?殷雙喜
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在中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的整體圖景中，朝戈是一位有著執(zhí)著信念與理想的藝術(shù)家，他以堅(jiān)定的意志、獨(dú)到的見(jiàn)解和持續(xù)的工作，確立了自己的獨(dú)特風(fēng)格。就我所知，許多中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)史的研究者在相關(guān)藝術(shù)史的寫(xiě)作中，都十分關(guān)注這位畫(huà)家和他的藝術(shù)。
一、人性的關(guān)懷
藝術(shù)是走向神圣超越的途徑，是向人類(lèi)啟示存在的真理，藝術(shù)家處在人與諸神之間，他用民族的語(yǔ)言表達(dá)“詩(shī)”的本質(zhì)。朝戈對(duì)藝術(shù)的態(tài)度具有宗教般的信念與虔誠(chéng)，他認(rèn)為藝術(shù)應(yīng)該對(duì)人類(lèi)的精神生活有所貢獻(xiàn)，應(yīng)該是當(dāng)代人生活現(xiàn)實(shí)中不可缺少的精神維生素，而不是生活的裝飾和居室的點(diǎn)綴，或一種謀生的技巧。在當(dāng)代世界的背景下，朝戈的藝術(shù)方位就是尋找與發(fā)掘人類(lèi)曾經(jīng)有過(guò)的重要的人性的價(jià)值，以獨(dú)特的視覺(jué)方式呈現(xiàn)出一個(gè)時(shí)代和一個(gè)民族的精神發(fā)展史。
朝戈在中國(guó)畫(huà)壇的聲譽(yù)建立在20世紀(jì)80年代后期，這是中國(guó)美術(shù)在面向西方開(kāi)放后的一個(gè)劇烈變革時(shí)期，受到西方現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)的影響，中國(guó)各地的青年藝術(shù)家以群體的方式，組織展覽活動(dòng)，對(duì)中國(guó)既有的主流展覽模式和具有很強(qiáng)意識(shí)形態(tài)特征和宣傳性質(zhì)的藝術(shù)體系是一個(gè)巨大的沖擊。
處在這樣的時(shí)代藝術(shù)潮流中，朝戈堅(jiān)守在架上繪畫(huà)的領(lǐng)域里，開(kāi)始了對(duì)真正意義上的油畫(huà)本體語(yǔ)言的研究，他和同時(shí)代的一批學(xué)院里的畫(huà)家被視為中國(guó)“新古典主義”的代表畫(huà)家。按照一些學(xué)者的解釋，“新古典主義”畫(huà)家是以西方古典主義的油畫(huà)語(yǔ)言作為研究對(duì)象，歌頌人性的純真，強(qiáng)調(diào)語(yǔ)言的完美，與社會(huì)現(xiàn)實(shí)保持著一定的距離，以優(yōu)雅的形象特別是青年女性的優(yōu)美形象表達(dá)一種對(duì)于人性的浪漫想象。在一定程度上，朝戈被劃入這個(gè)群體有其合理因素，因?yàn)樗囊恍┚哂醒芯啃缘娜梭w藝術(shù)作品，如《坐在椅子上的女人體》，被視為新古典主義畫(huà)家群體中最具有代表性的語(yǔ)言典范。但是朝戈的作品從一開(kāi)始就不是中產(chǎn)階級(jí)的休閑優(yōu)雅的消遣品，他所關(guān)注的是人性與時(shí)代的遭遇所發(fā)生的變異，這與那些描繪舒適慵懶的室內(nèi)女性的寫(xiě)實(shí)繪畫(huà)有根本的區(qū)別。
80年代后期他創(chuàng)作了油畫(huà)《大氣》，這幅作品的浪漫和舒展，代表了那個(gè)時(shí)代中國(guó)整體的開(kāi)放與人性的蘇醒。朝戈在作品中表達(dá)了一種宏大的存在，希望在空氣中顫動(dòng)，女性人體如同德拉克羅瓦《自由引導(dǎo)人民》一畫(huà)中的自由女神，以一種象征性的姿態(tài)展現(xiàn)了人性的勝利。朝戈一直把自己的藝術(shù)和他所經(jīng)歷的時(shí)代的某種真實(shí)的存在聯(lián)系在一起，藝術(shù)的困難就在于它必須與那個(gè)時(shí)代所產(chǎn)生的思想感情，以及那種莫名的、難以捉摸的情緒以及一種精神本質(zhì)聯(lián)系在一起。朝戈的作品為這一目的做出了極大的努力，從而獲得了一種沉著的歷史感。千百年來(lái)人們?yōu)樗囆g(shù)所作的不屈不撓的努力是為了什么呢？就是為了保存某種記憶，某種自己生存經(jīng)驗(yàn)中最為感人的價(jià)值和感情。
朝戈認(rèn)為“在這個(gè)時(shí)代最深刻的人類(lèi)變遷是人們正在迅速地失去人的內(nèi)在價(jià)值感。當(dāng)代藝術(shù)對(duì)此的反映為，把因價(jià)值危機(jī)而出現(xiàn)的種種畸態(tài)的藝術(shù)作為對(duì)現(xiàn)實(shí)的回應(yīng)。其實(shí)我認(rèn)為這個(gè)現(xiàn)實(shí)真正需要的是正面地堅(jiān)持內(nèi)在價(jià)值的人與具有這種崇敬感的藝術(shù)，對(duì)人類(lèi)的某種寶貴精神的持守與升華。這是面對(duì)世俗大潮的最具挑戰(zhàn)性的回應(yīng)”。事實(shí)上，亙古以來(lái)世界諸文明所擁有的一些人類(lèi)基本價(jià)值是共同的，當(dāng)代生活中的各種人類(lèi)危機(jī)，正是這種價(jià)值丟失的反映。
面對(duì)正在迅速物化的世界，我們深切地感覺(jué)到，文學(xué)藝術(shù)所關(guān)心的“人”，現(xiàn)在正在發(fā)生著明顯的變化。人性中本身具備的重要品質(zhì)在淡化和消失，或被人們輕視和嘲弄，而人性中的某些弱點(diǎn)，卻被無(wú)限地刺激、放大與被欣賞。當(dāng)代人“像處在干涸的沙漠中的生物面臨荒漠和孤立”。朝戈將藝術(shù)定位于探索人們的精神生活以及它與人的日常欲望的沖突，他在作品中尋找繪畫(huà)的持久存在與人性的精神，選擇并實(shí)踐持久精練的造型方式。他所探求的是人類(lèi)有史以來(lái)具有支撐作用的那種人文精神理念，這使他在當(dāng)代藝術(shù)中成為知音甚少的精神守望者。
90年代初朝戈創(chuàng)作了《敏感者》、《西部》、《兩個(gè)人》、《靠墻的人》、《年輕的面孔》等作品。這些人物帶有某種真理追求者的烙印，他們代表的是一些真正具有心靈生活的人。在這些作品中，最具有代表性的是《敏感者》，這件作品敏銳而又有力地表達(dá)了那個(gè)時(shí)期中國(guó)社會(huì)迅速的變化所帶給普通人的強(qiáng)烈的心理失衡與文化震驚。朝戈由此開(kāi)拓了中國(guó)當(dāng)代繪畫(huà)中具有心理研究與表現(xiàn)主義性質(zhì)的繪畫(huà)道路，他的作品影響了一些更為年輕的青年畫(huà)家，如毛焰所描繪的一些知識(shí)分子的肖像性作品，而此時(shí)有關(guān)英國(guó)畫(huà)家弗洛伊德的心理性表現(xiàn)風(fēng)格才剛剛為一些青年畫(huà)家所了解。與弗洛伊德不同，朝戈沒(méi)有以表現(xiàn)主義的粗獷筆觸來(lái)獲得表層的視覺(jué)震撼，而是逐漸發(fā)展出一種屬于自己的含蓄語(yǔ)言，在進(jìn)行了深入的構(gòu)圖研究后，他在畫(huà)面上以一種平面性的推延手法，將復(fù)雜微妙的色彩從局部擴(kuò)展至整體畫(huà)面，其中的色彩傾向與感官性很強(qiáng)的西方近現(xiàn)代油畫(huà)很不相同，具有古典壁畫(huà)的沉穩(wěn)與內(nèi)斂氣質(zhì)。
