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The transformation of Western art from figuration to abstraction

The figurative stage pursues "imitation as it should be." I only need to mention one thing here: "Imitation" is not imitation in English, but mimesis in Latin. This word first refers to the babbling of young children. Probably the learning language of Westerners is not "baiya" but "mim". , so it’s called mime-sis. "According to how it should be" means according to what the ideal or concept should be. In the Marxist theory of literature and art originated from the former Soviet Union, "imitation" is called "from life", "as it should be" is called "higher than life", and another expression of imitation, the "mirror theory", is It became "reflection theory". To put it bluntly, "imitate as it should be" means to be both like and perfect.

For hand-made art, perfection first requires a good-looking image, and secondly requires fine workmanship (marble and white marble have become the materials for Chinese and Western stone carvings respectively because they better meet the requirements for fine workmanship. Ceramics It was replaced by porcelain because the latter was more refined). The French word Beaux-Arts, which originated in the seventeenth century, emphasizes good looks. The French word beau (x) is beautiful in English. But English did not use the term beautiful-arts, but chose Fine-Arts. The word Fine does not mean "beautiful" in English, but "fine", and it also means "fine" in French. The Chinese word "art" comes from French Beaux-Arts rather than English Fine-Arts. If it comes from English, then all the art academies in China have not even taught "art" for a day, only rough-art. , that is, rough art. The painting method taught by Chinese art majors is the painting method after Delacroix, the standard of fine-arts. This painting method is definitely not fine but rough, so much so that it was called massacre de peinture at the time ( French for "massacre of painting").

Before Delacroix, Western paintings pursued resemblance (imitation), precision and beauty, which was consistent with the pursuit of Chinese gongbi painting. Delacroix first abandoned fineness and precision guaranteed by fineness from theory to practice. He said: "Many painters, in their works, do everything possible not to express brushstrokes, but blindly pursue outlines. The reason is that they believe There are no brushstrokes in nature; but how can outlines exist?” At the same time, he also emphasized the “musicality” of the formal elements of painting: “This effect consists of a certain color arrangement, the conversion of light and dark, that is, it is caused by It can be called the music created by the painting." In order to support this "music theory", he called music "the greatest of art" and questioned the "imitation theory" based on the non-imitation of music.

Getting rid of the constraints of form and giving up the pursuit of precision is undoubtedly a manifestation of the subjectification of visual art. It is also the beginning of the end of craftsman art + didactic art history for illiterate audiences (pictographs are words for illiterate people, and hieroglyphics are is the best evidence). This period of art history lasted much longer in the West than in China. The reason is that the West did not have convenient materials such as silk and paper and literati as the subjects of creation and appreciation. Today, it is impossible for Chinese people living in backward China to discover that "dancing with writing and ink" was once a Chinese cultural privilege, because China has silk and paper and a large number of "literate and hyphenated" groups created by these two materials (parchment) This kind of expensive material can only be used to copy the most important reading material (the Bible) and create a few literate clergy); it is also impossible to imagine that the Renaissance master (master, great master) respected by the advanced West is "plugged in" The top masters and craftsmen of the medieval handicraft workshop "The Wings of Science", the so-called master piece is not a "masterpiece", but the "master's work", and the painter is not a "painter" but a "painter", even the tools It is not a paintbrush but a painter's brush, and the paint knife is a painter's scraper to scrape the mud (woodblock Tanpaila first requires scraping the mud with a cloth, and later evolved into oil painting with a base on linen), the so-called "studio" Just a medieval handicraft workshop.

I don’t know whether painter Delacroix used a “trowel knife” in “The Massacre of Painting”, but Courbet definitely turned the “trowel knife” into a “painting knife” It was Delacroix who inherited and carried forward Delacroix's "massacre of painting".

