——An Investigation of Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting                                            

There are very few examples of contemporary important artists in the world who do not rely on the modernity of Western art for their livelihoods, defy its sweeping currents, and stubbornly seek their current path.

The artistic perspectives and requirements of ink painting are vastly different from the positions we are familiar with from Western art history. This can partly explain why ink painting is not as beautiful as contemporary avant-garde art in China, and there are not many people paying attention to it outside of the East Asian cultural circle.

Chinese ink painting is rooted in an ancient tradition of over two thousand years. "Literati painting" originated in the 11th century and was deeply influenced by Zen meditation. Its fundamental shaping power on ink painting continues to this day. The characteristic of literati painting is to reject realistic imitation of nature and highlight inner experiences; Freehand brushwork based on education, artistic training, and intuitive experience; Limited to pen, ink, and paper as tools; Combining books and paintings; A schema specification with stable classification (flower and bird painting, landscape painting, figure painting, etc.). There are still many branches and schools of thought within literati painting, and the influence of Zen and Taoism on its spirit is comparable to that of orthodox Confucianism.

Literati painting cannot represent the entirety of Chinese classical art. Other forms and schools of painting that have influenced the development of modern ink painting, such as the realistic tradition of Song Dynasty court style, religious murals, and folk art, are also influential. Given the main aspects of influence, this article only deals with the spiritual and artistic heritage of literati painting.

Returning to the core, the form of "literati painting" in ink painting can be described as follows: it is an artistic process of directly expressing a strong inner understanding with a pen on rice paper. Artists usually need years of training to become familiar with this understanding and expression method, so that when painting, they can swing the brush and look improvised and effortless. Unlike Western painting techniques, ink wash has its own transitional nature and cannot be modified after the brush is drawn.

The contact between pen and paper is not only a sensory action, but also a spiritual behavior, a process of materialization that conceals material things. Therefore, stroke is not just about outlining, but about giving form by defining the edges. It is not about "drawing", but about "writing". This can explain the strong and close relationship between painting and calligraphy in Chinese art. The numerous brush techniques that have developed over hundreds of years will inevitably lead to the full development of diverse artistic temperament and experience. When evaluating a work, knowledgeable and knowledgeable individuals tend to rely more on the effort and grace of their brushstrokes rather than the content and originality of the artwork.

Contemporary ink painting, like classical ink painting, requires not only skilled craftsmanship and profound cultural cultivation, but also a high degree of focus, self-discipline, and penetration into objects and oneself. Personality and life experience are equally indispensable as talent. The masterpieces of ink painting often appear in their later years,

The difference between contemporary ink painting and classical ink painting is that regardless of personal preferences, literati in the past shared common educational norms and values; Regardless of personal achievement, there is a sense of belonging to the elite class. These provided a stable space for self-identity for the literati painters of the past, as well as a prerequisite for understanding between artists and connoisseurs. The inherited schema reserves provide a widely accepted visual language for the self exploration and self-expression of art. This space has now been irreversibly lost.

Like all contemporary art forms, ink wash painting must face the realities of life in the 21st century and the social, material, and spiritual changes in modern China. Unlike Chinese avant-garde art, ink painting cannot recklessly appeal to the resources of Western modernity. Artists are thrown back into a self experience without traditional protection or ideological protection, and can only recreate their own themes and image language.

It is obvious that the situation of contemporary ink painting is difficult. Some official and academic ink painters have been hyped up to astronomical numbers in the current domestic art market in China. This is not just a counterexample, but it precisely shows that contemporary Chinese culture is in a crisis situation. Looking back at the cultural history of China over the past 150 years can help us understand the sources of crises.

Since the mid-19th century, China has undergone dramatic social and cultural changes, and the response of Chinese ink painting has been to seek refuge in fragmented reality and outdated traditions. During this period, almost all paintings were powerless, hollow, and imitative. The innovative attempts of a few artistic masters, such as Qi Baishi (1864-1957), did not have a profound impact.

Tragically, like the entire Chinese art, the path that ink painting was forced to take in the first half of the 20th century proved to be misguided. The politically dominant realism buried the source of China's own tradition and also hindered fruitful dialogue in the process of discovering Western modernity. For decades, China has not made much contribution to world art.

When the Chinese art community attempted to point out a path to modernity for China in the early 20th century, they discovered realism, which later became the norm in politics. At this time, realism was already a thing of the past in its homeland of Europe. Realism was only established as a creed under the totalitarian rule of Nazis and Stalin.

Chinese art had long recognized its powerlessness before Europe and denounced realism as an undesirable artistic method. As early as the 11th century, one of the founders of "literati painting" (literati painting), Su Shi (1037-1101), had already described the pursuit of realistic art as "discussing painting and form similarity, seen in children's neighborhoods".

The disaster caused by the forced marriage between ink painting and realism is both political and artistic. It was not Qi Baishi, but Xu Beihong (1895-1953), a painter trained in traditional French salon painting techniques and lacking in artistic excellence, who became the "father" of modern Chinese ink painting. The expression of modern Chinese ink painting still poses a persistent problem to this day: the rampant official realism and its ideology have destroyed the spiritual and artistic foundation of ink painting, making it a complete technical means. As a "cultural heritage", it is still being taught in colleges and maintained by numerous national art institutions. What can be guaranteed is nothing more than the walking dead of modern ink painting.