90年代朝戈的作品對(duì)現(xiàn)實(shí)生活有很強(qiáng)的干預(yù)性，他描寫(xiě)知識(shí)分子的特性，作品具有對(duì)觀眾心靈的沖擊力，但他后來(lái)轉(zhuǎn)換了思路，因?yàn)樗J(rèn)為人還是要有信念。當(dāng)代藝術(shù)中有一種及時(shí)行樂(lè)的取向，這是對(duì)人的精神世界的極大損害。藝術(shù)畢竟是人類(lèi)精神生活的高級(jí)方式，應(yīng)是持久的，它使人類(lèi)的精神生活延長(zhǎng)。西方當(dāng)代優(yōu)秀的藝術(shù)家內(nèi)心深處也是非常孤寂的，中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)也受到影響，它已經(jīng)找不到來(lái)自自然、來(lái)自人類(lèi)生活或是其他任何方向的精神慰藉了。
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二、歷史的文脈
朝戈的藝術(shù)發(fā)展有兩個(gè)重要的時(shí)期，一個(gè)是90年代初期，他在國(guó)內(nèi)比較早地發(fā)展出一種表現(xiàn)主義與心理分析的繪畫(huà)，他用獨(dú)特的藝術(shù)表達(dá)打開(kāi)了人的內(nèi)部情感世界，他的藝術(shù)語(yǔ)言在當(dāng)時(shí)的中國(guó)油畫(huà)發(fā)展過(guò)程中產(chǎn)生了很大的影響，在中國(guó)的美術(shù)院校中，刊載有朝戈作品的《美術(shù)研究》等專業(yè)雜志，成為青年學(xué)生重要的參考資料。著名版畫(huà)家廣軍先生認(rèn)為朝戈啟發(fā)了很多人，許多青年畫(huà)家從朝戈那里學(xué)到很多。而當(dāng)代一些優(yōu)秀的青年畫(huà)家都臨摹過(guò)朝戈的畫(huà)，他們共同的特點(diǎn)是強(qiáng)調(diào)油畫(huà)作為一種傳統(tǒng)繪畫(huà)對(duì)于畫(huà)家的心、手相應(yīng)的表現(xiàn)性要求。
雖然置身于當(dāng)代藝術(shù)之中，甚至在90年代一度成為青年藝術(shù)家研究和模仿的對(duì)象，但朝戈對(duì)某些當(dāng)代藝術(shù)卻有尖銳的批評(píng)。他認(rèn)為20世紀(jì)的一百年有許多畸形發(fā)展的東西，人們過(guò)度強(qiáng)調(diào)了藝術(shù)的形式可能性，不斷追求新的媒介和新的表達(dá)方式，但是漸漸地遺忘了藝術(shù)在人類(lèi)早期的作用，即藝術(shù)是人類(lèi)心靈的最高成就。這一點(diǎn)在古代藝術(shù)中一直是傳承不息的，在當(dāng)代，這些藝術(shù)逐漸被遺忘了。90年代后期，朝戈進(jìn)入了一個(gè)相對(duì)沉靜的反思期，他對(duì)自己的那些具有很強(qiáng)表現(xiàn)主義色彩的創(chuàng)作有了新的自我評(píng)價(jià)，希望通過(guò)個(gè)體的感受方式，進(jìn)入更為廣闊的整體性人類(lèi)精神狀態(tài)的表達(dá)。為此，朝戈多次到歐洲進(jìn)行考察與訪學(xué)，重點(diǎn)在于探尋歐洲藝術(shù)的精神源頭，特別是歐洲文藝復(fù)興時(shí)期的藝術(shù)與埃及藝術(shù)的精神聯(lián)系。這種考察研究確立了朝戈的信念，即西方人文主義繪畫(huà)的源頭可以從更為早期的埃及藝術(shù)中獲得一種宗教性的基因。朝戈試圖逆流而上，重新發(fā)現(xiàn)傳統(tǒng)，面對(duì)時(shí)代問(wèn)題，使人類(lèi)早期藝術(shù)的樸素價(jià)值得到再生。應(yīng)該說(shuō)，在中國(guó)當(dāng)代畫(huà)家中這樣做的人是很少的，中心的問(wèn)題是：當(dāng)代人強(qiáng)調(diào)夸大個(gè)性，使藝術(shù)更加瑣碎，成為個(gè)人的日常生活斷片的表達(dá)，許多人不再關(guān)心廣闊的人類(lèi)價(jià)值，而認(rèn)為個(gè)人日常生活體驗(yàn)就可以代替人類(lèi)的整體性反思。
在世界藝術(shù)的歷史傳統(tǒng)中，朝戈更重視有東方特點(diǎn)的藝術(shù)，如埃及藝術(shù)、早期希臘藝術(shù)和文藝復(fù)興早期的藝術(shù)。東方繪畫(huà)對(duì)朝戈的啟發(fā)，是更加強(qiáng)調(diào)造型，讓造型說(shuō)話。檢視藝術(shù)史，我們可以看到，造型在藝術(shù)史中起著骨干作用，埃及藝術(shù)使朝戈感動(dòng)的主要因素是造型——具有巨大象征力量的造型，而當(dāng)代一些藝術(shù)家更為關(guān)注視覺(jué)符號(hào)的隱喻。也許有人會(huì)以此將朝戈劃歸為較為傳統(tǒng)的藝術(shù)家，但是這樣就誤讀了朝戈，朝戈的藝術(shù)不是舊的藝術(shù)，也不是一味考古、摹古，他的藝術(shù)是對(duì)時(shí)代的回應(yīng)，是發(fā)自內(nèi)心的具有創(chuàng)造性的藝術(shù)。朝戈以一種不與時(shí)尚合流的獨(dú)特方式，在最為活躍的主流藝術(shù)的邊緣地帶，平靜地完成了一種對(duì)于現(xiàn)實(shí)生活的激進(jìn)表述。
朝戈的藝術(shù)在寫(xiě)生的基礎(chǔ)上具有很強(qiáng)的主觀表達(dá)的自由度，充分發(fā)揮了藝術(shù)的想象力，我將其稱之為“東方想象”。“東方想象”不同于“想象東方”，作為一位著名的中國(guó)藝術(shù)家，朝戈的“東方想象”，表現(xiàn)了他強(qiáng)烈的回歸藝術(shù)、確立自身而非“他者”的愿望。這種藝術(shù)強(qiáng)調(diào)個(gè)體的想象力與傳統(tǒng)藝術(shù)文脈的血緣關(guān)系，強(qiáng)調(diào)一種自由的藝術(shù)創(chuàng)造力，它也許是在西方強(qiáng)勢(shì)文化下的百年覺(jué)醒，是一種“東方既白”的自信與腳踏實(shí)地的藝術(shù)態(tài)度。經(jīng)歷了20世紀(jì)80年代以來(lái)西方藝術(shù)的涌入與洗禮，新一代中國(guó)藝術(shù)家開(kāi)始用更為獨(dú)立的眼光觀察急速變化的現(xiàn)實(shí)，中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)對(duì)西方的想象又回到了自身的文化情境中。
