(reorganized by Liu Jing-jing)
My Tao
Liu Jing-jing: wang wei in the Six Dynasties said, “painting is not simply an art, it should be equated with the image in The Book of Changes”. According to it, painting should not be a pure skill, but a means to understand and express the nature just like the “image” in The Book of Changes. The Book of Changes is almost an ultimate book which abstracted the boundless universe.
Li-lei: in fact, this meant that art creation was equate with the mechanism of Tao, and painters were requested to create an art world which embodied the change rules for all things on earth and in which spirit could wander about at leisure. Painters must grasp the finite and surpass the finite, accord to thing’s natural tendency while try to create, focus on all the minor details while get out of controlling of the thing. Painter must have the true sense of humanism on the relationship between man and the society. On the relationship between man and nature, painter must have the sense of compliance and surpassing, or must be in situation that “man is an integral part of nature”, “forgetting everything”. “vigorousness, sincerity, and brilliance” in The Book of Changes represented a sound and valuable aesthetic thought. Artist should learn from The Book of Changes how to “expand to all the minor details” and “surpass the images”.
Liu: among your works, there is an abstract oil painting series titled Tao. In order to arouse people to think about the meaning of life, you are looking for or you are practicing the “mixture of two tendencies”: to create a strength field by the means of clinging colorful straight strap or cross strap on the painting cover; to create an artistic conception full of humanistic implication and musical meaning by the dynamic assemblage of stroke, line and plane and the improvisational painting. You are always intoxicated with the Tao and the Dhyana of the Chinese philosophy. Your recent works represented your understanding on the essence of painting and your reflection on the image world for the contemporary art. Your study has already surpassed the simple form concepts, such as abstract image and concrete image, and entered into the essence of art.
Li: for me, painting is a kind of cultivation for self-surpass, as well as a means of self-improvement.
The image created by artist is “reality”, what aroused watcher’s imagination is “unreality”. The imago world produced from the image is just the result of the combination reality and unreality. One character of Chinese traditional art is the theory of combination reality and unreality. The essence for Chinese aesthetic ideology is reality inside unreality, unreality inside reality, the combination of reality and unreality. The question of reality and unreality just is the question of world view in philosophy. In Zhuang Zhou’s point of view, unreality was more real than reality and unreality is the cause of reality, all things in world could not grow up if there was no unreality. Whereas, the Confucianists thoughts started from reality, “balance of outward grace and solid worth” referred by Confucius (Kong Qiu) meant to equally blend the inner structure and outward behavior. Mencius also said that fullness was beauty. Confucius and Mencius, however, didn’t settle on reality only, but to develop a marvelous artistic conception from reality: “fullness and brilliance is bigness, bigness with little care is saint, saint with uncertainty is supernatural being.” Saint with uncertainty was unreality or supernatural being, which could only be subtly appreciated, but not put into words, but not be imitated. Both Confucianism and Taoism considered that the universe was the combination of reality and unreality, or the combination of Yin-Yang in The Book of Changes. The world is changing, and the most remarkable expression of the changing world is the co-existence of life and death, the co-existence of unreality and reality. All things are flowing and changing in the vacant space. So Lao Tzu said, “For though all creatures under heaven are the products of Being, Being itself is the product of Not-being”, “in that it is empty, but gives a supply that never fails. Work it, and more comes out”. The article expression of this world view asked art to combine reality and unreality in order to reflect truly world. In the abstract art field, though artist abstracted the images, the feeling and the artistic conception contained in the painting are the same. Only turning reality into unreality, turning unreality into reality, can painting produce the endless meaning, can painting produce the deep and remote artistic conception. Da Chong-guang in Qing Dynasty said in “Painting Assemble”, “real scenery is clear, and the unreal scenery appears”, “reality and unreality grow out of one another, and the vacant is fine scenery”. The Tao series is just an attempt to explore the relationship between the philosophy image and meaning by the oil painting.
Liu: in your opinion, what is Tao?
Li: in “Tao Te Ching”, Lao Tzu said: “Within it there is a force, a force that though rarefied, is none the less efficacious”, “what is in its natural, pure state looks faded”. Confucianism called the natural, pure state as “honesty”. The Doctrine of Mean believed that the “honesty” of man was endowed by nature, and Tao is to follow up the real humanity and cultivate this kind of “honesty”. Therefore, the basic means to treat nature for man should be searched in the structure of man. The apriority outside the structure of man is not only unimaginable, but also is none of the business for the ultimate aim of man. In art, it’s obvious for the West to notice this point. Qian Zhong-shu quoted the west literature in “Record on Talking about Art”, “Paul Claudel said there are ‘anima ou l’ ame’ and ‘aminus ou l’ esprit’ in the nature of man; poem is the result of spirit rather than the result of heart, so at the moment of ‘inspiration’, ‘moi’ is here and ‘ji’ controls, reality becomes clear after all creatures disappeared, which is just similar to ‘un etat mystique’. ‘le mystere potique’ is the standard. The most perfect art must be the simple which show the real and go along with the supernatural being.” Compared with nature, man is tiny, the way for nature will present in the way for man, the world, and the universe at the whole is a holographic structure in which Tao is the ultimate rule.
There contains “the sense of world” even in every small things. The sense of world, i.e. “theory of vigor contained in all creatures” of The Book of Changes: great vital force, full of vigor and vitality produces life and growth in nature; all creatures in the heaven and earth come into being by nature and involve into breeding. All the process was called creation. “Nature” and “vitality” are the highest targets to express for artist. Zhang zai pointed out in volume III of Say I-Ching: the universe meant heaven and earth; Change meant nature. What the meaning of the saint is that man must know nature firstly, then know the rule of nature. Only those who didn’t know nature think it unreal. Those who didn’t know Change couldn’t know the way for nature, those who didn’t know the way for nature couldn’t know the nature.
In the “Secret on Nature”, Ding gao gave a full expression to the theory of “Nonpolarity(Wu ji)”, “Tai Ji” for Zhou Yi in the theory of painting: “on Nature, feeling goes first, then the drawing, last the vitality. Dividing Ying and Yang, confirming reality and unreality……establishing the chaotic world as a circle, then separating up and down which are the two apparatus, establishing the Five Mountains according to the five elements, all these were completed, then followed by fullness and brilliance”. “At first to draw a circle as the start of the Tai Ji and Wu Ji, and the circle is so chaotic that it is just like the world before the earth was separated from heaven, and heaven and earth aren’t established. There is no up and down, all creatures scattered here and there. Vitalities and images derived from it. Before the circle establishment, miraculous brightness interweaves with forehead, object alike produced.” He expressed that man face finished all transformations in the universe and keep the trace of such transformations, just as the structure of the Nature.
In my opinion, the world is mellow and full, transparent, so is the life. There is an old saying: one thing goes smoothly, everything go smoothly. We should find out the inner rules of life which conform to the development of the universe through studying, thinking and disciplining ourselves. The course of painting is a process of communication with the universe, correspondence to the rules of the universe. At last, artist could enter into such a situation that his body and his heart can go free. Good works cannot be explained in words, but viewer will subtly appreciate the force which blows against the face. Something which is mellow and full, transparent, and vigorous will appear in the painting.
When I was a child, I often flied in my dream. I flied by high and low, by left and right. Mountains, rivers and forests were sweeping past swiftly, and sometimes I could see some richly decorated jade palaces, all these scenery are vivid; later, I dreamed various beautiful colors which came from the deep and clean sea, there were huge creatures swimming in the sea and I was in the sea; more later, I dreamed a master led me into a Buddhist monastery, he asked me to kneel down to make a kowtow to a silk picture which was put on the desk. After doing this, I stole a glance to the silk picture and found out that it’s a Jesus picture. “Isn’t it the Christianism?” I asked the master surprisedly. “There is no difference”, answered the master. I understood suddenly.
I don’t want to create anything, but I want to present something. The presentation is my mental experience, or my ideology experience. I hope to express my ideas by a certain way. There is no difference for me between abstract image and concrete image. I present the feeling of my inner heart through the concrete or invisible image. In different time and different space, I will have different ideas. My works are the record segments of my different ideas. They are just like the electrocardiogram, like the reflector. What they reflected is the angle and level for my viewing the world. It’s important for me to express what I want to say clearly, not the way of expressing.
Perhaps that is the embodiment of Tao in my body.
Liu: your painting makes me think about the “Altar City” of Mi Zong in Tibetan Buddhism. Your painting is like an “Altar City” which is a field to collect energy. Each line, figure and color has symbolic meaning which expressed the internal structure of the universe. It seems that your painting presented a situation which communicated with the universe. From the “Dhyana Flower” series to the “humanistic painting series and landscape painting series”， I can see that you have already opened up your scene and entered into an endless space.
Li: this is the first time that my painting is mentioned as “Altar City”. Indeed, the “Altar City” contains profound and subtle philosophy meaning.
There was a behavior art works: two Tibetan Buddhism monks elaborately constructed a huge altar city with colorful sand. After a long time, an altar city which was exquisite beyond compare finished. While people kept on singing praises, the two monks destroyed the altar city and went proudly on their way with the colorful sand…… All sorts of feeling well up in my mind. So does the life. Even if making unremitting efforts, but at last all efforts come to nothing. For ordinary people, fate is unknowable, and fate can’t be controlled because it is unknowable; man has no other choice but meekly to accept the arrangement of fate. As a result, ordinary people become very sorrowful.
As an artist, I hope to find out an unconventional way to get an access into the uncontrolled fate. I tried to experience and reappear each brilliance moment during the course of life. Therefore, article creation is my “direct-viewing life experience”.
Liu: “direct-viewing life experience” should derive from man’s intuition. Because each person’s experience is different, the understanding on art is very different. Then what your opinion about this?