If the history of modern Western art can be divided into modernity and postmodernity, then the entire modern era is a continuous de-figuration through the continuous "massacre of painting". The importance of Cézanne and Picasso lies precisely in the fact that they respectively established Non-representational theory and practice are diametrically opposed to representation. The significance of Van Gogh lies in the fact that he actually evolved Delacroix's "Music Theory" into expressive color composition, and its expressiveness was thoroughly influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Pollock. Advancing, its color composition, together with the geometric composition of Cézanne and Picasso, leads to the so-called "hot abstraction" and "cold abstraction". Therefore, whether it is "hot abstraction" or "cold abstraction", both can be found in the work. We can see the shadow of Delacroix's "Music Theory" in the title: both abstract works like to be titled with composition number. This word means "composition" in Spanish, and it translates to "composition x number". Maybe It's because the translator didn't know or didn't pay attention to the huge influence of "music theory" on the non-reflection of modern art.

The road of abstract art in China

The "describing the spirit with form" proposed by Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty of China is actually very close to the ancient Greek "imitation as it should be", that is, both Solve similar problems without copying nature. The difference is that the former emphasizes the activity of God as an object, while the latter emphasizes the physical perfection of the object. However, Gu Kaizhi's "Theory of Form and Spirit" uses the word "write" (to describe spirit with form), which represents the rapid expansion of the literate class after the invention of papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and began to end the early art history of illiterate painters + illiterate audiences. Illiterate painters or painters can only draw (paint) but not "write" (word). Only the literate class can "write". This word "writing" has been continuously used and consolidated by Gu's later painting theories, such as "writing form with form" (Zong Bing), "writing with transfer and imitation" (Xie He), "writing the vertical and horizontal directions of landscape" (Emperor Yuan), "writing with form" (Zong Bing), "writing with form" (Xie He) "Writing scenery hundreds of thousands of miles away" (Wang Wei), and terms such as "writing bamboo", "freehand brushwork" and "sketching from life" appeared, and even the imported Western painting methods were also labeled as "sketch", "realism", etc. .

The "writing" of the literate and hyphenated people will certainly not be like that of the illiterate painters and Western illiterate "painters" who pursue resemblance, good-looking and exquisiteness on ready-made themes, because these are not "written" Purpose. The purpose of "writing" is to express the thoughts, concepts, feelings, etc. of the writing subject, and to express the writing subject's "magnificent thoughts" and "spiritual spirit" (Wang Wei), which is to "free the mind" rather than "write the form with form" . Therefore, when craftsman-style concrete realism developed to the level of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" in the Song Dynasty, the criticism of "discussing paintings based on shape, seeing and seeing children" (Su Shi) came, and the "artistic conception of "poetry in the painting" came "Shuo" emerged. At the same time, the exploration of artistic conception in Tang poetry and Song lyrics also provided necessary conditions and aesthetic values. The "artistic conception theory" obviously puts more emphasis on the subjectivity of painting. "Ide" itself represents the subject of creation, but this kind of subject is the same as the object "context" and is restricted by it, not a subject who can do whatever he wants.

The artistic proposition and pursuit of following one's heart is fully reflected in what Ni Zan of the Yuan Dynasty said: "The servant is called a painter, but he writes carelessly, does not seek resemblance, and just chats to entertain himself" and " The remaining bamboos are used to express the joy in the chest." What he said, "painting is the next best thing to writing," clearly illustrates that "painting" means "writing" and "writing" means expressing oneself. However, due to the recognizability of "writing" itself, "Xi Xin" cannot completely exclude "shape resemblance" and become completely non-concrete. Chinese cursive script is also restricted by the recognizability of "writing" and cannot become the so-called "resemblance". Abstract calligraphy”. Therefore, "between likeness and dissimilarity" has become the unbreakable bottom line of Chinese painting. If it is too similar, it is not "writing" but "painting", which is a matter for illiterate painters; dissimilarity violates the principle of recognition of "writing" , then it’s not “writing” but “painting”.