討論朝戈藝術(shù)中的沉思?xì)赓|(zhì)，不能忽視中國(guó)的人文地理因素對(duì)于他的藝術(shù)的深層次影響。有許多人把朝戈當(dāng)做蒙古族出身的畫(huà)家，但他實(shí)質(zhì)上是一個(gè)來(lái)自中國(guó)北方的畫(huà)家，確切地說(shuō)，他是一位深刻地表現(xiàn)了中國(guó)北方地理環(huán)境所賦予藝術(shù)家的內(nèi)在氣質(zhì)與精神的當(dāng)代畫(huà)家。朝戈在他的藝術(shù)中并不強(qiáng)調(diào)表層的地域色彩，例如在新中國(guó)繪畫(huà)中具有邊疆風(fēng)情性質(zhì)的少數(shù)民族題材的繪畫(huà)，朝戈強(qiáng)調(diào)的是地域產(chǎn)生的氣質(zhì)，而且他也不在繪畫(huà)中突出故事性的敘述，近五六年來(lái)朝戈更趨于強(qiáng)調(diào)普遍的人類(lèi)價(jià)值和思想。無(wú)疑，朝戈藝術(shù)中那種具有宏觀氣質(zhì)的構(gòu)圖與精神境界，來(lái)源于一個(gè)具有廣闊地域和曾經(jīng)超越民族國(guó)家的古老的蒙古民族的游牧氣質(zhì)與寬厚心靈，正是這種“文化游牧”的概念，在當(dāng)代世界的文化交流中具有無(wú)可代替的重要價(jià)值，也是我們超越民族國(guó)家的局限，探尋人類(lèi)共同精神理想的基礎(chǔ)。
對(duì)于藝術(shù)史的這種“游牧視野”，使朝戈的目光越過(guò)千年，凝視人類(lèi)古典文明的演進(jìn)軌跡。對(duì)任何民族而言，古典文明都是最重要的精神遺產(chǎn)，因?yàn)檫@里所保存的文化價(jià)值具有持久意義。在某種意義上，優(yōu)秀的古典藝術(shù)成為一個(gè)民族文化持續(xù)發(fā)展的文化基因，在它們的基礎(chǔ)上，可以生發(fā)出無(wú)窮無(wú)盡的新的藝術(shù)圖像。靠著不懈的研究，朝戈從中國(guó)的藝術(shù)中獲得了許多東西，特別是中國(guó)傳統(tǒng)的山水畫(huà)藝術(shù)。在中國(guó)的早期藝術(shù)中，宋代與元代的山水畫(huà)是打開(kāi)氣度、拓展格局的時(shí)期，這一時(shí)期的人對(duì)事物、自然有很好的感覺(jué)，比前人推進(jìn)得更多，像文藝復(fù)興早期的喬托那樣，在許多方面開(kāi)啟了一代風(fēng)氣。這一時(shí)期的代表性藝術(shù)，如西方文藝復(fù)興時(shí)期的幾位大師作品，氣勢(shì)磅礴。朝戈對(duì)中國(guó)傳統(tǒng)山水畫(huà)中的撼人氣勢(shì)和宏大視野深有感受，產(chǎn)生了強(qiáng)烈的共鳴。他注意到中國(guó)早期視覺(jué)藝術(shù)的巨大優(yōu)越性，即它不會(huì)被媒體時(shí)代的影像技術(shù)所取代。朝戈在創(chuàng)作中注意研究中國(guó)傳統(tǒng)藝術(shù)的內(nèi)在本質(zhì)，他的風(fēng)景畫(huà)與中國(guó)早期的山水畫(huà)具有某種關(guān)聯(lián)，這些山水畫(huà)具有很高的境界，大山大水，沉穩(wěn)寂靜，反映了中國(guó)古代畫(huà)家對(duì)自然的獨(dú)特態(tài)度。
自20世紀(jì)80年代起，朝戈畫(huà)了大量有關(guān)草原的素描與油畫(huà)，直接探求大自然給予人的心靈的豐富感受。他將廣闊的風(fēng)景與人類(lèi)思想史所具有的深邃底蘊(yùn)結(jié)合起來(lái)，表達(dá)了對(duì)大自然的崇敬這樣一種“神圣感”。由此，朝戈在中國(guó)當(dāng)代繪畫(huà)中確立了一種風(fēng)景畫(huà)的新模式，將風(fēng)景畫(huà)上升成為一種人文主義的象征性藝術(shù)。20多年來(lái)，朝戈的風(fēng)景畫(huà)實(shí)踐著重挖掘蒙古原野所特有的壯闊的地形地貌，以遼闊平遠(yuǎn)的構(gòu)圖表達(dá)了風(fēng)景中的歷史感，如《克魯倫的陽(yáng)光》中那壯闊寧?kù)o的原野、《鄂吉諾爾湖》中的優(yōu)美詩(shī)意、《故鄉(xiāng)之影》中的濃郁鄉(xiāng)情等等。他用風(fēng)景畫(huà)表達(dá)了蒙古民族對(duì)于它所生活的自然地貌的自豪、一種對(duì)土地山川的依戀與生存的聯(lián)系，從而在浪漫的詩(shī)意表達(dá)中滲透了歷史畫(huà)一般的凝重。
朝戈的風(fēng)景畫(huà)不同于西方的風(fēng)景畫(huà)，它并不以某一具體的地理地貌作為衡量的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。恰恰相反，朝戈從中國(guó)古代的著名山水畫(huà)作品中，獲得了一個(gè)民族的文化記憶，一種對(duì)自然的超功利的欣賞態(tài)度，一種具有宏觀氣勢(shì)的全景視野。與人物畫(huà)相比，朝戈的這些風(fēng)景畫(huà)更加單純，但更加氣勢(shì)撼人。在朝戈那里，風(fēng)景和人物本質(zhì)上是一樣的，都是一種心靈的抒發(fā)，只是人物更加精神化、理念化。他的風(fēng)景從北方的原野上看到了新的繪畫(huà)結(jié)構(gòu)，由北方的自然生發(fā)出新的藝術(shù)格局，在朝戈的風(fēng)景畫(huà)中，“時(shí)間”作為一種重要的因素得到了充分關(guān)注，這些風(fēng)景畫(huà)因?yàn)槠涓叨鹊母爬ㄅc主觀化的色彩表述，在寧?kù)o中獲得了一種永恒性。這使得朝戈的風(fēng)景畫(huà)超越了一般意義上的自然風(fēng)光，具有了歷史與心理的深度。
朝戈的藝術(shù)史觀是十分獨(dú)特的，他看到某些當(dāng)代藝術(shù)形式方面的膨脹與心靈方面的空洞并存。朝戈與某些時(shí)尚的當(dāng)代藝術(shù)保持著有尊嚴(yán)的距離，但這不等于朝戈脫離于我們的時(shí)代。其實(shí)朝戈也面臨著當(dāng)代的問(wèn)題，作為藝術(shù)家，他敏感地感受到當(dāng)代人，特別是知識(shí)分子在日常生活中普遍感到的精神的緊張與沖撞。可以這樣說(shuō)，朝戈的目標(biāo)不是恢復(fù)過(guò)去，而是經(jīng)典的再生。面對(duì)當(dāng)代人的危機(jī)，他要重新在古代文化中尋找那些對(duì)當(dāng)代人仍然有價(jià)值的東西，可以說(shuō)，這是一門(mén)視覺(jué)的“藝術(shù)考古學(xué)”。歷史上的復(fù)古大家往往是借古創(chuàng)新，從而在不追隨時(shí)尚的過(guò)程中創(chuàng)造新的潮流（例如中國(guó)文學(xué)史中唐代韓愈的古文運(yùn)動(dòng)）。
朝戈在近期的作品中，力圖恢復(fù)人類(lèi)早期藝術(shù)史上質(zhì)樸的、精神的、心靈的東西，這是他近期創(chuàng)作的重要轉(zhuǎn)變。朝戈在嚴(yán)格的形式中表現(xiàn)了他對(duì)于人的內(nèi)心分析與體驗(yàn)，其實(shí)早在90年代的《敏感者》一幅畫(huà)中，他就表現(xiàn)了對(duì)于具有人性價(jià)值的精神生活的渴望。這種具有心理分析特性的表達(dá)，成為朝戈極具個(gè)人特點(diǎn)的表現(xiàn)方法而延續(xù)至今。以《兩千年的兩個(gè)人》一畫(huà)為例，即使畫(huà)中的兩個(gè)人具有家庭的親情，也表現(xiàn)了相當(dāng)程度上的距離感，這正是朝戈所關(guān)注的，現(xiàn)代人為何在交通與通信條件十分發(fā)達(dá)的今天，反而覺(jué)得更加孤獨(dú)？朝戈作品中的人物都不同程度地具有某種緊張與不安，這是我們時(shí)代的普遍精神狀態(tài)的映射。朝戈的近期作品似乎回到了早期的平面性，在語(yǔ)言的平面化中卻加強(qiáng)了歷史的維度與精神的厚度。這看起來(lái)是矛盾的，埃及藝術(shù)雖然在平面上似乎有些刻板，但確實(shí)更具有精神性和宗教性，而立體化的希臘藝術(shù)卻日益具有世俗生活的現(xiàn)實(shí)性與人物的肉體感。
三、當(dāng)代的精神
90年代后期，朝戈的作品描寫(xiě)了時(shí)代的緊張，進(jìn)入到當(dāng)代社會(huì)的精神深處。雖然在早期，朝戈希望自己的藝術(shù)能夠成為時(shí)代的圖像記錄，他相信自己有能力表達(dá)正在發(fā)生的思想情感和形態(tài)，但是進(jìn)入新的千年，朝戈轉(zhuǎn)向了對(duì)永恒的思考，因?yàn)檫@個(gè)時(shí)代逐漸失去了對(duì)永恒的信念。這個(gè)時(shí)代的人為自己短暫的生命而活，如同我們?yōu)榻裉於睿@樣的價(jià)值觀帶來(lái)了緊張和貪婪。現(xiàn)代社會(huì)富裕的物質(zhì)生活、發(fā)達(dá)的醫(yī)療保障也許能延長(zhǎng)人的生理生命，但對(duì)物質(zhì)財(cái)富與名利的貪婪追求卻縮短了人的精神生命。當(dāng)代有不少人對(duì)于歷史、藝術(shù)和學(xué)術(shù)失去了沉潛求索的信心，但卻以藝術(shù)與科學(xué)的名義在阿諛?lè)畛小⑼媾獧?quán)術(shù)中攫取眼前的名利。朝戈對(duì)此避而遠(yuǎn)之，他多次謝絕擔(dān)任油畫(huà)系的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)，以便專注于自己的學(xué)術(shù)研究與藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作。他的近期作品如《橙色的人物》、《六月》、《譚》、《遠(yuǎn)方》不再是傳統(tǒng)意義上的肖像畫(huà)，不再?gòu)?qiáng)調(diào)瞬間的輝煌和經(jīng)驗(yàn)的斷片，而是試圖恢復(fù)人類(lèi)歷史上某些永恒的價(jià)值。當(dāng)代人過(guò)于強(qiáng)調(diào)現(xiàn)存的價(jià)值，縮短了精神價(jià)值，有些藝術(shù)家將片斷的經(jīng)驗(yàn)當(dāng)做全部，這樣做也許會(huì)出現(xiàn)大量的新鮮的可能性，但不是永遠(yuǎn)的激勵(lì)人心的生活。朝戈的作品追求永恒感，強(qiáng)調(diào)精神生活的升華，有很強(qiáng)的當(dāng)代性。
進(jìn)入新世紀(jì)，中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)中一個(gè)值得注意的傾向是流行藝術(shù)漸成主流，有相當(dāng)一批學(xué)院畢業(yè)的青年人，以雜志圖片、影像圖像為資源，以廣告藝術(shù)的方式生產(chǎn)平面化的、艷麗的青春圖像，成為快餐式的流行藝術(shù)，而朝戈以其敏銳深邃的藝術(shù)眼光轉(zhuǎn)向人類(lèi)的視覺(jué)文化史，走向了另一個(gè)精神維度。經(jīng)歷了歐洲的十國(guó)之行，朝戈的藝術(shù)觀念有了很大的變化，他重新比較當(dāng)代藝術(shù)與古代藝術(shù)，更加重視當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的精神性。他的藝術(shù)似乎又回到了80年代早期，那時(shí)他對(duì)文藝復(fù)興有很大興趣。特別是文藝復(fù)興早期的藝術(shù)，使他感悟到人類(lèi)有兩種藝術(shù)—視覺(jué)的藝術(shù)和視網(wǎng)膜的藝術(shù)。在朝戈那里，“視覺(jué)的藝術(shù)”是一種與人的心靈相聯(lián)系的藝術(shù)，而不是只有視網(wǎng)膜刺激的藝術(shù)。繪畫(huà)不僅僅是對(duì)自然的模仿，我們可以觀察到的繪畫(huà)有幾千年的歷史，但它基本上是表達(dá)人類(lèi)信仰的東西，依賴于人類(lèi)的信仰。西方藝術(shù)在進(jìn)入盛期以后，失去了它曾經(jīng)有過(guò)的重要價(jià)值。朝戈不再運(yùn)用油畫(huà)成熟期的語(yǔ)匯，而是回到早期繪畫(huà)的質(zhì)樸，反省人類(lèi)對(duì)待藝術(shù)的態(tài)度。朝戈試圖使繪畫(huà)回到純凈、回到人的精華思想感情。這一點(diǎn)和當(dāng)代的一些藝術(shù)家不一樣，他們過(guò)于驕縱，太強(qiáng)調(diào)自我，對(duì)自然與生命沒(méi)有敬畏之心，逐漸失去了藝術(shù)原有的令人肅然起敬的東西。朝戈熱愛(ài)歷史，他和歷史的共鳴是因?yàn)樗砩嫌邢嗨频臇|西，歷史對(duì)他有一種感應(yīng)力。但朝戈不是單純的學(xué)院書(shū)生式的愛(ài)好，他不想成為一個(gè)青年人眼中的“古董”，他努力避免大學(xué)教授考古式的泛文化的偏愛(ài)，深入發(fā)掘歷史與傳統(tǒng)，以現(xiàn)代人的眼光加以新的闡釋和解讀。朝戈的藝術(shù)是具有現(xiàn)代性的、簡(jiǎn)練的、屬于我們這個(gè)時(shí)代的中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)，它反映了“現(xiàn)代性”帶給中國(guó)知識(shí)分子的困惑以及與傳統(tǒng)價(jià)值的沖突，但是理解朝戈需要一些智力上的努力和對(duì)于人文主義傳統(tǒng)的了解。
