From the perspective of art history, the form of art has both a constant side, and a changing side, that’s including the characters of constant and variation. In the study of art history, we must take into account the two sides, or, it’s unilateral to know and grasp the history of art.
With Chinese art, painting and sculpture have not only remained in the same strain with a spiritual connotation for thousands of years, but also never fundamentally changed from the basic form. But in the process of development, some new materials and production methods have constantly been applied to the new works, choosing some new forms, reflecting some new ideas, which then produced Chinese art. So did generally the art of other nations.
The creation of art is the reflection of human thoughts and feelings, to perform the spirit of humanity. It’s the reason why artworks have the ability to go through history, across geography, to be known and understood well by people. Regardless of how strong the personality one has, whatever impact of the times, an artist’s work will never independently exist when it is away from the universality of human nature, which is like an inseparable clue, going throughout the human history of art, explicitly or implicitly being presented in the artworks.
There’s a change to social economy and material culture, leading people to mentally pursue innovation and change, when artists also want their creation to keep up with the rapid changes of the times. However, the power of traditional art is still playing a secret role in restricting the pace of innovation and change of artists. On the one hand traditional art exists in the art circle with the way of “old” forms, on the other hand, some factors of traditional art penetrate into the “new” art forms. Particularly, rapidly changing “new” art is often blocked due to the over aggressive pace, questioned by the public, allowing traditional art to be displayed showing the advantage of obtaining a new room for development.
Around the “May 4th Movement”, Chinese art absorbed Western classical artistic skills to advance the transformation, talking about traditional literati painting which was of a disadvantage at some time, however, Chinese painting was facing an embarrassing state, as it was difficult to digest the skills of Western Realism, the current of returning to “literati painting” quietly arose. There was a similar situation appearing in the 1980s, when “’85 New Wave” artists promoted the concepts of modern Western art and presented a vociferous situation, it was suspect because of the overly aggressive form, it appeared as a neo-classical style of oil painting and a new literati painting thought. It’s notable that this ideology of “reversion” itself is a baptism impacted by the new trend, emphasizing the inherent qualities, while quietly absorbing some achievements in new art.
Some domestic critics regard “modernity” as a ruler to measure the current art phenomenon produced in China, and believe that anything that is closed to the form of Western Modernism art is modernity, and if not it produces a negative answer. How to interpret the concept of “modernity”? Should we give it some new content according to our understanding of modernism? Because we are building a modern society and taking a road to modernization, we can’t avoid the issue of modernity. But we must make clear what modern China requires. We can’t copy the standards of Western modernity, while “modernity” is a spiritual pursuit closely associated with the modern social physical environment, a pursuit of artistic aesthetics. For the whole nation, there’s not only common points but also different points, except for any uniform international standard. When one studies the knowledge of social, cultural and artistic “modernity” in various countries, his/she must start from the actual situation, to expound the theory of modernity. It’s an objective environment to promote the production of modernity and to provide the individual with an adequate free creative spirit, meanwhile, a Chinese cultural background, the paths taken by China in the 20th Century, and Chinese social realities must be well considered.
In the history of China painting, it basically runs through the debate between the traditional faction and the integration of the Chinese and Western faction, where the two factions have achieved fruitful results. Such as Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong and Pan Tianshou who adhered to the traditional ways, and Xu Beihong, Jiang Zhaohe, etc., insisting on the integration of Chinese and Western painting, featuring a unique national style in the creation. As for the later “avant-garde”, it appeared mainly according to the imitation of the concept and style in the beginning, which seemed to have “modern consciousness” and “modernity”, but the spiritual quality was far away from the Chinese reality. Only rooted in the Chinese earth, reflecting contemporary Chinese people’s feelings, properly absorbing the local nutrition, the “avant-art” which has a real “modernity”.
It’s the development of Chinese art in the 20th Century that comprehensively demonstrates that, the modernity of art does not mean to pursue in the change of form, the new language of expression, neither to abandon tradition, those precious constant factors in art – something belonging to the category of content, such as human nature, love, harmony, etc., as well as the expression of language that experiences the smelting of history which belongs to the category of form. Declaring whether it is new, it’s a key to require the works to reflect a feeling and tolerance of the times, this has a new meaning.
Traditional artistic content contains human nature, emotion, etc., owning a lasting value, in the form of creation it also has an eternal significance, and would constantly change with the changes of time, to adapt to the aesthetic demands of the new times. The “modernity” that we are talking about today, is but the current social time, arts in different ages were required to suit the era, to reflect the spirit of the time. When the industrial and post-industrial eras came, the pace of the change of times is accelerating so that the alienation process of the human would become faster, while it’s inevitable that artistic languages fiercely change. Only serious study and research history, including the history of modern art, study of the theory of artistic creation, consciously abiding by the law of artistic creation, one would actually contributes himself/herself to the emergence of an innovative art.
Courtesy of “Chinese Social Sciences Today”
Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO
