy "abstract ink painting" and the non-figurative urban sculptures or landscapes that can be seen everywhere show that non-figurative art is still in the developmental or avant-garde stage in China. However, except for these two special fields, Chinese contemporary art is almost It is the unification of concrete methods such as ready-made products, performance, conceptual photography, video art, and concrete oil paintings. As for the geometric abstract works that are in opposition to the spirit of scientific rationality, they are even rarer. It is unconvincing to use "postmodernity", "the age of picture reading", "humanistic care", "the tradition of Chinese intellectuals to pay attention to society", etc. to explain the overwhelming advantage of concrete works in China from the 1990s to the present. If cloning the so-called Western "postmodern" can bring Chinese contemporary art into postmodernity, then the result of cloning Chinese bronzes will inevitably bring Chinese contemporary art back to the Bronze Age. If works are meant to be read rather than viewed, then there must be a lot of reading of images, that is, precise semantic analysis, instead of the current practice of attaching the same linguistic labels to different images. "Humanistic care" is an empty signifier that is "one size fits all", an advertising slogan that shines wherever it is posted.
In fact, Chinese contemporary art has not experienced a profound visual revolution, but has only changed from a concrete form of praise to a concrete form of satire and criticism. There is no difference between promoting classical Chinese (soup) in (medicine), and now using classical Chinese (without changing medicine) to promote vernacular (changing soup). The sign at the end of the visual revolution is to establish the new visual method’s solid position in the minds of the people (just like the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou changed from “weird” to not weird), and then turn it into new visual standards and habits, so as to set the stage for the next generation. Field change provides premises and meaning.
7. Conclusion
I have long wanted to write an article supporting Chinese abstract art, but I have not finished it until now. The motivation for this idea was that after returning to China, I saw Pan Dehai transforming his "old corn beans" from the 1985 period into the "skin" of the red big head series. He was obviously threatened by the concrete political pop at that time, and then completely gave up on "old corn beans". Draw a big picture of dementia. A similar situation also occurred in Chongqing: one is Zhu Xiaohe weaving his abstract brush marks on a big head, and the other is Jiang Jianjun, who has just made his debut, pasting his cotton thread on a big head. Another student painted red and green dots on the big head. Maybe one day I will write an article about the big-headed phenomenon in Chinese contemporary art, sorting out Luo Zhongli’s “Father”, Geng Jianyi’s “Second State”, Wang Guangyi’s “Mao Zedong”, all the way to Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun’s big-headed series. But now it is better to "praise" the weak abstract art. Of course, works that are just a few smudges and a few ink dots are not supported, unless they are the first of its kind in art history. In fact, it is the "deceiving" effect of these works that makes "dissimilar" art lose its value.