The style of realism is diverse. Today, despite the complexity of the language of artistic expression, the diversity of techniques and the diversity of materials, realist art still has its strong vitality. In the context of the new era, what is the unique value of realist art, how is its vitality reflected, and how is the aesthetic acceptance? This article selects the views of some scholars and artists at the "Contemporary Significance of Realist Art: A Forum of Chinese and Western Artists" hosted by the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University and the Institute of Contemporary Art of the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, presenting different thoughts on these issues.
Realism still has strong vitality
Zhang Dare
The style of realism is diverse, and in the Chinese context, there used to be two different names in the past: realism and realism. Realism is more of an ideological element and a critique of real society, but realism is more of a way of creating from the expressive language. Today, although the language of expression is complex and diverse, such as abstract expressionism, etc., it occupies a place in contemporary art, including artistic language and material media. But realist art still has its strong vitality, and we can explore what its value is, what its vitality is, and why it will arouse so much interest.
The French theorist Baudelaire believes that half of art is ephemeral, fleeting, and accidental, and the other half is eternal and unchanging. The ephemeral, accidental, and fleeting part actually represents our connection to this age, what is that unchanging and eternal part? It is the theme conveyed by art, the human emotion conveyed, and these characteristics of aesthetics contained in it, which are eternal and unchanging. Young people may prefer some more vivid content that is more closely related to the times, but the content behind these richer surface phenomena should be eternal. For example, our expression of emotions and the expression of emotions determine that realist art will always have vitality.
Many paintings in the Northern Song Dynasty have a strong spirit of realism, such as "Qingming on the River Map" and so on with a strong realistic attitude. At that time, Deng Chun recorded many stories in the "Painting Succession", indicating that Chinese at that time were actually very interested in realism. It's just that the way it is presented is different from the West, reflecting the differences between the two cultures, it is not a distinction between high and low, but different meanings. It is precisely this different interest that fills our contemporary art world with a very rich face. If we study the history of Western art, we will find that in fact, the art form of realism has never disappeared, but when we write the history of western modern art, many realist artists are consciously obscured, and consciously amplify some artists who explore new trends and avant-garde styles. Of course, this is understandable, we always hope that the art world is full of changes, full of fresh faces, but in fact, realism is also changing with the changes of the times, it is like Shi Tao said that "pen and ink should be contemporary". In fact, realist artists, their way of expression is also changing with the times.
For young students, in fact, when facing contemporary art, we do not necessarily judge whether it reflects this era from the language itself, but what kind of content is expressed, what kind of thoughts and emotions are expressed, how to perceive the world, what is perceived, and how to present it in the work, which is the most important.
Realism focuses on expressing emotions
Antonio Lopez Garcia
From a distant history to art, its starting point is always reality. Realist painting, particularly ancient painting, even prehistoric painting, is the starting point. It was created by artists who were moved by the real world, and it has always been like this. But this real world can be embodied in different places, where all art is an experience, an experience. Since the invention of photography, realistic painting has not given people the feeling that it is so important, it has been squeezed by photography as a way of expression in the real world, and people feel that photography and film are enough to express reality. As for photography, we've been wondering if it's really effective in conveying reality. I think for me, realism is very important, a very important element in expressing feelings. The person who paints must have an emotion for the real world, otherwise he cannot convey an emotion, and art is to convey emotion.
I think that in all the historical stages, the way of expression of painting, literature, sculpture has always been constantly improving. Whether it's at the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, you can see something original that has tremendous emotional power. These schools of art can evolve. Many years ago, when we talked about figuration, many people in the West thought that the more similar and realistic art is, the better, which actually caused a lot of harm. It was thought at the time that Da Vinci was better than Masaccio, Caravaggio was better than Da Vinci, and Velázquez was probably better than the classical painters before him. I don't think so, I think art and subjectivity have a very strong connection, and it's a connection that is difficult to explain. And this obsession with realism creates a neglect of emotion. Emotions are what really matter. In the Altamira Caves, in the pristine world, the emotions felt by the artist are already manifested. When photography appeared, it created a kind of catalysis. Photography is more objective and realistic, surpassing the most realistic realist painters, but is it better? I think figurative painting must have connotation, it must have emotion. When White was an American who painted the earth of The United States, painted plants, painted snow, and painted people, he was full of emotion.