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討論朝戈的藝術(shù)，不能回避他的作品與整個(gè)世界藝術(shù)的關(guān)系。當(dāng)代世界日益趨向于動(dòng)感，而朝戈的藝術(shù)則力圖回到靜態(tài)，這是一個(gè)巨大的反差。朝戈是主動(dòng)的、有針對(duì)性的，他的藝術(shù)有很強(qiáng)的主體意識(shí)，他在無(wú)意中以個(gè)人的堅(jiān)定信念與強(qiáng)大的時(shí)尚相頡頑，逆當(dāng)代的流行藝術(shù)而行，試圖重新發(fā)現(xiàn)人類(lèi)早期藝術(shù)的價(jià)值，超越民族文化而進(jìn)入普世思想。在語(yǔ)言上，朝戈不滿足于近代油畫(huà)的反光的視覺(jué)特性，他采用了具有壁畫(huà)特性的語(yǔ)言，更加肅穆，具有視覺(jué)的收斂感，在視覺(jué)的吸收中對(duì)話，有一種呼吸的感覺(jué)，而當(dāng)代的許多油畫(huà)則顯得過(guò)于宮廷化，如同華麗的臉譜，我們從中看不到畫(huà)家的內(nèi)在真誠(chéng)與對(duì)現(xiàn)實(shí)的直覺(jué)感受。
當(dāng)下中國(guó)市場(chǎng)上流行的古典寫(xiě)實(shí)繪畫(huà)受到缺乏藝術(shù)史修養(yǎng)的購(gòu)買(mǎi)者的追捧和投機(jī)者的炒作，而朝戈的藝術(shù)與已經(jīng)樣式化甚至肉欲化的寫(xiě)實(shí)繪畫(huà)不一樣，像《敏感者》就具有一種與時(shí)代的緊張關(guān)系。19世紀(jì)以來(lái)的學(xué)院派主要是自然主義，它不能進(jìn)入到當(dāng)代人的精神生活中去。這些藝術(shù)表達(dá)的大多是事物的外表，關(guān)心的是技巧和古典主義的樣式，雖然畫(huà)了少數(shù)民族、美女，但人物的整體力量很薄弱，與中國(guó)社會(huì)的發(fā)展沒(méi)有關(guān)系。而朝戈的繪畫(huà)則超越了學(xué)院主義，與俄羅斯藝術(shù)有相通之處，即具有悲劇性的因素和現(xiàn)代人的內(nèi)在緊張和痛苦。他采用了一些坦培拉的技法，將畫(huà)面的三度空間加以壓縮，使繪畫(huà)在平面性的結(jié)構(gòu)方面獲得了構(gòu)圖的嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)與力度。
有人認(rèn)為，在當(dāng)代多元化的藝術(shù)場(chǎng)景中，朝戈把自己的一元定在這個(gè)場(chǎng)景之外的歷史深處了，他的工作的意義已被從前的藝術(shù)所覆蓋。但是朝戈不這樣看，他認(rèn)為現(xiàn)在的藝術(shù)有許多強(qiáng)調(diào)新奇，我們可以看到囂張，但骨子里卻沒(méi)有底氣，而遠(yuǎn)古的藝術(shù)底氣十足，具有力度。他反對(duì)人的生活普遍的世俗化，貪婪與追求享受，為肉體和官能而活。朝戈的藝術(shù)不追求官能性而強(qiáng)調(diào)內(nèi)在的含蓄與樸素的表達(dá)。在2004年舉辦的“精神的維度”展覽上，有些觀眾看了朝戈的作品非常激動(dòng)，受到了很大的沖擊。總的說(shuō)來(lái)，朝戈在藝術(shù)中強(qiáng)調(diào)直覺(jué)，不喜歡道德的說(shuō)教。藝術(shù)就是藝術(shù)，當(dāng)代藝術(shù)家應(yīng)該具有獨(dú)立判斷的能力，這樣才可能進(jìn)入到人類(lèi)思考的前沿地帶。我們時(shí)代的藝術(shù)在表達(dá)危機(jī)、表達(dá)激烈的情緒方面很突出，它的典型特點(diǎn)是表現(xiàn)主義，但我們的時(shí)代是精神分裂、多樣復(fù)雜的時(shí)代，一個(gè)畫(huà)家僅僅有能力表達(dá)這一點(diǎn)是不夠的。朝戈近期的繪畫(huà)是對(duì)自我的新的挑戰(zhàn)，他試圖使非常遠(yuǎn)古的東西經(jīng)過(guò)他的視覺(jué)經(jīng)驗(yàn)得到復(fù)活，這是一個(gè)新的審美范疇，即樸素、莊嚴(yán)、肅穆。以教堂與超市為例，人類(lèi)生活有不同的需要，超市滿足人們的日常生活需要，但人類(lèi)還是有對(duì)精神生活的需要，有對(duì)信仰的需要。這個(gè)時(shí)代仍然需要一些藝術(shù)家，從事人類(lèi)精神生活的高端創(chuàng)造，而朝戈的藝術(shù)，就是那些喜愛(ài)他的繪畫(huà)、與他心有共鳴的觀眾的精神家園，他不僅為我們這個(gè)時(shí)代工作，也是為當(dāng)代人的心靈史而工作。
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2006年1月15日
殷雙喜藝術(shù)史博士、中央美術(shù)學(xué)院《美術(shù)研究》副主編，吳作人國(guó)際美術(shù)基金會(huì)學(xué)術(shù)部主任，中國(guó)當(dāng)代著名的藝術(shù)評(píng)論家與策展人。自1989年以來(lái)，先后參與策劃了中國(guó)現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)大展（1989，北京）、廣州首屆中國(guó)藝術(shù)雙年展（1992，廣州）、中國(guó)美術(shù)批評(píng)家提名展（油畫(huà)）（1994，北京）、世紀(jì)之門(mén)：中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)回顧展（2000，成都）、東方既白：20世紀(jì)中國(guó)繪畫(huà)展（2003，巴黎）、想象中國(guó)：中國(guó)當(dāng)代雕塑邀請(qǐng)展（2004，巴黎）、世紀(jì)與天堂：第3屆成都雙年展（2005，成都）、無(wú)盡江山：南北油畫(huà)邀請(qǐng)展（2006，北京）等。寫(xiě)作發(fā)表了大量有關(guān)中國(guó)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的論文與評(píng)論，現(xiàn)居北京。
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The Call of Remote Mountains: A Brief Comment of Chao Ge’s Art
Yin Shuangxi
In the whole picture of Chinese contemporary art, Chao Ge is an artist with a firm belief and ideals. Through his firm will, his own understanding and continuous efforts-making, he has established his unique style. As far as I know, many researchers on Chinese contemporary art history have given Chao Ge and his art enough attention in their writings.
