Write as you are, and draw as you are. A work like a mirror is the overall reflection of the artist's image temperament and sentiment cultivation, and it is a natural law that anyone can't live without. Zhao Xing is sincere inside and outside, especially so.
Having been in contact with Zhaoxing for many years, I feel that his most precious thing is not to be affected. Reflected in the works, it is particularly simple, rich in background, natural and meaningful.
Zhao Xing is only good at printmaking, and he entered several colleges and universities. Chinese painting and oil painting are complementary in many techniques, and prints are becoming more and more colorful. However, he never left his clan, and his indigenous color remained the same.
In the face of ignorance, Zhao Xing's study of art is childlike, and he is often in the best mental state of being indifferent to Zhi Ming, quiet and far-reaching. Zhaoxing will surely enter a higher artistic realm from this! -Comment on Cheng Zhaoxing's ink painting art..
Sun mingdao
"Parody" or "ridicule", as a common technique of modern and post-modern art, has been interpreted to a high level by some masters. As a symbol of traditional painting, Chinese painting has encountered some impacts from contemporary art, including modern ink and wash, but parody and ridicule with deconstructive nature have not really happened. On the one hand, for a Chinese painting system with self-improvement and development function, its tradition of "ink play" and "allegory", its rigorous and broad artistic language including "pen and ink", and its denial and tolerance of creative ideas including rebellious spirit all make it parody or ridicule. But the main reason is that the main contradiction of Chinese painting-the artistic purport of modern ink painting art is not to destroy the tradition of Chinese painting. The original artistic intention of some modern ink painting masters is just to break away from the shackles of Chinese painting in thought and expression and try to open up another road of ink painting art that adapts to modern life. In this way, seemingly unconventional Chinese painting and modern ink painting are actually two parallel artistic routes. Therefore, the pressure of parody or ridicule of Chinese painting does not come from the sincere rebellion of modern ink painting, but from the sincere reference of modern ink painting to Chinese painting. This can be seen in Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing's ink painting art. Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing is not only a modern ink painting artist, but also a modern artist with modern artistic concepts and outstanding achievements in other painting fields. He is engaged in printmaking and oil painting, and is famous for his profound thoughts and cutting-edge expression techniques. His academic art education is also modern in the west, which determines the artistic starting point and style of his ink painting creation.
Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing's ink and wash creation began around the' 85 new wave. At that time, not only China modern painters such as Shilu and Li Shinan, but also western modern artists such as Colehuizhi, Monk, Cezanne and Su Ding had an influence on his artistic concept. He is concerned with the modernity of art, not the aesthetics of pen and ink. He once lamented: "German expressionism is too similar to our expressive ink painting." This pursuit of artistic concept rather than formal aesthetics, as the motive force of his artistic existence, has continued to this day.
Chinese painting is not only a cultural concept, but also an artistic spirit concept; It is not only a style concept, but also a style aesthetic concept. This determines that the concept of Chinese painting is relatively conservative and the form is standardized. Therefore, when some artists try to break through this conservatism and norm, their art presents a face beyond the concept of Chinese painting. This is so-called modern ink painting. The concept of modern ink painting is open and inclusive. On the surface, this openness and inclusiveness make Chinese painting a special form of ink painting. But in fact, the "pan-cultural" significance of modern ink painting, as well as its emphasis on concepts and relative indifference to formal beauty, make it unable to coordinate with Chinese painting in spirit and aesthetics.
Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing did not focus on the difference between modern ink painting and Chinese painting, but devoted himself to the communication between them after several years of exploration. He put Cezanne's body and face; Su Ding introduced the passion of using pen into his ink painting, and at the same time drew lessons from Huang's factors in language and form. That's because after years of practice in ink painting, he found that ink painting created in Cezanne and Sudin's format "lacks roots and a breakthrough point". In this way, it has become a breakthrough point and a channel for Huang He to enter the tradition.
