Studio one

Reporter(hereafter R):Mr. Yang, your painting exhibition in China Art Gallery in early 2000 has received great applause in Beijing. Compared with your works before, they have undergone drastic change. Do you still remember the process of those paintings on exhibition? Yang Fuyin(hereafter Y): I finish over 1000 paintings a year, which I learn from Mr. Qi Baishi. An artist, devoting every minute to work, will surely hit upon some inspiration. Your ideas might also belong to others, but your work is definitely yours. Perpetual work will grant you new findings. In October 1999, when I wanted to work on some big-sized painting, I telephoned Lin Hui, a friend in Guangzhou Petro- chemical, to help me find a suitable place because my place is too small. He put me up in the rest house of the local revenue of Conghua city. The first day, when I am getting all things ready for work, I found myself not in a working mood. The second day went just like the first day. I called Linhui, telling him to get me back since I can not adapt myself to a new environment and work immediately. He said that he was busy with a meeting, and suggested that I took a vacation there. On the third day, I felt relaxed and some creative excitement carried me through the whole day. Inspirations came back to my brush and I finished one big-sized work before I went back home. In the following 3 months, I kept working. On spring festival, I selected 100 or so and made an exhibition in China Art Gallery. Two of my paintings were kept by the Gallery, and the dean of the Gallery asked me to detail the whole process of working on these paintings. And here we are. R: Such inspiration is interesting. It seems easy, but not really. Can you say more about it? Y: The exhibition was held on early 2000, the beginning of the 21st century. I should thank God to give this inspiration. Actually, everyone may have the same blessing from heavens. If chances escape or pass by before your eyes, one should put the blame on oneself for he is not ready for that. I remember clearly the oath for joining the Young Pioneers: get ready for any time. Wang Guowei distinguished three levels on the artistic image of Ci poetry: “Westerly winds withered trees up last night. Climbing up the stairs and being lonely on the loft, I overlooked the endless distance. Languishing for missing you and becoming emaciated, I have no regrets. Time and time again, I searched for you in the crowd. Suddenly I spun around and saw the very you standing amidst thin lights.” If you aim high and leave no stone overturned, luck will be around corner or just within your reach. In the 10 years after I left Changsha for Guangzhou, my mission is bring modernization to traditional Chinese painting art. Such an idea, though it is unclear in my heart, can only be realized by application on the paper. It can not be mere luck. For me, it is just there. R: The art circle gave high praise for the paintings on that exhibition. Mr. Lei Zhengmin said that Lin Fengmian also wanted to make some break-through on line drawing, but from the perspective of western painting. Yang Fuyin went further and his paintings stood test of time. Some other voices from the art circle include that your portraiture almost got rid of the traditional technique and style, which amounted to conspicuous breakthrough and revolutionary contribution. You cared more about style than about technique. Do you agree with this comment? Please say more about the problems waiting to be resolved in Chinese painting. Y: I just begin with my mission. Sometimes I watch my works, only to find they are neither foreign-made nor Chinese-made. Neither do they seem to be my work. A strange feeling. I am still looking for myself, still trying. Looking at Chinese painting in western perspective is popular in the lat century, and its influence is still remarkable. However, those working with this perspective never achieve much. Most of them become the martyrs of the missionary process in exploring Chinese painting art. The Chinese perspective starts from line drawing. The western perspective starts from plane. The former is sensible, and the latter is rational. This is the very difference between the two. The Chinese painting, just comparable to Chinese traditional drama, is the art of lines, the exposure and expansion of natural feeling, totally subjective. However, the western counterpart starts from plane, calling for objective and rational analysis. To be more exact, the presence of plane needs things like perspective and space, which are all objective. To be subjective or objective, to be sensible or to be rational, this is the line of division of Chinese and western arts, and also the background for their co-existence. I have been in Changsha for 50 years, and took pains to do traditional portraiture. In my eyes, the biggest contribution of portraiture is to create a style by brush and Chinese ink, establishing the aesthetic taste for Chinese paintings. After I settled in Guangzhou, I wanted to do another thing in such a quiet working environment: to step out from the portraiture tradition and bring modernization to it. Which aspect of Chinese painting appeals to you most? Which aspect fits you most? Which is the core of it? To distill the most favorable core part of this art and discard those unimportant is the way out. Actually, every man of letters has no choice but to choose