Zhu Qingsheng

　　An Analysis of Wu Zuoren's Concept of Chinese Painting

Due to the special ideological and cultural stage in 20th century China, the dominant direction was to seek truth from the West, manifested politically as absorbing Marxist, pragmatic, and modern scientific ideas, and artistically as learning realistic and Renaissance style realistic methods (the ability to create illusions and accurately imitate forms). The two radical forces of revolution and reform have already occupied a clear and definite position in China. In this situation, Wu Zuoren has become very firm and persistent in his belief that realistic methods should be the fundamental approach in art.

On the one hand, Wu Zuoren's painting concept is related to the above painting concepts (the three arguments of painting [1]), and on the other hand, it is also a continuation of the realistic painting tradition that also exists in Chinese art. Due to his adherence to and support for Xu Beihong's negative evaluation of traditional Chinese painting, he also regarded the task of transforming Chinese painting as his responsibility in artistic practice and the principle of teaching, emphasizing that art is life and art is close to reality in his concept; Technically, emphasis is placed on accurate modeling, with a visual sense of perspective, anatomy, texture, and color. If we view, evaluate, and "improve" Chinese painting with this artistic concept and creative method, even without conflicts in personnel and political ideology, it will inevitably conflict with the inheritors of Chinese painting who hold different artistic concepts and creative methods (such as the elderly in Beijing).

After 1957, with the entanglement of many historical and cultural issues, Wu Zuoren began the second stage of his development in Chinese painting art. Through the study of seal script ("learning seal script after fifty"), he fully entered the core aesthetic values of Chinese traditional art and evaluation standards different from Western art concepts (based on calligraphy as the basis of freehand brushwork tradition). However, Wu Zuoren, who had received complete Western training and profound education, could not retreat to the complete and pure Chinese art tradition. Afterwards, his idea of "New Chinese Painting" gradually matured and continued to be realized through his own works. The idea of "New Chinese Painting" is actually to use the summarizing ability in Chinese calligraphy and freehand ink painting to strengthen and develop the technique of reproducing objects. He even believes that such summarizing ability is not only necessary (he required all students studying oil painting to learn calligraphy during his teaching at the First Studio of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1959), but also believes that Chinese painting can surpass the highest level of artistic expression skills that can be achieved in sketching and oil painting. "Taking advantage of one to sum up ten thousand, and using examples to govern complexity" is his highest ideal state of understanding painting. As for the issue of expressive power in Chinese painting (i.e. the process of expression can place the artist's personal cultivation and emotions in the brushwork and ink color), due to his special cultural upbringing and uninterrupted creative practice in poetry and calligraphy from a young age, he has achieved certain degrees of results. Although he hardly emphasized the word "brush and ink", he had already approached the realm of traditional Chinese painting through another path, thus forming his unique and creative style of Chinese painting in the 1970s and 1980s. This realm is the opposite of his "New Chinese Painting" and the realm emphasized by artists who uphold traditional Chinese painting: "The ultimate point of similarity in form is nothing more than photography. After the invention of photography, how can traditional Chinese painting still exist? This proves that there is a spirit beyond" similarity in form ", and the beauty of Chinese painting lies in the spirit of surreal spirit." This is the realm that traditional Chinese painting art concepts, which use calligraphy as the aesthetic core value, can achieve.

However, Wu Zuoren has always been different from traditional Chinese painters. There is a turning point between the path of Chinese painting he has chosen and the basic traditional trajectory of Chinese painting. This turning point is: is it to express a fixed symbol with the brushwork of calligraphy, or to express an object with the brushwork of calligraphy? Due to Wu Zuoren's path as a painter (in the Western sense), he ultimately attributed calligraphy to the improvement of painting, and regarded painting's ability to summarize and express reality as the highest achievement of art. The term "painting" referred to here refers to an image that is not detached from reality, that is, illustration [5]. The image must be related to the perspective, anatomy, texture, and color of a certain object and object. Therefore, Wu Zuoren's Chinese painting creation is fundamentally different from the traditional Chinese painting method of turning painting into "book" and painting into "writing".

Wu Zuoren's Contribution to Chinese Painting

1.Wu Zuoren's research on Chinese painting, in turn, played an important role in his personal oil painting creation, as well as the "Chinese style" oil painting advocated by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the China Artists Association, which deviated from European oil painting traditions. Due to the incorporation of poetic charm and calligraphy techniques in oil painting, it creates a generalized and meaningful effect, allowing the principles and aesthetic ideals of Chinese painting to transcend regional boundaries and become a universal value of art. This project actually has a broader impact on the world than simply promoting the characteristics of Chinese culture, which is completely consistent with Mr. Wu Zuoren's lifelong advocacy of translating art theory works such as "Wen Xin Diao Long" into Western languages, so that people around the world can share the universal achievements and contributions of Chinese art theory. The reason why Wu Zuoren can integrate the essence of Chinese painting in the oil painting field is that his experience of learning in Europe and entering the core circle of art has enabled him to fully master the basic skills and creative ability of European classical oil painting, which is still the unique example among Chinese artists so far. Therefore, what he calls "Chinese style" is not to copy and copy the color, composition and shape of Chinese ancient art and folk art (for example, Dong Xiwen combines oil painting with New Year pictures and Dunhuang art), but to make fundamental breakthroughs and challenges in painting techniques, which is also when he has reached a considerable degree in oil painting skills (even influence The Soviet expert Maksimov, a later generation of Chinese masters, admired it very much [6], Instead of continuing to paint using the authentic European techniques learned in Europe, the profound meaning lies in the need to take a different path.

2. The direct contribution of Wu Zuoren in Chinese painting is to maintain absolute accuracy in describing the proportion of objects, and to pay attention to the description of the structure and anatomy of objects when using the brush. It is possible to make full use of the dry and wet color of ink, as well as the infiltration effect of flow and chance, while fully mastering the structure of the object, leaving a connection with the form of the object. By utilizing the seamless and rhythmic connection between strokes and ink in traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, a controlled and unexpected connection between subjectivity and objectivity is created.

Why is Wu Zuoren's Chinese painting mainly about animals?

Wu Zuoren particularly chose animals as the subject matter in his practice of Chinese painting, with yaks, camels, pandas, and other iconic image memories in art history.

As mentioned above, Wu Zuoren's concept of Chinese painting did not aim to return to the realm of traditional Chinese painting's program description and calligraphy freehand brushwork, but rather to transform Chinese painting into a development of realistic painting through a revolution and transformation, thus becoming a more generalized and charming painting method, and seeing it as a direction for promoting human painting, including oil painting. His contributions in oil painting have gradually been recognized by people, but his pursuit in Chinese painting is not easily recognized today. The main reason is that he has never chosen the realistic art concept of character painting, nor the landscape painting and flower and bird painting that traditional freehand art emphasizes, but has chosen animal painting.

Wu Zuoren's Chinese painting mainly did not choose landscapes and flowers and birds in terms of themes, but because he never wanted to return to the state of traditional Chinese painting. This is the lifelong career aspiration of his teacher Xu Beihong and himself, as mentioned above. Even though he had intended to paint some landscapes, his landscapes were actually a concept of "scenery", a concept of "sketching", and a representation of natural reality. This issue is another topic to discuss. The reason why he chose not to paint characters is often difficult to explain, as he excels in both character modeling and brushstrokes (see "Lenin's Statue" and "Minority Women's Statue"). He did not primarily use the techniques of Chinese painting to depict characters, nor did he adopt the path of traditional Chinese painters such as Jiang Zhaohe and Ye Qianyu. However, he focused such an important revolution in "New Chinese Painting" on animals. The reason for this is that the painting of characters must be extremely precise in details in order to be "like" and become a good painting. This "like" will focus the painter's attention on careful analysis and description of the form, and hinder the free expression of brushwork and poetic meaning, which greatly limits the brushwork and cannot solve his fundamental understanding of art, that is, the highest ideal of "using one to sum up ten thousand and using examples to govern complexity". To solve this contradiction, it is necessary to rely on other objects to achieve it. Perhaps to distance himself from the traditional Chinese painting themes of landscape and flowers and birds, as well as to showcase his artistic ideas and superb realism, putting effort into animals became his top priority.

When asked by Zhou Enlai whether learning Chinese painting also requires sketching, Wu Zuoren replied, "My understanding is that learning any art must have a strict foundation." For more details, please refer to my article "Comparative Study of Chinese Painting and Sketching - Two Manuscripts by Qi Baishi and Wu Zuoren."

[1] In art, the space for painting is a two-dimensional flat space. In the early 20th century, an important direction for the development of Western art was to seek a return to "flat" and make painting itself. In fact, there are three ways to create space for a picture, which can be defined as 1. Picture, 2. Chart, and 3. Calligraphy and painting. Only chart based painting can fully make the picture a flat surface. Picture, which is a realistic (reproduction) painting formed by imitating objects in the real world, is using various visual illusion effects to create a three-dimensional virtual space. Calligraphy and painting, which are freehand brushwork (expression) paintings formed by expressing human inner emotional intentions, are the use of symbols and forms to build one-dimensional spiritual freedom beyond their carrying and symbolic meanings.