Like many modern ink and wash artists, Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing's ink and wash art is based on the concept of western modern art, and even takes the form of western modern art. Until the 1990s, he also created a series of modern ink and wash paintings with strange shapes and culture questioning nature. The mention of "tradition" in his ink and wash works happened after 2000. This kind of reference first appeared in his "writing" of "landscape sketch", and then gradually extended this unique "writing" to "figure painting" and "landscape painting", and even extended to his current ink works with the theme of the Yellow River. "Writing" is a main line of Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing's ink painting art from modern ink painting to "tradition". It can be seen from his creation that his ink and wash works gradually learn from and accept Huang's artistic language from his understanding of "writing".
In fact, the modern significance of Huang as the last peak of classical landscape is mainly reflected in his further exploration and development of the abstraction and lyricism of pen and ink language. Since the Song Dynasty, Chinese painting has developed in the direction of modernity with independent pen and ink. But there is an important "classical norm" in this modern development, which is the so-called "calligraphy pen". Modern Chinese painting inherits the pen and ink norms of classical Chinese painting, and at the same time extends the classical calligraphy pen of classical painting to the modern calligraphy pen of modern painting. In this way, there are actually two standards for the modernity of Chinese painting and modern ink painting. The former pursues modernity with the modernization of pen and ink language, while the latter pursues spiritual modernity in addition to the modernization of pen and ink tradition. This is another reason why I mentioned earlier that modern artistic techniques such as parody and ridicule are lacking between Chinese painting and modern ink painting.
Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing entered the field of Chinese painting from the perspective of modern ink and wash, and the "pen and ink" and "calligraphy pen" of Chinese painting became an unavoidable artistic blank. Either "calligraphy" is transformed into the traditional mode of Chinese painting, or the "modern" concept of modern ink painting is maintained and the "calligraphy" brush of Chinese painting is transformed. He chose the latter, and extracted a language form-"writing" which was integrated with modern ink painting from the calligraphy of Chinese painting. Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing walked into Huang's artistic world with a "pen" instead of a traditional calligraphy pen.
China's calligraphy itself contains traditional and modern factors, just like the calligraphy pen used in Chinese painting. The tradition of China's calligraphy is embodied in the aesthetic mode, and the modernity is embodied in "writing". The contradiction between writing and aesthetics has long been recognized. Su Dongpo said: "Being drunk is a bald man, chasing the world and calling himself a calligrapher. Have you ever dreamed of kings and clocks? " That is, the calligraphy aesthetics denies the writing of Zhang and Su's calligraphy. Han Yu said: "Xihe folk calligraphy is charming", which denied the aesthetics of Xihe calligraphy with his writing style. As far as the aesthetics and writing of calligraphy pens are concerned, modern art, including modern ink and wash, which pays attention to expression, undoubtedly tends to the latter. Therefore, Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing entered the world of Huang with a "writing" pen instead of calligraphy, which is consistent with his exploration of modern ink painting for many years. At the same time, it also makes his works of this kind present a postmodern parody. When imitating Huang has become a major landscape in contemporary China painting circles, the modern significance of Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing's parody of Huang and the teasing interest generated by parody have also emerged. By stripping the aesthetic and even spiritual connotation of Chinese painting language, the so-called "calligraphy pen" only presents the shell of "writing", thus causing "ridicule" to the present situation of contemporary Chinese painting without spiritual connotation.
It has been nearly 30 years since the emergence and development of modern ink painting. During this period, some works have tried to subvert Chinese painting in language or form, but none of them have put pressure on the development of Chinese painting. Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing has been engaged in ink painting for more than twenty years. His artistic thoughts are complex and his artistic features are diverse. Whether his ink painting art can return to the tradition of Chinese painting, and whether the "writing" in his ink painting can enter the calligraphy pen are all suspense for those who pay attention to his art. My essay, which starts from the contradiction between Chinese painting and modern ink painting, may be biased towards the whole picture of Mr. Cheng Zhaoxing's ink painting art, and the paradox remains to be seen.