those basic techniques best suitable to him. He can not avail himself of all the techniques. Then, he can create new techniques. The revolution in Chinese portraiture is line drawing, and that of Chinese landscape is the cun technique (special technique to representing irregular surface of landscape). The history of Chinese portraiture is the history of line drawing, and the history of Chinese landscape is the history of the cun technique. From Ming dynasty, the influence of landscape paintings has dwindled. The period of innovation did not come out until Huang Binhong, who discarded the traditional cun technique, which I term as anti- cun technique (or cun-less technique), and actually was a new cun technique. Nonetheless, the line drawing technique after Tang Dynasty has remained changeless. Such technique makes line drawing heavily dependent on the objects to be depicted—certain lines suitable for certain objects. My idea is that free the technique from the object it serves, a tradition seen from the unearthed portraiture in Changsha to that in post-revolution period. The new line drawing technique should perform three functions: the first is to partially represent the object; the second, to display independent aesthetic value free from the object form; the third, to construct plane in the painting. These three functions should mix with each other, and should be achieved simultaneously. It is not that one line should represent the object, and another should display aesthetic value, but they should achieve both. Such a request actually expands the aesthetic value and the technique manipulation of line drawing, and allots more tasks to it. Under this circumstance, the representing function of line drawing should rank second. For example, the portraiture of mine does not put representing the image at first place. Traditional portraiture emphasized the portrait of eyes should give the best image, but according to my understanding now, such image should achieved through the whole painting, with the eyes getting its share. Now, I omit a lot to return to the tradition of Qin and Han Dynasty, a simple aesthetic framework. It took several hundred years for western art to shift from realism to post-impressionism, with very gradual and minor changes through the whole period. It is not until the period of van Gogh and Gauguin that artists began to pay attention to express their feeling. It happens that the birth of post-impressionism is the influence of eastern art. Chinese painting in Zhou, Pre-Qin and two Han Dynasties emphasized the expression of subject feelings, then why bother to pick up the object depiction of objects discarded by western art? The two outstanding features of Qin and Han art are simple and naive. Of course, innovation is the hardest part for whatever period. It makes no sense to claim that things will be easier a hundred years late, for it is not easy for any times to achieve something. Lin Mianfeng is a respectable pioneer in the last century, but the key problems can not be resolved because the unfavorable environment and subjective limitation all work against him in such a period. With such lessons before us, we can be more positive and active. We are faced with the problem of how to achieve the reasonable and optimal match of the most traditional and most modern resources, a route that should be followed by literature, fine arts and music. R: Your exploration of form is obvious in your works, very successful exploration. It is not new wine in the old bottle, nor old wine in the new bottle, but new wine in the new bottle. Your form is a combination of innovation and personality, and this is talent. Your friends from southern china all regard you as a very very interesting man, with formal buoyancy in life. Y: Nietzsche said that the essence of art is to convey the power of feeling to others. Such ability equals getting the best form to express your feeling, and form ranks first for artists. According to my understanding, if your feeling is new and personal, then you are bound to find a new form distinct from the others. Once the new form takes shape, art makes progresses. The change of form is fundamental in art. Take Chinese poetry as an example. The change from 5 words 7 words, then to the form of ci is the formal change, and also the change of art structure. Such change is no easy thing. It takes ages to come into existence. For example, the art of ci is attributed to Liyu, the last emperor of Nantang Dynasty. He took the form of songs sung by those female singers and elevated them to a higher form of art—ci. I have long been emphasizing art form. The three functions of line drawing have the purpose of innovation in art form. Though there seems to be some new form in my paintings, does it distinguish itself with the old form, like 5 words as distinct as 7 words? I am not sure. Maybe it is in the midst of change. Whether the new form can be established depends on more work. I may also depend on other people’s work. R: You propose to divide the Chinese painting art period by Song Dynasty on the symposium of your exhibition in Beijing in 2000, which sparks a lot of interest. Y: Song Dynasty is a divide line for Chinese traditional painting art for it is a period for painting art to develop techniques. As far as portraiture is concerned, the techniques have been fully developed till Tang and Song Dynasty. The cun technique