[2] Xu Beihong served as the dean of the School of Art at National Beiping University, the predecessor of the National Beiping Art College, from November 1928 to January 1929. Due to his artistic views being incompatible with the traditional Chinese painting forces in Beiping and other reasons, he resigned only three months after taking office and returned to Nanjing Central University to continue teaching. In 1946, Xu Beihong returned to Beiping again. This time, he made full preparations and brought a team composed of teaching backbone. However, at the beginning of the takeover, it still faced a very challenging situation. His academic differences were the same problem that Xu Beihong faced during his first visit to Beiping. Xu Beihong emphasized realism, and his teaching methods were based on "sketching is the foundation of all plastic arts" and "directly learning from nature", opposing the traditional Chinese painting method of mainly copying; The old Chinese painters in Beiping, on the other hand, adhered to the tradition of literati painting since the "Four Kings", emphasizing copying and using landscape, flowers, and birds as the main themes of expression. This academic disagreement directly triggered the Chinese Painting Group of the National Beiping Art College in October 1947, where three part-time professors, Qin Zhongwen, Li Zhichao, and Chen Yuandu, went on strike due to Xu Beihong's requirement for all Chinese Painting students to study sketching for two years after enrollment, and the subsequent months of "Chinese Painting Debate".

[3] Wu Zuoren: "In the past, I advocated that as long as I mastered the basic skills of styling and could proficiently use traditional Chinese painting tools, there would be no problem in" adapting objects and shapes "and drawing" innovating "traditional Chinese paintings. Therefore, I said," Let's do some traditional Chinese paintings. "I practiced using brush and ink to draw characters myself, and I said," One cannot do it, two cannot do it, and three cannot do it. "Every time I prepared to waste ten sheets of paper. The so-called" Ten Sheet Studio "is like this, and as for what I said," innovating ", I only emphasized the new and old expression techniques of painting, starting from artistic forms." This is quoted from Wu Zuoren. Explanatory materials from the Cultural Revolution: "On the situation of drawing at home every Monday night from the winter of 1953 to 1955"

[4] On October 18, 1947, the board of directors of the Beiping Art Association (the opposing party in the debate on traditional Chinese painting with Xu Beihong) gathered at Zhongshan Park to receive reporters, discussing the issue of form and spirit in painting. Quoted from Chapter 5 on page 188 of "The History of Beijing Painting in the 20th Century", titled "The Beiping Painting Circle after the Victory of the Anti Japanese War (1945-1949)", Section 2 "Debate between the Three Professors' Strike and the Development of Chinese Painting" (written by Li Shusheng) (edited by Beijing Academy of Painting, published by People's Fine Arts Publishing House, first edition in September 2007)

[5] Illusion space refers to the use of human visual illusions and imagination to imitate and fabricate a realistic space to a greater or lesser extent. This is the spatial approach adopted by all cultural paintings, but with different means and standards involved. It was rationally integrated in Greek painting (as well as pictorial sculpture - relief), and finally achieved basic perfection after the completion of linear perspective in the Renaissance (and as an independent way of artistic consciousness, it was completed in the West in the mid-18th century, according to Abrams). The basic tradition of Western art history is based on the concept of reproducing space, because only such space can reproduce specific time and specific real space, thus becoming an imitation and record of real existence, and thus becoming the basis and data of history.

[6] Ge Weimo: "Maximoff was surprised to see Mr. Wu's paintings in Europe, and only then did he know. He asked Mr. Wu, why don't you paint like that now? Mr. Wu smiled and didn't say a word. Of course he didn't understand. Mr. Wu was pursuing Chinese national style. Later, his paintings such as" The Statue of Qi Baishi "and" Sanmenxia Reservoir "were completely different from his, and he had a deep foundation. So Maximoff was still quite reserved in the Academy of Fine Arts. He also knew that there was a dean named Wu Xiansheng, and Mr. Ai was the head of the department, all of whom were of high level." I went to set up a class outside, which is a creative studio of the People's Fine Arts Publishing House, located in Xinsi Hutong. Many people in Xinsi Hutong painted with him, and he was very free there because he had no scruples. He also painted a lot there (On December 14, 2006, Wu Ning interviewed Ge Weimo)

[7] Xu Beihong: "Sketching is the foundation of all plastic arts, but often it is not effective and requires strict training. Only by accumulating thousands of pieces of paper can one achieve the desired effect. Twenty years ago, there were few sketchers in China who were extremely skilled in depicting objects. The progress of Chinese painting has been a thing of the past twenty years. Therefore, the establishment of New Chinese painting was neither an improvement nor a combination of Chinese and Western styles. It was only a direct imitation of nature." Quoted from "The Steps of Establishing New Chinese Painting" (1947, written speech at a press conference in Beiping) (Xu Beihong's Art Collection, p. 510, Ningxia People's Publishing House, December 1994). First edition of the month)