In terms of realism, I think that in addition to objectivity, we must also integrate painting into a culture, like dance, film, and drama. Madness, love, fear, all people's strong emotions can exist in painting, otherwise painting is useless.
There is a difference in the realism of Chinese and Western understandings
Du Dakai
Realism is basically a Western topic, and today realism is less common and less enthusiastic in the West than before Impressionism. Realism is a way for our artists to recognize and express life. In a macroscopic sense, all the actions that human beings have ever done will not become history decisively, they will certainly continue to influence reality in a state compatible with reality, and at a certain time it is possible to re-establish an order. In terms of realism, I think it's a way for our artists to recognize and reproduce the world. Realism itself, in fact, even from a technical level, does not exhaust the understanding of the world. Under the premise of continuing to know the world, we will have many new discoveries about the world, and these discoveries will be displayed accordingly by realism, so that its value has not become the past tense.
Realism is just one way to reflect reality. There is no such concept of "realism" in Chinese history, because Chinese painting has remained detached from reality from the beginning, and it is a relatively ideal existence. From the perspective of space alone, from the tomb murals from the beginning of the Han Dynasty to today, flatness is a basic attribute of it. The language of Chinese painting is gradually derived from flatness, which still exists today, and is still a dominant language form of the main body of our Chinese painting. So in this sense, I think that Chinese painting and Chinese painters' understanding of realism may be different from the realism referred to in Western painting.
There is no need to overemphasize the boundaries of style
Liu Jude
▲ Wrangler Figure (Chinese painting) 2017 145×547 cm Liu Jude
I like realism, other abstract art, freehand art, fantasy art, expressionist art, I like it, I think it's human wisdom. Between these arts, I think there are no boundaries. Realism must be relative to the art of freehand, abstraction, and imagination, and there is no boundary between them. Realism, freehand, abstraction, and imagination are all human nature, but when reflected in each era, each culture, and each person, there may be differences and emphases. Realistic painting is human wisdom, so it will never become obsolete. Including abstract art, including Chinese freehand art, it is all about understanding the world, seeking the truth, and expressing true feelings. Art is different from science and philosophy, it is another way to understand the world, and any way is desirable and worthy of appreciation. Realist art, in particular, is the closest thing to the masses and can represent a certain emotion of man, so it is impossible to disappear. The emergence of any art cannot make another art disappear, but can only complement and interact.
Chinese freehand art also includes realism. When we look at the portraits of the Ming Dynasty, that kind of realism is true and beautiful, and it is a kind of wisdom that Chinese. Although it is a portrait, although it is in the plane, it is not a three-dimensional shaping of light and shadow, but it also has the inexhaustible beauty of the three-dimensional shaping of light and shadow. Figure painting in the Tang Dynasty, landscape painting in the Song Dynasty, I think it is realistic, but it is also freehand, it is the unity of mind and matter, a state of heaven and earth and me, all things and me the same state appears. I think that in all good art there must be realism, imagination, abstraction, freehand, including deformation. When you look at Ingres's paintings, classical realism, it is extremely beautiful, but it is also deformed and abstract; including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, classical realism, it is also freehand. So there is no end to realist art. It is also very rich now, very vast, just like we are talking about big and small now, can you say the big of the mountain and the grass at the end of the autumn, which is big? From the artist's point of view, it is the same big, realism is the same as freehand art, if anyone is realistic, they are realistic; whoever is freehand is freehand. It has no absolute boundaries, it's all relative. Each kind of painting is a certain node in our exploration of the truth of nature, the truth of life. It is not absolute, but variable. All art, if we look at it with a vision without boundaries and without distinction, must be interactive and complementary, beautiful in its own way, and beautiful in common.