In fact, the "writing" quality of Chinese painting has been fully reflected and fully discussed in the "Six Methods" proposed by Xie He. Among the "six methods", there are "four methods" that are suitable for both calligraphy and painting. The only ones that are suitable for painting are "response to the image of objects" and "according to the category". The most important first method, "vivid charm" and "ancient brush use" are definitely the same rules as calligraphy. In addition, there is the word "write" in the "transfer and transfer model writing" mentioned earlier. As for Chinese calligraphy and painting, they all start from copying. They all write by remembering the form (having a confident mind) rather than observing and recording (sketching). They all leave ink on the blank instead of modeling on the background color. It is precisely because of this "writing" quality that the value of Chinese stone tablets is higher than that of stone statues (whether they are Chinese stone statues or Western paintings and stone statues, they are basically visual codes provided by craftsmen or masters for illiterate audiences).

The long-term tradition of "writing", the strong values ??of "writing" and the prescriptive nature of "writing" have enabled Chinese artists to watch Castiglione and Pollock break through the "too similar" and "not the same" "Like" these two boundaries, but I only choose Western varieties that suit the taste of Chinese pen and ink. The ones before Delacroix were "too similar" and were "foreign gongbi" with craftsmanship, which is not necessary; the ones after Picasso were "not similar" and were "foreign deceptions" that did not have the recognizability of "writing", also No; between the two is the "foreign freehand brushwork" between "similarity and dissimilarity". Therefore, the Xu Beihong-Su style system is actually the Western painting version of this "Qi Baishi compromise". Together they can be called "Qi Baishi-Xu Beihong compromise", or "Qi Xu compromise" for short.

This "Qi-Xu compromise" system has been convincingly embodied in the exclusive absorption of Western paintings by Qing Dynasty painter Zou Yigui and contemporary painter Wu Guanzhong. Zou Yigui advocated "similarity in form" and "intelligence through subtleties", and criticized Su Shi by name and name for "taking similarity in form as wrong", "just saying that it is acceptable to outsiders". The Western oil paintings he saw at that time were in line with his idea of ??"paying attention to detail" and could play a role in "waking up" and preventing beginners from going astray by "taking the appearance as different". However, because it does not meet the rules of "writing" ("but there is no writing skills"), although it has the advantage of meticulous workmanship, it is also infected with the problem of craftsmanship, so it cannot be regarded as a good work ("Although the craftsman is also a craftsman, Therefore, it is not included in paintings"). Here, Zou Yigui obviously regarded the Western paintings at that time as "foreign fine brushwork" with craftsmanship. If the work he saw was the "foreign freehand brushwork" of Delacroix's painting method, he could not say that "the brushwork was completely lost". At most I just want to say that Western painting techniques are different from my Chinese ones. Later practice proved that Chinese artists did appreciate and even worship the foreign brushwork pioneered by Delacroix. Wu Guanzhong is a famous "formalist" in Chinese contemporary art. He opposes "contentism" in which content determines form and form serves content. Therefore, he fully affirmed the artistic value of Pollock's pure form and incorporated it into his own artistic practice. Forming a Pollock style "between similarity and dissimilarity".

It is young artists who have taken the step towards complete non-representation, breaking the recognizability of "writing" regulations. This late breakthrough was both difficult and easy. The difficult thing is that the Qi-Xu compromise system supported by the old and new traditions is strong and solid, and breakthrough is not easy; the easy thing is that the thousand-year experience of "brush and ink" in Chinese calligraphy and painting and the "brushstroke" experience of oil painting introduced, digested, and absorbed on this basis have enabled Chinese artists to Have good artistic sense and ability to grasp the sense of proportion in the creation of "Abstract Ink Painting" and "Abstract Oil Painting". But as the resistance of old habits gradually weakened, the familiarity of brushstrokes made Chinese artists relatively slow in the non-figurative aspects of smooth materials and non-figurative geometric compositions, making the sense of handiwork always outweigh the sense of industry in their works. Of course, the theoretical and practical strength of global figurative symbolic works including ready-mades, performances, etc. has also largely weakened the exploration of non-figurative fields by Chinese and even global artists: the combination of purely formal elements seems to It has become a designer’s patent.

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