I. Humanistic care
Art is a pathway to a holy and transcending state of spirit, and enlightens human beings the existence of truth. An artist usually lives between human beings and gods. He uses his national language to express the essence of “Poem”. Chao Ge’s attitude to art is as faithful and honest as a religion follower. He thinks that art should engage in human being’s spiritual life，should be as spiritual vitamin to people’s daily lives, but should not be an ornament or a decorative object in one’s house, or a skill of living. In the background of today’s world, Chao Ge intends to discover important values of humanity ever existed in history, and to display a period’s or one nation’s metaphysical development by using a unique visual form.
Chao Ge established his own reputation in drawing and painting in the late 1980s, when the Chinese visual art was experiencing a period of radical changes in terms of opening its door to the west. Influenced by various movements of western modern art, many young artists all over China attended group shows, which was a great shake to the mainland’s mainstream art and the mode of exhibition as well as the art system related to the dominant ideology and propaganda.
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Facing an art trend of a period as such, Chao Ge insists on using oil media as his expression, and began to conduct research on the original meaning of oil media. He and a group of artists also teaching at art schools were regarded as masters of“Neo-classicalism”of China. As some scholars have termed with, the “Neo-classicalism”artists are characterized as using an expression of western classicalism on oil media to depict the subject matter, to praise humanistic purity, stress on perfection of an expression, and keep a distance from a social reality. Its subject matter very often is a pretty young woman in an elegant image expressing a sense of human’s romantic imagination. Chao Ge has been included in this group to some extent with a good reason. Due to some of his experimental work on nude such as“The Sitting Nude”, the work is regarded as the most representational expression among neo-impressionists in China. However, his work was never intended to act as a leisure product with relaxation and elegance for the middle class to consume at origin. What he has focused is the changes and difference encountered by humanism and time. This has got a distinction from its root to those depicting comfortable and laze women indoors in a realistic style.
In the late 1980s, he created the work titled“Great Qi”on oil media. The romantics and vastness embedded in the work signifies the extent of openness and humanistic revival of the period in China. Chao Ge has attempted to express an existence of greatness through his work, and a hope like moving air. The female nude like the Statue of Liberty in Eugene Delacroix’s work titled“Liberty Leading the People”signifies a victory of humanism by its symbolic pose. Chao Ge has always related his own art making to a certain reality of his living period. The difficulty in art making lies in a good relation made between the thoughts and feelings of the time, an untouchable and non-measurable emotion and a spiritual essence, for which he has tried his great efforts, and his work obtained a sense of historical heaviness. For hundreds of thousands of years, why have people made continuous and hard efforts in creating art work? It is just to keep a certain memory, some values and feelings one has gained through a living experience.
Chao Ge regards that“the deepest change of humans at this age is the sense of values which people are losing rapidly. Its reflection on contemporary art is that all kinds of abnormal art forms are responded to a reality due to a value system crisis. In fact, I think what is needed in this reality is people kept with a value system, the kind of art to be respected, and some sort of human’s invaluable spirit to be insisted. This is the most challenging response facing the secular trend”. In fact, some basic values of human beings from her earliest period up to date in terms of different world civilizations are in common. All kinds of crisis within our contemporary life are just the responses to such values being lost.
Facing a rapidly materialized world, we deeply felt that the“people”depicted in literature and art are nowadays taking an obvious change. Some important elements in human nature are deteriorating and losing or being despised and teased, while some weaknesses in our human nature are immeasurably stimulated, enlarged and appreciated. Modern people are just like those isolated plants in desert. Chao Ge focuses his art style on the survey of human’s mental life and their conflicts and desires in our daily life. In his works, Chao Ge tries to search for its continuing existence and humanity, and he selects and practises the style of continuing existence. What he hunts after is that kind of sustainable humanity concept; this makes him become a spiritual watcher who has few bosom friends in the field of contemporary art.
In the early 1990s, Chao Ge created some paintings, such as “Sensitive man”,“The west”,“Two people”,“People beside the wall”,“Young face”. Branded as some truth seekers, all those figures in the pictures represented some true men with true souls. Among them, the most representative one is “Sensitive Man”, which expressed ordinary people’s psychological unbalance and cultural shock caused by the quick and unprecedented changes of China’s society at that time. From then on, Chao Ge blazed a drawing and painting trail in the methods of psychological study and expressionism of China’s modern painting. His works influenced some of the younger painters’ style, such as some portraits of scholars in Mao Yan’s work. At that time, they had just got to know the psychologically-representing style of Freud, an English painter. Unlike Freud, Chao Ge didn’t use the rugged brushwork to acquire a kind of visual shock. Instead, he developed his unique connotative expressing way. Through careful composition of a picture, using a kind of pushing and extending way, he spread the complicated and delicate color effect from one detail to the whole picture. The tendency of colors is different from that of modern western oil painting which is pleasing our eyes. It has a sense of calm and convergence of classical fresco painting.
In the 1990s, Chao Ge’s pictures had a very strong interference to the social life. Some special features in his works had a strong shock to people’s mind. But later, he changed his usual way of expressing, for he thought a man should have a belief. In modern art, there is a kind of tendency of carpe diem, which is a great hurt to people’s mental life. Art, after all, is an advanced manner of mankind’s mental life, and it should be continuous or sustainable. Furthermore, it can prolong our mental life. Those western excellent artists often feel very lonely in their souls, so there is no doubt that China’s modern art is influenced, and it cannot find any warm comfort from nature, people’s life or any other place.
