"Black and White" and the Disappearance
of the Modern Character Zhang Yiwu - Professor
at Beijing University, Tutor of Doctor's Degree Candidates, Art
Critic
"Experimental ink and wash"
has already a fairly long history. As a new cultural trend which
rose in the 1990s, it is a rethinking about the "ink
and wash" as the heart of "traditional Chinese
painting", and a re-examination of the basic principle
and methods. It explores again all possibilities of "ink
and wash" to transcend the discourse of "brushwork and
ink-applying technique" in a bold way. In the context of
globalization, it is worthwhile for us to try to get a deep understanding
of the possibilities exhibited by the development of "experimental
ink and wash". "Traditional Chinese painting" is
a classical concept with "modern" character. It is a
whole set of knowledge and discourse system that began to form
from the late Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic
of China. It is a specific concept as opposed to "Western
painting", and it is in the modern culture as a whole that
it symbolizes the peculiar value and special mode of expression
of the traditional Chinese culture. In the opposition between
modernity and tradition, it represents the existence of tradition.
The existence of the concept of "traditional Chinese painting"
is impossible in traditional Chinese society, for what is called
the "traditional Chinese painting" in modern language
was the only painting, as we understand it, in the traditional
society. The influx of Western painting and the discourse with
the "modern" character have changed the painting as
we understand it into a token of "particularity". The
concept of "traditional Chinese painting" now has a
peculiar meaning. There is a remarkable phenomenon in Chinese
culture, that is, the break like that in the field of literature,
where the "May 4th" new literature superseded the old
literature and became the mainstream of the Chinese literature,
has never appeared in the field of fine arts. In literature, no
specific concept of "Chinese poetry" is used to denote
old-style poetry. Old-style poetry and new verse are regarded
as parts of the Chinese poetry as a whole, and "new"
and "old" are used from the angle of time to denote
their traditional and modern character respectively. In fine arts,
however, the difference between "traditional Chinese painting"
and "Western painting" has always been looked upon as
a spatial difference. The debates about the theory of so-called
"scattered-viewpoint perspective" and about the reform
and innovation of "traditional Chinese painting" have
reflected the subtlety of the "modern" interpretation
of this special "spatial" mode of observation. The explorations
of the modern character of "traditional Chinese painting",
such as those of Ren Bonian and Wu Changshuo,
were not, like those in literary circles, thoroughly denied by
the New Culture Movement in the period of the May 4th Movement
of 1919. The problem of time the "traditional Chinese painting"
is facing, that is, the problem of modernity and tradition, has
been transformed to the spatial difference between Chinese and
Western cultures. This seems to have no parallel anywhere. Since
the late Qing Dynasty, no "great masters" have emerged
from among poets and writers writing in the classical style, and
old-style poems or traditional Chinese novels with each chapter
headed by a couplet giving the gist of its content have been on
the margin of culture. This shows that the premise of the knowledge
and discourse of literature has radically changed. However, great
masters have still emerged unceasingly in traditional way in the
field of "traditional Chinese painting", such as Qi
Baishi and Zhang Daqian. "Traditional
Chinese painting" has all along stood up to Western painting
as an equal and has become one of the mainstreams of the Chinese
art.