for landscape has also come into being in Song Dynasty. From Song dynasty, the major task is to make nothing out of something, i.e. to make innovations. Why landscape dwindles in Ming Dynasty? The painters not only follow their predecessors but also attempt to find new cun techniques. It is not until Huang Binhong in RC period that the cun is innovated. The above history inspired me to finding a new way for portraiture, which I call anti-line drawing. The new technique has two meanings: it is the heir to the traditional line drawing, and it attempts to expand the function of line drawing. Such is what the modern portraiture artist should endeavor to solve. R: Which of the three functions of line drawing is the most fundamental, or most difficult to attain? Y: The independent aesthetic value of line drawing is the most difficult, but also the most fundamental. Therefore, the pursuit of the beautiful is unattainable. People can only enjoy the process of pursuit, not the final end. It is just like our understanding of the boundless universe, and that is the very point of pursuit. This independent aesthetic value is actually carefully casualness, if I can say like that. Chinese painting is born to be expressed by a certain degree of casualness, a sort of casual carefulness. “Forgetting oneself” is the highest level. However, it does not mean it is without principle. Carefulness is core, and casualness is at surface. Carefulness is inside, and casualness is outside. Carefulness is invisible, and casualness is visible. This is not only the philosophy of art, but also the philosophy of life. If one is extremely careful and at the same time extremely casual in life, then he is extremely cute. The aesthetic value of line drawing of Chinese painting is parallel with this principle. It is attained in some of Qi Baishi’s works, and also in some of Huang Binhong’s, but only a small number of people can achieve this. Su Dongpo’s “carrying water and washing vegetable at riverside, I passed one more day” is also such a level of careful casualness. To attain this level of careful casualness, one need discard all distractions to get purity and freedom. This is a working motif that can only be obtained through a life-time effort. That is why Chinese painters always achieve the highest level until they are quite old. R: The exploration and innovation of form is ultimately the pursuit and discovery of the beautiful. Y: That’s the point! The life of art is creation. Kawabata Yasunari said that when the world passed by, only the beautiful remained. The creation of the beautiful is the fountain of human race. However, the beauty of artistic creation is different from the natural beauty in that it is covert and can only be found by the pious heart and searching eyes of the artists. Finding is creation. Einstein called such instinct to beauty the free creation. Created beauty is not the restatement of the object; it is the product of imagination, which gives you a pair of wings to approach beauty. As said by Nietzsche: beauty is the worship of the self, for it originates from the self. Beauty has as its basis the unconscious imagination. One object invokes beautiful memories, but the attention is not lingering on this object. He also pointed out that: the artistic imagination avails itself of all possible means to achieve perfection, to idealize the object. Li Zhehou the philosopher made comment on imagination to the effect that: imagination emphasizes displaying the accidental sensibility by freely dealing with space, cause-effect, things and phenomena, and even by changing the above objects to get rid of conventions. In fact, apart from art, astronomy, physics, mathematics and the like all have its space of imagination, as limitless and unbounded as art. R: Your essays are also interesting, and people say that you are like Wang Zengqi. Y: That’s too much a compliment. I like works of Shen Congwen, Feng Zikai and Wang Zengqi. When he paid his last respect to Shen Congwen, Wang said: I watched him, once and again, I cried. Such sentences are most appealing to me, typical of Shen’s style. Now we have a Liu Liangchen. I bought his “A Farm for Oneself”, and it fascinates me so much. His unique perspective and pure language are the best footnote of his spiritual world. Writing essays is the last resort for me. Ten years’ in Guangzhou has not made me a local language user. Funny and stupid, isn’t it? However, it is also a blessing, for it forced me to talk to myself, or monologue. This is the way I write my essays. Starting from 1994, I never drop it. I write one essay per week in a column in “Sanxiang Dushi” newspaper, Hunan. This makes my life go faster. R: How do you make life go faster? Y: I am easily satisfied. To me, the highest standard and lowest standard of physical life make no difference if I can full my stomach. I can do what makes me happy and I regard as meaningful with the minimum degree of necessities. I have long thanked heavens for I can enjoy painting so long. My life is for painting, and my life goal is to do a good job of it. The Eight-fingered Monk said that: to pursue dao in the mountains till one is old, and leave behind the fame. I believe in this saying. At the midst of painting, I write some essays and friends publish them on newspapers or magazines. This gives me more satisfaction, just like unexpectedly sowing peas after harvesting the rice.