Painting needs to capture multidimensional spaces
Wang Hongjian
▲ Chuxuexiangguan (oil on canvas) 2019 220×360 cm Wang Hongjian
Realistic, "real" represents the origin of all human cultures, whether it is science and technology, music, painting, philosophy, any kind of learning comes from the vast world in which we live. This vast world existed before mankind, existed objectively, and is eternal. I think the origin of writing also comes from painting. Chinese characters actually have the meaning of painting. Since then, it has evolved various cultures and various technologies, which are all derived from the truth, so the truth is eternal. As long as human beings exist, this authenticity will always exist. How to express the truth, this forms realism, realism, abstract expressionism, they are all a way to express the truth.
Traditional Chinese painting is a kind of image realism, while Western oil painting is a kind of visual realism. Our generation of painters has been following this path by combining the oil painting techniques of Western visual space with the realism of Chinese imagery. There is a big difference between realism techniques and realism, realism is to reproduce the visual space, while realism is to express the characteristics of the times, events, trends of the times, and thinking. At present, Chinese realist painters mainly combine realistic techniques with realistic ideas to express this event. There are other painters who purely express a realistic event, a realistic space, and various trends exist in Chinese oil painting. I think that as long as human beings exist, realistic painting will never die; as long as heaven and earth exist, realistic painting will not die, because it is the source of the universe, an objective existence of the birth of all things in the world, and it does not change according to human will and trend.
Most painters today paint according to photographs, but photographs have no sound, no temperature, no wind and no flow of people. The photograph is static, it is almost an image of the world in thousandths of seconds, hundredths of a second. Painting is to concentrate your sound, temperature, people, emotions and different angles and different feelings in your entire sketching process in a flat three-dimensional space at the same time. It also includes another space, which is time space, plus thought, which is five-dimensional space. Chinese painting is a space facing together, not only a visual space, but also an abstract layout behind the vision. This is the very subtle mystery of painting.
Realism is about attitude and perspective
He Hongzhou
Realism should be a technique, while realism is about an attitude. Since the founding of New China, the realistic way of education and teaching has influenced an entire generation of Chinese. In Xu Beihong's time, after the realism he advocated entered China, it had a strong vitality, which lies in its intuitive expression of real life. The collision and fusion between Realist painting and our cultural roots has formed between the East and the West. Western realist painting has a mass base in China and has also developed vitality in transforming traditional Chinese painting, but there are different views on cultural identity, and after so many years, the two have gradually begun to merge. Realist painting, or realistic style, it is only a style, the same style is good or bad, there are high levels, there are relatively low levels, there are high realms, there are also relatively vulgar works. The process of acceptance and understanding of realistic painting reflects the Chinese there is a cultural system for the evaluation of realistic painting. In the development process of our entire human culture, in the history of artistic development, different periods and different regions have different styles, and in a stage of developed cultural exchanges, there will be a variety of styles in the same period and in the same region, especially in the Internet age.
As far as I am concerned, when I am engaged in realistic painting, this kind of reading of the history of painting will definitely make people have a realm of improvement in the cognition and understanding of realistic painting, or an expansion of the way of understanding. So I would like to say here that realism is not only a style, but also contains the attitude of how realistic painting perceives and expresses the world, which is a question of thought, and it is an interpretive process of thought formed by our viewing perspective and expression. So in the end, no matter what kind of art form it is, it is ultimately an exchange of ideas. For realistic painting, we talk about its vitality because its language has visual publicity and artistic expression, so realistic painting has the power of dissemination and influence.