II. The cultural unity and coherence of history
There are two important periods in Chao Ge’s art career. One is in the early 1990s, when he developed a kind of painting combining expressionism and psychological analysis. He opened the inner world of people in a unique way of art expression. His art language played an important role in the development of China’s oil painting at that time.“Art Research”, an art magazine, in which Chao Ge’s works were published, became an important reference for the young students at art colleges. Mr. Guang Jun, who is a famous print-making artist, thinks that Chao Ge has inspired a lot of young artists who learned a lot from his works. Many excellent contemporary young artists even ever took Chao Ge’s art works as models to copy. Their common point is emphasizing that oil painting is a kind of traditional painting, and that artists should paint according to their souls.
Although under the background of modern art, and even being the idol of young painters in the 90’s , he criticized some modern art incisively. He thought, during the 20th century, there were many incompletely developed things. People emphasized the possibility of art style and pursued new media and new expressing style continuously, but they gradually forgot art’s function in human being’s early life-art is the highest achievement in mankind’s souls. This point had ever been passed down all along in the ancient art. However, these arts have been gradually abandoned nowadays. In the early 1990s, Chao Ge entered a relatively pondering time. He gained new self-evaluation about those inventions with strong expressionism and hoped that he could enter a wider expression of complete mental state of human beings through the feelings of individuals. Therefore, he traveled to Europe many times in order to explore the spiritual sources of European art, especially to explore the spiritual relations between Egyptian art and the Renaissance art. Through a series of investigations and studies, he established his own faith that the source of western humanist art could acquire a kind of religious factor from Egyptian art. He tried to rediscover the traditional values and face problems of times so as to give those simple values of early art a second birth. In China,very few contemporary artists would like to do that. One of the central problems is that people of the time emphasize the exaggeration of individuality, and art is shattered greatly, which has become a kind of expression of daily life. Many people no longer care for mankind’s wide range of values; instead, they think personal experiences of daily lives can replace the whole reflection of human beings.
As for history and tradition of the world art, he focuses more on the arts with oriental features, for instance, Egyptian art, early Greek art and early Renaissance art. Inspired by oriental art, he attaches more importance to sculpture. On inspection of art history, we may find that sculpture plays a major role in art history. The only reason for him to be moved by Egyptian art is sculpture the great symbolic power, but some contemporary artists prefer to the metaphor of some visual symbols. Perhaps some people would classify him as one of those traditional artists. However, his art is not old or a blind copy from the old arts. His art is a response to the time and a kind of creative art rooted from his soul. Using a kind of unique way against the time, at the edge of most active mainstream art, he completed a kind of radical expression unconsciously.
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On the basis of sketching his art has very strong subjective expression, which exerts the art imaginations. I call it“Oriental Imagination”.“Oriental Imagination”is different from imagining the oriental. As a very known artist in China, his“Oriental Imagination”shows a strong wish to return to art, which emphasizes the blood relationship between individual imagination and traditional art and emphasizes a kind of free art creativity as well. It might be a kind of awakening under the control of western culture in the past century. It is also a kind of self-confidence and solid art attitude. Experiencing an impact of western culture in the 80’s , China’s young artists began to inspect the rapidly changing reality more independently. The imagination of contemporary Chinese art came back to its own cultural background from the West.
When discussing the pondering sense of his art, the deep influence of China’s geographical environment on his art cannot be ignored. Many people regard him as a Mongolian artist, but he should be regarded as a contemporary artist from northern China deeply endowed with inner spirit and personality caused in different regions. He did not emphasize any narrative stories. In the past five or six years, he tended to emphasize the universal value and thought. There is no doubt that the grand composition of a picture and mental state originates from a large and generous spirit, nomadic temperament of ancient Mongolian people who enjoyed great distances. It is this kind of romantic culture concept that plays a very important role in today’s world cultural communication. It cannot be substituted, and it is the foundation for us to ascend above the peoples and countries and to discover the mental world of human beings.
With this kind of “nomadic vision”of art history, he has a spacious view so that he can gaze at the classical civilization progression. To any people, classical civilization is the most important spiritual heritage, for its preserved cultural value has enduring significance. To some degree, excellent classical arts become the cultural factor of any people’s culture which can continue to grow. On its basis, many endless art pictures are created.
Depending on his unique persisting pursue to art, Chao Ge has acquired a lot of valuable things from China’s art, especially China’s landscape painting. In China’s early art, landscape painting in Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty set up a foundation; people nowadays surely have a very good sense to things, the nature, which propelled more than their predecessors. For instance, Geortor has already inaugurated a new era in many aspects. The period’s representative art paintings, such as the works of some Renaissance masters, are great. Chao Ge is very sensible of convulsive vigor and grand view, and he is plugged into this kind of art scene. He noticed the superiority of China’s early visual art, for the work will not be replaced by the photography of media age. In his creation, he focuses on the inner essence of China’s traditional art. His landscape paintings have a certain relationship with China’s early works, these ones usually possess advanced mood and state; those mountains and rivers, calmness and quietness, revealed from his paintings, reflect a kind of China’s ancient painter’s unique attitude towards the nature.
From the 1980s, he painted a lot of drawings and oil paintings on huge grassland, and he directly sought for the inspiration from nature. He combined that broad prospect of landscape with the deepest thought of human beings. In this way, he showed a kind of awesome to the nature. So he established a kind of unique new landscape mode in China’s modern paintings, and landscape painting was exalted to the position of a symbolic art of humanism. During the past 20 years, his landscape paintings have always been emphasizing the vast topographic features particular to the inner grassland, such as the quiet plain of“The Sunshine in Kelunnu”, the poetry of“The Ejinuoer Lake”, the homesick feeling of“The image of hometown”. He used this kind of landscape painting to express Mongolian people’s pride towards their habitation, a kind of love for mountains and rivers; so under the cover of the poetic expressions, his paintings also filtered with historical changes.
Different from western landscape paintings, his ones do not focus on a concrete geography and land feature.On the contrary, inspired by China’s ancient landscape paintings, he obtained a nation’s cultural memory, a kind of appreciative attitude towards nature without any materialistic intentions, a kind of grand visual field on the whole. In comparison with figure paintings, his landscapes are simpler but more shocked. In his eyes, landscape and people are the same in nature, both of which are a kind of expression of people’s souls. In this way, figures are more spiritualized and idealized. In his landscape paintings, time is a very important factor. These landscapes can acquire a kind of immutability for its highly concert and objective colorful expressions. With all these features above, his landscape is far beyond natural sceneries. It is a historical and psychological representation.
His outlook on art is very special so that he can see the coexistence between some contemporary art’s dilation in form and the hollow in soul. He keeps some distance to some contemporary art, but this does not mean that he and his art style are deviated from the mainstream of the time. In fact, he also faces some existing problems. As an artist, he sensitively feels that people nowadays, especially scholars, are widely stressful. We may say so that his goal is not to recover the past things, but to revive some classical things. Facing contemporary people’s crisis, he will restart to search for those valuable things to our people nowadays. So it can be called who could revive old valuable things usually adopt old things to create new things, so as to create a kind of new trend without following a fashion.
