Poetic Abstraction - Zhang Yuan Fan’s Printed Art

Cao Yi Qiang (曹意强, Principal & Professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Chinese Arts Academy)   

In cultural history of China, poetry has always been directly related to retrospection of old moods and sentiments and travel records. Travel broadens views of people and memories of old times transcend time. In addition, they also bring spiritual freedom to humanity. Discovery of landscape paintings in Western art history is an important event which restored spiritual freedom and emotions for Europeans. Affection for nature and history proves sensibility of the Romanticists.

Zhang Yuan Fan is a print artist who mainly expresses scenery. Old streets, rain and wind, stone walls, foot of mountains and lake shores, temples, pagodas and mausoleums are all subject matters in his works. Subject matters full of poetic emotions and poetic exploration into visual arts are major features of Zhang Yuan Fan's art.

Jang Yuan Fan entered the world of art thanks to his extraordinary experience of convalescence in the countryside when he was sick during his youth. During that time, he went to a lake every morning with a painter in the neighborhood to recover health. The painter made sketches there while Zhang exercised and, over time, Zhang also began drawing the scenery in front of him with his brushes. This experience led Jiang Yuan Fan to be deeply interested in painting. He recalls the situation of the time, "Facing pure nature, I looked closely at the breathing and regular movements of nature and explored the communication and unity between me and nature. Deep absorption in raptures at the enlightenment of that moment (super-clear and wide world of fantasy where only I and the forest are left alone and love each other in the vast space between heaven, earth and lake), such things remain as the clearest memory even today." Art comforted Zhang Wen Fan's body and mind at the time.

Looking at such background of his, Zhang Yuan Fan seems to enter the world of art pretty late. But he actually spent his childhood in an artistic setting. Zhang Yuan Fan's father and his father's friends who were very famous in Chinese contemporary art history spent their daily routines with Zhang Yuan Fan. They are none other than Zhang Huai Jiang (張怀江, Zhang Wen Fan’s father), Zhao Yan Nian(赵延年) and Zhao Zong Zao (赵宗藻). Despite such circumstances, Zhang Yuan Fan was on the alert and afraid of art from childhood in part because he was surprised and afraid of the artistic talents of his father’s generation and in part because most of the subjects of the works in that time were solemn, cold and stern. Subjects that were popular at the time were appearance of Lu Xun (鲁迅) and embodiment of his novels, revolutionaries sacrificing for justice and magnificent scenes of building a new China. Though once-fanatic Chinese Cultural Revolution was over, the printings were still following the tradition of Xinxing (新兴?) woodcutting and Yanan (沿岸?) woodcutting and so did the styles.

What little Zhang Wen Fan felt about them all was heavy burden and embarrassment. When Zhang Wen Fan was a child, his father, Zhang Huai Jiang was stigmatized as a right wing. Through this experience, he realized that creation of art does not mean freedom but fettering the will of people. Owing to the problem of familial origin, Zhang Wen Fan had to go to a farm in the country and work as a farmer. He then returned to the city and worked as a lathe worker. Nevertheless, his very experience of drawing landscapes during his convalescence completely changed his thinking about art. He decided to choose his life again. After the end of Cultural Revolution and resumption of college entrance exam in 1977, he persuaded his father and entered Print Department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. Zhang Yuan Fan started his master's course at the Print Research Institute of Tokyo University of Arts. After returning from his studies, he became a professor at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and later became the head of the Print Department and took the important charge of developing Chinese printing.

The process through which Zhang Wen Fan came to be engaged in the art world was a common experience which the artists of his generation had to go through. The period before and after the Cultural Revolution was one of greatest pain and change in Chinese history. Therefore, it was the time when the concept and function of art were completely dismantled and reconstructed. Zhang Wen Fan's inquiry and choice of art derived from the problems and reflection of the time. After all, he decided to entrust his mind to his life experience and the natural environment.

Zhang Wen Fan thinks that genuine creation of art is to approach a mature personality of humanity. Artists' inspiration comes from specific, realistic experiences and appreciation of the works of their ancestors. Sometimes it also comes from cherished dreams, impulses and fantasies or "collective memories" which people of an age hold in their hearts. Yet, all these ultimately lead to a single endpoint, which is one other than a transcendent and eternal personality. For artists, it is the greatest fortune to feel periodic movement of the mind and to find lyrical ways on their own. This thinking came from Zhang Wen Fan's idea about the direction of modern printing. Historically, printmaking has been a reproducing art and a means to spread culture. However, film, television and electronic media are replacing this role today. Thus, it is a challenge for modern print artists to control the technical aspects of printmaking and to find out unique charms of printmaking itself. Challenge is opportunity for artists. Pressure to confront changing times can never undermine the will of the artists but rather it stimulates their curiosity and creative desire instead. Artist's sense is an enormous resilient space. Zhang Wen Fan has constantly explored art in such space.

Such thinking made Zhang Wen Fan's prints filled with the taste of poetic abstraction. In the art history of the West, poetic style means obscureness and gloom and favoritism of graphic techniques. Savoring and shadows of "visual poetry" are the greatest features of Zhang Yuan Fang’s art. His work ‘How long has it been to have a night rain in my hometown’ illustrates these characteristics well. Western people who are well aware of romantic art can feel picturesque beauty in this work while sensitive Chinese can find the sentiment of Dong Yuan(董源) and Mi Fu (米芾) [u1] of Song Dynasty.

Besides, Zhang Wen Fan likes another technique of poetry. He delivers rambling impressions of the travel by overlapping dark color shards, color points and sharp lines over each other with the use of collage techniques. in addition, he forms the images anew by taking out the impulses and emotions of daily life from time and space already disappeared. This technique expresses the will of the mind directly, which is closest to the characteristics of modern poetry and music.

Zhang Wen Fan's work is a dialogue between eyes and mind. Mind always demands message of flow, freedom and leap. Mind can obtain satisfaction only when it moves. Comparing poetry and music with painting, Su Dong Po (苏东坡) of Song dynasty said that achievements of calligraphy and painting depend on form but, when there is form, there is evil. The things that we have seen or we have recorded through our both hands cannot but have forms or traces, which is quite paradoxical. As Zhang Wen Fan is deeply aware of this paradox, he has constantly made adjustments between motion and stillness and between eyes and mind. In his ‘山行漫记’ series, stationary pieces and full colors unrestricted by surrounding lines harmonize with each other. Dark black suggests a space where freedom flows while pieces of simple colors add to the magnificence of the images. But in ‘유기’ series, violently moving lines and straight color pieces shine in harmony with each other. Using these techniques, he suggests the traces of memory and life to us.