For a painter, there may be different types of existence, he may be naturally inclined to realism or something else, but everyone will always have a value judgment on the development of the whole art, and will always have a foothold of their own. The development of Chinese realistic painting is promoted at a diversified level, and there will be intersections and exchanges between each other. Realistically, from another point of view, it may be about writing "truth", about the truth, about the truth of the description. Therefore, the vitality of realistic painting also contains the continuous revelation of the truth to make the painting style and painting form get an immortality. It constantly reminds us to return to our vision and re-examine the object, but also to examine ourselves.
Realism should seek a poetic expression
Andrés García Ibanez
Realism also has many different categories, not only figurative, so the first thing to clearly discuss is realism within the field of contemporary art. We want to show many of the real things that we recognize, that is, things that are not abstract. I think we are talking about a realistic language of painting, in today's art world, as Antonio said, we can feel an objectivity, to express this concrete world of seeing in its own way, in a three-dimensional way with some objectivity. Realism needs to find its own niche, and we should position itself in a poetic understanding of reality. I think realism is as realistic and alive as any other abstract language. So we have to see the poetic translation, translation, and interpretation of the real world, not just a technique. In order for artists to have the ability to express their emotions, the realism of painting must be liberated, and it must be as free from the shackles of photography as possible, which is our characteristic, and our current battlefield is here. Painting is aesthetic, and this aesthetic is related to emotion. The world of painting is very complex, in addition to the mission of depicting the real world, the color, shape, and form of painting have the ability to express emotions, which is strategic. So figurative painting, if it doesn't contain emotion, is nothing, and that's reality.
Back to the path of realistic painting
Xu Mangyao
In 1980, I was selected by the Ministry of Culture and the China Academy of Art to study at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, France for two years. At that time, the academy was overwhelmingly abstract painting studio. There are only two figurative ones left, and neither of them has a realistic style. Feeling that the realistic style had disappeared and the figurative was about to be ended, I tried abstract painting. After a brief understanding of the composition and basic methods of abstract painting, I painted seven or eight works of different sizes and sizes. In fact, I entered with a curious mindset at the time, but soon lost the feeling. When I did figurative character sketching again, it aroused my old passion. I looked back and knew I couldn't give up the realistic paintingS I had always loved.
During the Italian Renaissance, leonardo da Vinci believed that painting was a science that required in-depth study of the anatomical deconstruction of the human body. He and Michelangelo painted a large number of human sketches. The Italian painter Caravaggio changed the linear painting of the Renaissance, adopting the technique of accentuating the shadows and deeply depicting the bright parts, chasing light, somatosensory and realism, and pursuing what his eyes saw - visual reality.
His paintings of "chasing truth" not only shocked the Holy See, the Church and the Church, but also influenced Baroque painting more profoundly.
In fact, Chinese we still like realistic painting very much. For example, Mr. Qi Baishi painted shrimp, and there were not many pens, but the painting score was realistic and lifelike. Eastern and Western cultures are very different, but at the level of realistic painting, cognition and pursuit are similar.
The infiltration of subjective and objective harmony is essential
Pang Maokun
When it comes to realism, or realistic painting, I think that its popularity and enthusiasm in China are indeed better than in many other countries now, which also shows that Chinese painting today inherits and continues the entire Western tradition. China began with college education, and its system actually unfolded with realism as the basic starting point. Chinese have their own understanding of realism, because the consciousness of traditional Chinese culture still has a great influence on today. Chinese pay more attention to touching the scenery, although the present is the thing seen, the real thing, but also pay more attention to a kind of poetry in the painting, whether in the presentation of the theme, or in the expression of the artistic conception, will pay more attention.
The style of the surface of the painting will definitely be different, including style, shape, color, composition, selected situation, etc., may be different for everyone, but in general I think this is common, that is, how subjective and objective are combined, how to penetrate each other and harmonize. This is the most important thing in realistic painting.
April 3, 2022 "China Culture News"
Special reports were published on the 4th edition
"Re-understanding Realist Art"
Editor-in-charge: Chen Xiaoyue