Patterns of the Spirit
- A Brief Introduction to Chen Xing and Her Paintings on Linen
As a student of Li Keran, the great master of traditional Chinese painting, Chen Xing always feels grateful and inspired whenever she recalls the time when she studied under the tutorship of Li Keran in the Department of Traditional Chinese Painting at China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). In her eye, “Master Li, like a dose of fine medicine, has brought new vitality to Chinese painting. He seems to have merged sunshine, water and air into the painting. He has great influence on me.” In this light, according to her unique understanding of the arts of Li Keran and her own talent, she would have become an excellent mountain-and-water painter. However, years after she left the Academy, what established her position in the art circle was a painting quite different from Li Keran’s style, The Shepherd and the Sun, which was painted with her husband Zhan Hongchang and won the gold prize at the Sixth National Exhibition of Arts. The reason behind this may be that Chen learned not only painting skills from Li, but also his innovative spirit. Li Keran was a great innovator, and that has influenced Chen most.
The Shepherd and the Sun is a significant painting in modern Chinese art circle. Its significance lies in that it has real modern awareness, and intrinsically connects the traditional with the modern. It is this very painting that signifies the beginning of Chen’s career as an artist of real modern spirit.
I
In the autumn of 1986, Chen Xing began to paint on linen cloth. “For almost twenty years,” she said in her Autobiography, “I have been exploring on the linen with water and ink, lingering in the infinity between reality and illusion.”
It should be pointed out that, at the beginning of the new century when the experiment for modern ink painting became a fashion, people seemed to have failed to notice that Chen Xing had made fruitful achievements in the field over twenty years ago. Even if observed in the light of present criteria, her paintings are extraordinary and outstanding, not only in their cultural values and material uniqueness, but also in style of the patterns and originality of expressions.
When we observe Chen Xing’s paintings of the linen series, we need to examine the spiritual background behind them. In a world of spiritual desert where moral values are corrupt and collapse, some “fashionable” paintings are of little significance in constructing the modern spirit. The warning of “abuse of arts” by earlier masters decades ago has long been forgotten. The co-existence of this world of material and desire with the arts of sensual stimulation may be the paradox of the time and tragedy of human nature. In this sense, the aesthetic spirit and cultural values reflected in Chen Xing’s linen series of paintings can be taken as the spiritual principles of modern artistic exploration.
Chen Xing is an artist who has profound understanding of the nature of arts. With her excellent educational background, she has established her cultural personality and idealistic values. These factors combined to form her spiritual and cultural characters, gifting her artistic exploration and creation with grace and elegance. As a result, her paintings are strikingly different from those in the main stream of modern arts - paintings of “the new generation,” aiming to “deconstruct” the traditional artistic values and depict the corruption of society with their own corruption of the soul, which has become a prevalent method of modern Chinese arts (including films and novels) after 1990s. Obviously this is not the way Chen Xing explores and creates modern arts. From the artistic pursuit of her linen series, we can feel her efforts of integrating the elegance of the classical arts into her paintings. She insists on her orthodox ways of artistic expression, believing in the nobility of human and artistic nature. She believes even more in the holy light over the head of mankind, which is the forever light of human wisdom and benevolence.
II
According to art historians, the change of painting material is one of the most important innovations of artistic expressions in the 20th century.
The mainstream of traditional Chinese arts of painting is the free-style literati painting, a highly advanced form of arts in spiritual and cultural quality. In the process of nearly a thousand years of evolution, the literati painters have developed and enriched the expressions and techniques of freehand painting to a highly sophisticated degree. The core elements of its expressions are water and ink - painted with brushes on special paper (the xuan paper, also called “rice paper”). It is unique in two aspects, first in material and in culture. The wonderful combination of material with culture has brought into being the special Chinese art of water and ink paintings.
Chen Xing’s linen series of painting applies the water and ink style of freehand expressions on the special material - linen. This is where her originality partly lies.
In the way of expression, Chen’s linen series of arts is not purely painting; it also includes the tie-dye technique of the folk arts, and therefore is a combination of tie-dye with painting. Because of the uncontrollable nature of the tie-dye technique, the patterns of the painting take on some characters of abstract arts. As a result, in Chen’s painting, the freehand brushwork of the literati style combines vividly with the expressions of abstract arts. Moreover, the rough texture of the linen with its dull grey has endowed the painting with a free, grand and wild style, adding a style of masculinity to the delicate visual effect of the traditional ink painting. In deed, the visual impact of the ink paintings on linen is much stronger than that on paper.
III
Chen’s linen series of paintings can be classified into two periods: the early period and the recent period.
Her early paintings, such as The Great Benevolence, Awakening from Hibernation and Tenderness, signify her spiritual surpassing of the earthly world. They are artistic expressions of wisdom, benevolence and human nature, full of the spirit of humanism. There are recognizable images in the patterns that indicate perfect freehand brushwork, where concrete images and abstract patterns bring out the best in each other.
If her early works are characterized by humanism and meditation on life, then her recent paintings are mainly about the law of nature and expressions of abstract ideas. In terms of patterns, abstractness, musicality and accidentalness occupy the main part of her expressions. Judging from a macro level of expressions, it can be said that her paintings have become purer and more significant. Studying her recent paintings carefully, one feels the sublimation and integrity of her spirit and soul - that she has obtained the real way, the way of humanity, the way of the nature, and the way of beauty.
Deng Pingxiang
Director of China Oil Painting Society
Vice-Chairman of Hunan Artists Association