This difference between different fields of art gives us much
food for thought. But it is indisputable that the way of transformation
in the field of literature is clearly the orthodox mode of the
"modern" Chinese discourse. The "modern character"
of Chinese painting is embodied in the complex development of
two major systems: one is the system of Western painting that
adopts directly Western techniques, materials and ideas; the other
is the system of traditional Chinese painting that takes over
completely traditional materials, techniques and ideas. There
is of course merging and mutual infiltration between these two
systems, but the difference between them is obvious. The constant
development of new techniques and the expanding of the range of
subject matters lie at the core of the modern character of "traditional
Chinese painting", and the legitimacy of "brushwork
and ink-applying technique" as the prerequisite of traditional
Chinese painting has never been questioned. This modern character
is not of the broken type but of the type of continuity, and is
the modern character of an "alternative" kind. This
"alternative" kind of modern character has never been
suppressed as in the field of literature. The modern character
in the field of Chinese painting, compared with that in the field
of literature, is "unconventional" and "unorthodox",
because the break like that in the May 4th Movement has never
occurred here. What has genuinely introduced the modern character
of the "orthodox" and "broken" type like that
of literature into the field of painting is the extraordinarily
intense thesis by Li Xiaoshan, "Contemporary
Traditional Chinese Painting in My Opinion". The concept
of so-called "preserving the genre of painting", the
entirely anti-traditional attitude and the craze for the "ordinary
character" are very close to the view of literature of the
period of the May 4th Movement. However, it happened nearly 70
years after the May 4th Movement. History has given the field
of fine arts an "alternative" modern character, but
the cultural trend of the 1980s demanded it to return to the "orthodoxy"
of the modern character of China. This is the queerest phenomenon
in the field of Chinese painting. It also shows that many problems
in the history of the "modern character" of China have
to be "left over" and to be solved in a new "post-modern"
context. This makes the fate of "traditional Chinese painting"
at present rather uncertain and leads to the gradual withdrawal
of this concept from history. On the one hand, the strong desire
of introducing the "orthodox" process like that in the
field of literature into the field of painting has become the
imagination of many radical artists. They often think that this
"unconventional" and "unorthodox" modern character
is the token of the fact that modernization has not been achieved
in the field of painting. Therefore efforts have always been made
to abandon traditional Chinese painting or destroy its position
in the Chinese culture. On the other hand, some artists also begin
to rethink about the possibilities of "traditional Chinese
painting" and the basic discourse in traditional Chinese
painting, "brushwork and ink-applying technique", in
the range of "post-modern" discourse and the globalized
new cultural trend, and try to transcend the limitations of the
discourse of "modern" traditional Chinese painting.
What is called "experimental ink and wash" is just the
token of this duality. It combines two different desires. In its
initial stage, it seemed to have some connection with the break
like that of Li Xiaoshan, while its value at
present lies in the manifestation of the possibility of transcending
the limitations of the "modern character" of brushwork
and ink-applying technique. It tries to destroy the legitimacy
of "brushwork and ink-applying technique" and manifest
the unlimited possibilities of "black and white"; at
the same time, it continues to use the original materials of traditional
Chinese painting. If the break of Li Xiaoshan
type is the denial of the traditional Chinese painting, then "experimental
ink and wash" is the re-imagination about it, an imagination
derived from the post-modern character. It is the cultural consequence
of globalization, and almost all its imaginations and possibilities
come from the new structure of global artistic production; in
the meantime, it is also the natural result of the predicament
and contradictions of the native "traditional Chinese painting".
Zhang Yu's Divine Light Series, for
example, is such a exploration. It indicates the appearance of
a new type, "post traditional Chinese painting". It
embodies a new cultural form of glocalization (global localization).
Glocalization refers to different forms and tokens of "globalization"
in different places. "Experimental ink and wash" is
not to be identified with the "abstract" ink and wash
movement in traditional Chinese painting. It has completely abandoned
all the expressive potentialities with "brushwork and ink-applying
technique" as the mainstay, and explores new possibilities
of the traditional materials of "traditional Chinese painting".
"Black and white" has superseded "brushwork
and ink-applying technique" and becomes the core of ink and
wash. On the one hand, the experimental ink and wash has transcended
the "modern" traditional Chinese painting; on the other
hand, it has transcended all the possibilities of traditional
Chinese painting. In this transcendence, "experimental ink
and wash" has become an indisputable and special cultural
token in this era of globalization. On the one hand, it refuses
the simple and "universal" Western principles by adhering
to traditional materials; on the other hand, it refuses the fatalism
about the "particularity" of the "traditional Chinese
painting" by transcending brushwork and ink-applying technique.
It is a new mode of imagination transcending the opposition between
modernity and tradition. It has manifested the high flexibility
of the culture in an era in which "globalization" has
superseded "modernization" and becomes the new key concept
of the Chinese culture. In Zhang Yu and his fellow artists' "black
and white" images, we have found the appearance of the imaginative
future of China and the disappearance of the modern character.
Thanks to Red Gate Gallery - Beijing
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