When Chinese art was brewing to abandon the creed of realism in the early 1980s, the entire equipment of Western art in the 20th century was at its disposal. Young artists, with the joy of discovery and mischief, use various modern Western techniques and styles, despite arousing the vigilance of national cultural bureaucrats, but they have opened up a path for them in Western galleries and international art markets. The satirical and playful portrayal of the "revolutionary romantic realism" of the Mao era, which had just passed, was interpreted as a "systemic critique" and gained the favor of Western media and curators. The unrestrained postmodernism, which plunders the formal language and visual world of all eras and cultures, gives avant-garde artists the freedom to utilize the ubiquitous media and consumer world of the surrounding visual torrent. They also utilize their cultural heritage to provide the necessary regional color to the global art world.

In contrast, contemporary ink painting is in a predicament: isolated from its traditional source, unable to truly intervene in the global artistic forces shaped by the West. Contemporary ink painting either adheres to a state supported and conventional academic style, or attempts to draw on 20th century Western art in form, such as expressionism, abstractionism, or other Western art schools, in order to find a path in modernity. Both approaches have little artistic value.

In 1985, critic Li Xiaoshan's article "My Views on Contemporary Chinese Painting" caused a huge uproar, claiming that Chinese painting fundamentally lacks the ability to respond to modern spiritual and aesthetic realities. It is simply an outdated art form left over from history. This statement is not unfounded.

In order to resist this verdict and provide a convincing answer, a new generation of artists is needed, who are the so-called "New Literary Painting School" that originated in the late 1980s. This name can easily lead to misleading information. In fact, these artists have vastly different styles, but there are certain commonalities in certain directions, that is, they respond to the traditional ink painting in a way that does not carry any ideology. They are distinct from the Chinese avant-garde and self understand themselves as innovators of their own cultural traditions. They uphold tradition in principle and do not deny the social reality of modern China.

Most of the "new literati paintings" tend to be formal, escape from the idealized past, and emphasize decoration. However, some of their works have successfully combined the spirit of ink painting with the experience of China's rapidly changing world of life, developing a new path.

The avant-garde movement in China in the 1980s mainly responded to the political and social experiences of China's current history. However, unlike this, the reflection of the new ink painting is primarily on private and individual experiences that are in line with the essence of ink painting. The self portrait, which rarely appears in classical painting, has become an internal experiential image that contemporary ink painters often directly reflect. It is no coincidence that the body, desire, and sex occupy an important place in contemporary ink painting. Despite their intricate familiarity with tradition, these works still demonstrate a disconnect from classical literati painting in terms of aesthetic and moral standards. Classical literati painting praises and idealizes the sense of loneliness that emerged from the world, expressing the fundamental experience of almost all important contemporary ink paintings. However, contemporary ink paintings lack the heroic and pastoral connotations of classical models.

Abstraction provides another path for contemporary ink painting, developing a contemporary self image language. We can also see its closeness and isolation from tradition. Since ancient times, the operation of literati painting has always been at the critical point of abstraction, but it has never surpassed this boundary. Through the use of brushes and ink color changes, classical masters have expressed complex spiritual and emotional experiences, and concrete content gradually dissolves into almost pure "theatrical brushstrokes", only one step away from abstraction. But crossing a boundary carries its own risk, which is that abstraction can easily become superficial, purely formal games.

Obviously, ink painting is difficult to integrate into the world dominated by consumer stimulation and media presentation at the beginning of the 21st century, just as it is difficult to accept the aesthetic dogma of the authoritarian mass ideology of the 20th century. The power of ink painting lies in a fully realized and fully developed self-expression, which requires more than just inventing a recognizable way or a brand that is needed in today's art market.

In the Chinese art world, contemporary ink painting has always been marginalized and completely blocked by the success of Chinese avant-garde art. It wasn't until a few years ago that the situation improved. In recent years, ink painting has once again gained increasing attention, allowing for exhibition and collection, as well as receiving attention and discussion from critics and artists who have created entirely through other paths and techniques.

Many artists who used to use media different from their own culture and artistic traditions centered around Western models in the past have now begun to emphasize their own cultural identity, and "Chinese characteristics" have become a keyword for the younger generation of artists. Outside of fashion trends, among the most accomplished artists in contemporary China, there are several who have almost simultaneously started exploring the artistic heritage of ink painting in their own way, alongside new ink painters.

The updating and development of modern ink painting requires not only a high concentration of spiritual and technical absorption of one's own cultural heritage, but also the exploration of parting ways with it. It has to respond to the aesthetic standards of today's global art and declare its own personality. Unlike contemporary avant-garde art in China, ink painting does not satirically, playfully, or pessimistically portray the post socialist consumer society in China, but instead takes an opposing stance.

For Western audiences who are not familiar with this art, this exhibition should help arouse curiosity and understanding, to understand a "another modernity" that has yet to be paid attention to.

Nanjing, May 2012

Translation: Wang Ge