In the second half of his career, the painter Li Huasheng developed a keen interest in Inoue's modern calligraphy works. Inoue's works are flying and unrestrained, and Li Huasheng's paintings are restrained and calm, and the two contrast, reflecting the different paths of oriental traditional art to modernity.
On June 5, the double solo exhibition "Heart Painting" by Japanese modern calligrapher Inoue Kazu (1916-1985) and abstract ink painter Li Huasheng (1944-2018) opened in Mozai. For the first time in China, the exhibition features the important monograms "Mountain" (1966), "Poverty" (1972) and "Foot" (1973), which were exhibited in the 2016 retrospective exhibition by Inoue-Ichi at the Kanazawa Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as eight other rare calligraphy that shows the breadth of Inoue's artistic practice. At the same time, Li Huasheng's early landscapes, abstract linear lattice paintings and other late abstract landscape works are also exhibited.
Inoue and Li Huasheng's double solo exhibition opened in Mozhai
Inoue One: a primitive and direct art
After World War II, a group of avant-garde calligraphers led by Morita Ziryu and Inoue broke away from the world of calligraphy and founded the Ink People's Association, a modern pacifist movement that allowed calligraphers, like their contemporaries, to practice and create their own art independently and freely.
Among the Calligraphers of the Ink Society, Inoue's artistic path is perhaps the most radical. Inoue proposed a theory of calligraphy as a typical form of contemporary art: the core of calligraphy is to combine the meaning of language, sounds, symbolic representations and highly expressive body movements to form a unified way of expression. The universality of writing also makes calligraphy the art form that is closest to people's lives.
Inoue Kazuchi", 1972, ink on Japanese paper, 106 x 123 cm
Inoue rejected the calligraphic tradition of copying literary, philosophical, or religious texts, and instead took a different approach, focusing on the writing of individual Chinese characters, viewing individual characters chosen based on meaning, shape, and sound as objects of artistic thinking and transformation. Inspired by early experiments with pure abstraction using black enamel, he changed the material composition of the ink to expand its range of expression.
Inoue Kazuchi "Mountain", 1966, ink on Japanese paper, 146 x 231 cm
In Inoue's calligraphic works, one can see the movement, path, angle, speed, and pressure of the brush (including the nib, body, and tip) almost without reservation. Inoue created a material medium and visual language of great transparency—a clear sign of his calligrapher status— and as an artist, he used this new language to pursue a primitive and direct art.
Inoue, "When the Pen Head Falls Off," 1976, on ink paper, 80.5 x 119.5 cm
Li Huasheng: Every line is in a state of contemplation
During the first half of his career, Li Huasheng was recognized as one of the outstanding traditional landscape painters of his generation. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, his works were frequently exhibited in domestic and foreign modern and contemporary Chinese painting exhibitions.
Li Huasheng, "0679", 2006, ink on paper, four screens, 180 x 97 cm per screen
Li Huasheng described his travels in the United States as very "liberating." After Li Huasheng returned to China, he could no longer paint in the traditional way of the past. He lived a hermitistic life, making regular trips to the Himalayas, hot or cold. Chinese landscape painters rarely used the Himalayas as an object of painting, but Li Huasheng was attracted by the tranquility and profundity of the mountain. During his travels, Li Huasheng often stayed at lama monasteries in Tibet, and in the early morning, the rhythmic chanting of the monks made him enlightened. He realized that depicting the Himalayas did not have to be limited to depicting the shape of the mountains, but also to recording the state of consciousness of people in the mountains.
Li Huasheng travels in the Himalayas, 2014
By 1998, this idea prompted Lee to develop a new, unprecedented practice of ink art—in a rigorous and contemplative state, Lee hand-drawn a vast grid of horizontal and vertical lines. Each line records the instantaneous state, perception, sensations, emotions, and thoughts of his body. Li Huasheng's penmanship, after decades of practical training, makes each line in a state of contemplation, and any slight fluctuation is generated by the fluctuation of qi or the vitality of the body and mind.
Li Huasheng, 0097, 2009, ink on paper, 95 x 178 cm
Li Huasheng, Part 0097, 2009, ink on paper, 95 x 178 cm
He continued to practice this approach for the next 20 years, so much so that the landscape paintings of his period underwent a fundamental transformation that eventually resulted in a series of iconic one-stroke paintings.
Li Huasheng, "0824", 2008, ink on paper, 53 x 234 cm
Show individuality and self-discipline
Inoue was influenced by modern Zen Buddhism in the early 20th century. Li Huasheng, on the other hand, was influenced by the Zen ideas that literati and artists had had since the Six Dynasties, as well as the tantras he had learned about in Sichuan and Tibet. Although both artists drew inspiration from Buddhism, their painting lines differed in many ways.
Inoue expanded the medium's ability to capture dynamic and abrupt brush stroke changes, including direction, speed, pressure, angle, and more. Li Huasheng greatly reduced and simplified the movement of the brush, so that at first glance there seems to be no change in brushstrokes in his works. The temporality of Inoue is a moment, while the temporality of Li Huasheng is presented slowly and silently. If the temporality of the line records the process, then the temporality of Inoue's manifestation is discrete and dynamic, like a cry. The temporality shown by Li Huasheng is delicate and continuous, occasionally oscillating, going back and forth, as if breathing.
Inoue Ichi, female, 1961, ink on Japanese paper, 131.5 x 141.5 cm
Inoue simplifies form by focusing on a single linguistic symbol, while Li Huasheng completely abandons the expression of form and meaning through images or metaphors. Inoue draws our attention to history and texts to a single point of view and personal experience through a focus on individual characters. Li Huasheng's lines no longer depict forms, but the lines themselves become forms. The line is no longer expressed through human symbols, images or metaphors, it naturally and directly records the inner part of his mind, unaffected by any external object, image or form.
Li Huasheng, 1231 (partial), 2012, ink on paper, 69.5 x 137 cm
Inoue's calligraphic works capture his personality and inspiration with unprecedented primitiveness and freedom, while Li Watson's works record the constant self-discipline of his mind and body. Although Li Huasheng's thoughts exist objectively, with clear intentions and emphases, his personality is hidden in the works and cannot be detected.
Presented by Mo Zhai, Si Wen Ge and the Li Huasheng Foundation, the exhibition aims to explore the contemporary expression of classical East Asian ink art and its importance to the concepts of East Asian and international modernity and contemporaneity through the works of two masters, as well as the cultivation and spiritual enlightenment practice of classical and contemporary.
It is on display until 1 August.