In his latest work, he tries to renew some simple and spiritual things that dominate the human being’s valuable things in the early history of art; this is a great change in his latest creations. He shows his taste and psychological analysis on mankind’s mental world. In fact, from one of his masterpiece, the“Sensitive man” in the 90’s , he expressed a kind of desire for mental life of humanity. This kind of expression with psychological analysis has become a kind of his unique expressive feature until now. Let’s take“Two people in 2000”, for example, even the two people in the picture have a family tie, but they still keep some distance from each other. Things expressed in this kind of work are what he really attaches a great importance to. Why do today’s people feel lonelier while they have got better conditions of communication and transportation? Characters in his works are stressful and intentional to some degree. All these things are the reflection of universal mental state of today’s people. His works seem to come back to the planarity in the early days, but it is this planarity that makes his works with wider historical dimension and longer time duration. This seems to be a little contradictory. Egyptian art seems to be a little simple and plain, but it is more about spirit and religion, in comparison with this kind of art, the three-dimensional art has a sense of physical feeling or sensation and the reality of world life.
III. Modern spirit
In the late 90’s, Chao Ge’s works described the tension of the era and went deep into the society. Though in the early days, he hoped to make his works the image record of the age and he believed his ability to express the occurent thinking, feeling and ideology. When it comes to the new century, Chao Ge turned to think about foreverness. Nowadays, people gradually give up their belief in foreverness. They live for their ephemeral lives. This value view triggers tension and greed. Moreover, the rich material life and advanced medical care system may prolong our physical life, but the pursuit of fortune and fame shortens our mental life. Many people lost their confidence in studying history, art and science; yet they pursue temporary fame and gain through greasiness and playing politics in name of art and science. Chao Ge is not such a person, though. He refuses to be leader of the Department of Oil Painting in order to devote himself to learning and art creation. His latest works, such as“Orange Character”,“June”,“Tan”and“Distance”, are not traditional portraits emphasizing on momentary brilliance and experiential episode. Instead, these works try to renew eternal values in human history. Modern people put weight on existent value and shorten mental value. And some artists regard experiential episode as the whole. In this way, fresh things will possibly come forth, but they can not be inspiring forever. Chao Ge’s works pursue a sense of foreverness and sublimation of mental life, and have modern characteristics.
When it comes to the new century, one noticeable trend of Chinese modern art is that pop art becomes the mainstream. Lots of young people who have graduated from academies created fancy planar image in the way of ad art from resources of magazine pictures and videos. Meanwhile Chao Ge focused on human history of visual art with a profound insight so as to broaden mental dimensionality. After travelling in European countries, Chao Ge changed his art view a lot. He began to compare modern and ancient art and thought much about spirituality of modern art. From then on, his style went back to the period of early 80’s when he was interested in Renaissance especially the works in early age of Renaissance, which made him feel that there were two kinds of human art-visual art and retinal art. According to Chao Ge, visual art is what connects to our soul, not only retinal stimulant. Painting with a history of thousands of years is not merely imitation of nature, but expression of what human believe in. Therefore, it depends on human belief. The western art lost its significant value that ever existed when it came to prosperous periods. Chao Ge reflects on attitude towards art and uses simple methods instead of mature oil painting skills trying to make painting pure, full of abstract of human thinking and feeling. He is different from those arrogant, self-centered modern artists who do not respect nature and life. Their works lack respectable things that should exist in art. Chao Ge loves history which appeals to him for it has something in common. But his passion for history will not be old fashioned because he is not a bookish person. His work explores, comprehends and explains history and tradition in the viewpoint of modern people. So his art is simple and modern, reflecting the confused attitude that Chinese intellectuals towards modernity. It needs intelligence and knowledge of humanism to understand Chao Ge’s art.
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We have to mention the relationship between Chao Ge’s work and the world art as long as we talk about his art. The world trends change, on the contrary, Chao Ge’s art is peaceful. Chao Ge is active, purposeful with strong subjectivity. He insists on his thought against pop art. He tries to find out the value of early human art. His art is beyond national border and has universal value. As to the expressive ways, he dislikes the contemporary oil painting’s characteristic of light reflection. So he uses expressive ways in fresco style which are serious, has a sense of “breathing” and convergence. By comparison, contemporary oil painting is in royal style like colorful face from which we cannot realize the painter’s trueness and intuition.
Many collectors lack cultural learning go after and speculate popular classical true-life painting in Chinese market nowadays. Chao Ge’s art is different from formatted and sensual painting. Taking“Sensitive man”for example, this work expressed the tension of the age. From the 19th century, the academism was naturalism which cannot connect to contemporary mental life. Naturalism focuses on skills, manners and the appearance of matters. Its characters including minority people and beauty have nothing to do with Chinese society hence it lacks power. Chao Ge’s painting is beyond academism. His art has the same qualities as Russian art in aspects of Thespian element, tension and suffering of today’s people. He adopts tempera to form a 3D to compose a picture of preciseness and force.
Some people may think, Chao Ge orients his field towards history instead of the diversiform art scenes, so the former art deprive values of his work. Chao Ge does not agree. He thinks many contemporary work emphasizing novelty is aggressive but not powerful, while the ancient art is full of profundity.He opposes worldly matters, greed, pursuit of material and living for sexual enjoyment. Chao Ge’s art focuses on implicative and simple expression. In the exhibition “Dimensionality of Spirit” in 2004, some visitors were shocked by Chao Ge’s work. In a word, Chao Ge prefers intuition to sermon. Art is art, contemporary artists should have the ability to judge independently in order to enter the foreland of human thought. Contemporary art is outstanding in terms of expression crisis and fierce emotion, which has characteristic of expressionism. Nevertheless, expression is not enough for a painter in our crazy and complicated time. Chao Ge tries to make ancient matters revival through his latest paintings and go into a new aesthetic category that is simple, solemn and serious. Obviously it is a new challenge for him. Let’s take church and super market for instance. People have different demands, super market is used for daily life, and people have needs for mental life and belief. We need artist in this era who create for people’s mental life. Chao Ge’s art is spiritual homeland for people who like his paintings. Chao Ge does not only work for our age, but also for our soul history.
January 15, 2006
Yin Shuangxi, PhD. in Art History, is vice-editor-in-chief of Fine Art Research of China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Director of the Academic Department of Wu Zuoren International Fine Art Fund. He is also a contemporary art critic and exhibition curator. Since 1989, he has participated in the organization and preparation of the following exhibitions: China Contemporary Art Exhibition (1989, Beijing); the First China Art Biennale (1992, Guangzhou); China Fine Art Critics Nomination Exhibition (oil painting, 1994, Beijing); Gate of the Century: Chinese Contemporary Art Reviewing Exhibition (2000, Chengdu); East Dawning: Chinese Paintings of the 20th Century (2003, Paris); Imagine China: Chinese Contemporary Sculptures Invitation Exhibition (2004, Paris); the Century and the Paradise: the Third China Art Biennale (2005, Chengdu); the Beautiful Landscapes: North and South Oil Painting Invitation Exhibition (2006, Beijing), etc. He has written and published a large amount of essays and commentaries related to China’s contemporary art. He lives in Beijing now.
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