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    Subtlety of Chinese painting

    This Chinese painting is based on an ancient poem about a lonely man enduring a long night on a boat moored near a temple in the outskirts of Suzhou.

    MANY expatriates in Shanghai have a strong liking for Chinese furniture, but few show much enthusiasm for Chinese painting.

    Westerners' lack of interest may stem from the fact that Chinese paintings do not embrace the basic standards of Western art: proportion, scenery, the use of light, and so on. Many Chinese paintings, even masterpieces, would look funny and childish when judged by these standards.

    Why do Chinese still cling to the traditional art form when there are so many new ways of expression?

    An easy answer is that, the art form is in accordance with the Chinese mentality. But this is only partly true.

    "The Chinese people tend to think in images, while Westerners pay more attention to logic," said Duan Shaojun, a contemporary artist engaged in both Chinese painting and Western-style oil painting.

    Fallen leaves remind people of autumn and call up emotional yearning for the flourishing summer. A lonely fisherman on a calm river brings a sense of solitude. Such emotional associations are so natural among the Chinese people, that they are almost subconscious.

    Chinese artists used to pay great attention to what images they would evoke. Bamboo, flowers, and lonely hermits near mountain cottages are the favourite subjects under the brush of Chinese painters.

    The artists put so much thought into their subjects that the paintings earned the name "Intellectual Paintings".

    Quite a few successful painters in ancient times were good poets as well. And one theme in Chinese painting is "picture in poetry, and poetry in picture".

    The fatal shortcoming of such "Intellectual Paintings" is the negligible skill with which they are created. When intellectuals created the paintings, they put great emphasis on the emotion and value they hoped to express, but somehow they neglected the way of expression.

    "I chose to paint people in oils and scenery in Chinese painting, because Chinese painting lacks the strong expression needed to portray people," Duan said.

    Duan also mentioned that traditional Chinese artists, most of whom were intellectuals, lacked devotion and scientific attitude toward art.

    "They were not like Da Vinci, who would anatomize corpses to learn about the conformation of the human body. This is inconceivable for ancient Chinese painters. They were too proud to do such things."

    Chinese painting had existed for nearly 1,000 years, before it got the name "Chinese painting" early last century.

    The intellectuals of the early 1900s were amazed to find many new trends and schools in Western art. They found Chinese painting cliched and lacking vitality.

    Many Chinese art masters of that age had studied abroad, some in Paris, the capital of art.

    Xu Beihong, the artist famous for his drawings of horses, was one of those returned from Paris. "To learn directly from Nature," and "To keep the good part of ancient method, and change the undesirable ones" were his oft-quoted maxims on Chinese painting.

    He and several other artists of the same period felt strongly that new blood from the West had to be transfused into traditional Chinese art.

    They were strongly against books which taught people Chinese painting stroke by stroke.

    Such books prove very useful for beginners in Chinese painting, but Xu and his colleagues believed that those books led Chinese painting to stylization and loss of vitality.

    But even the most radical of them never thought of giving up the art form.

    Wu Guanzhong, an artist who started with Chinese painting, transferred to Western art and then combined the two, wrote about his ambition to build a bridge between Chinese and Western painting.

    "I admit that my art is a mixblood," Wu once wrote as his paintings were exhibited in London.

    Wu believed that art is consistent with nature. He was trying to explore nationalism in oil painting and seek modernism from traditional Chinese water and ink.

    Some people said his paintings remind them of the Impressionists in the West.

    The Impressionists like Cezanne and Monet emphasized the impression a scene left on the viewer, and added a subjective tone to their paintings.

    A German artist, Michael Dickmann, who participated in this year's Shanghai Art Fair, even added a stanza of poetry beneath many of his paintings.

    "I want to show people what I felt about the scene instead of the scene itself," he said.

    By painting a simple horizon of the northern area, he hoped to bring the chill feeling of morning to the viewer, or reader of his work.

    This again reminds readers of Wu's quotation: "Art is consistent in nature."

    West or East, beauty is the eternal theme.

    (By Yvonne Zhang, Shanghai Star. )

     
     
     
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