Li: what kind of painting depends on what kind of “heart”. “Heart” means “knowledge”. “Heart” is the integration of all potential consciousness and obvious consciousness. “Heart” is the same to the painting in the structure. “Heart” is the ultimate source of painting, and painting is the materialization of “heart”. Painting lay in “heart” for viewer’s understanding one day. Northern Song Dynasty painter Fan kuan said, “Learning from Nature is better than learning from ancestor, learning from heart origin is better than learning from Nature”. So “heart origin” is the essence.
When I was painting, I often entered into such a situation that is beyond my control. At this moment, my heart would judge and agree to the spirit of the life in the universe specially. Where my painting should be sonorous and forceful? Where my painting should be mild and roundabout? Where my painting should be natural and smooth? Where my painting should be sharp? All these were decided instantly. If my heart was dull and blocked, then everything re-started again.
Chinese painting theory stressed “vivid artistic conception”. “Vivid artistic conception” meant painting is “alive”, meant that flavor contained in painting was smooth and fluent. This kind of flavor could be felt by everyone, only those well-trained could transform their potential consciousness into obvious consciousness, could be moved and comment, while most people would be influenced in heart silently. So I always said that excellent painting should be hung in home, only in this way that good artistic conception could be produced. Excellent works are “vivid artistic conception”, whereas bad works are stuffy and obscure, even collapse viewer’s vitality.
For artists, the feeling for the universe is various according to different article phase. So long as the painting faithfully expressed the true life experience of artist, the painting will be permeated with noble spirit. For me, I will consciously find out means to express the relationship: painting and man, man and nature, man and society, man and man……and so on, I try to get close to the ultimate truth of the universe though I could not understand completely it. Art is the process of attempt for getting close to the ultimate truth of the universe.
When I was in Austria to admire Egon Schiele’s painting exhibition, I found that all the sketch bodies are very beautiful. All the stroke, line and plane could concrete the aspiration for life which goes beyond the ordinary colors and images and makes a spurt towards the critical point of life. His painting could be equal to Xu Qing-teng, one of Chinese artists. Raphael’s painting is beautiful and sweet which could be equal to Yun Nan-tian, Chinese artist. Leonardo da Vinci’s painting is my favorite. In his painting, force of wisdom concealed in the peaceful structure, profound passion appeared in the faint smile. His painting could be equal to pseudonym of Zhu Da in spirit and temperament.
Liu: you have said that art is very individual and very personal. Individual understanding could not accept others’ opinions and only make decision by artist himself. Others’ opinions may be goodwill, but not correct as these opinions aren’t my opinions. Does this have any connection with your mentioned “privacy” of painting? The word of “privacy” is very interesting and very creative.
Li: the “privacy” of painting is actually self-cultivation. For me, the object of article action is to increase my moral level. In my almost twenty –year studying and creation, my style is changing continuously. My style would change for two or three years. Many collectors feel headache about this change. In fact, the privacy I need is that I don’t want to share with others during my painting. The course of my painting is a course of experience of real life and life flowing and this process shouldn’t be interrupted by others. The privacy meant to experience all feelings by oneself in the painting, such as joyance, sorrow, depression, hesitation……and so on. All these should be finished in a closed circumstance. That is to say the life experience must be free of interruption, must be private. Part of the life flowing process will be recoded by medium selected by artist, and the spirit of artist will concrete on this medium.
Liu: is there anything that will interrupt you during your painting?
Li: nothing. Whether “privacy” or not depends on the way to understand and to control. I’m not a professional painter, and I have various daily official duties to deal with. How to deal with the relationship between work and painting is indeed a question as my work is rather disorganized. I regarded work, life and article creation as a unity and all these couldn’t be separated. Therefore, I will face all the matters with pleasure and I will experience all the matters as “privacy”.
Liu: whether are “private” works small? Whether are big works more public?
Li: “privacy” meant the attitude and the course for painting, big or small of the scene will depend on the need of artist and the work condition. In general, it’s easy to communicate with internal heart through small scene. When I was painting in the American Vermont Arts Center, a tutor suggested me to make it smaller because it was easy to keep “private”. For example, the scene width for the works of Paul Kelly is very small, but the spirit contained in them is profound. Some of my “private” works are small, some of them are big. In recent years, with the improvement of the material condition for painting, there are many big works. In order to realize the target of “success of life”, the most “private” works will still open to the public and communicate with the audience. I would like to published my “private” works to obtain the opportunity of communication with the audience.
My spirit and artistic conception
Liu: there is a famous conclusion in 17th volume (painting and calligraphy), MengXi Bi Tan written by Shen Kuo in Northern Song Dynasty: “it’s hard to expressthe marvelous of the painting and calligraphy by concrete objects, but to appreciate subtly by heart. Most viewers could say something about the image, location, color and flaw in the painting and calligraphy, but it’s seldom that could understand the mystery in it. For example, Yanyuan remarked Wangwei’s painting, saying that Wangwei neglected the four seasons during painting, when drawing flower, he put peach blossom, apricot blossom, cottonrose hibicuous and lotus flower in the same scene. I collected a painting by Mojie, ‘Yuan’an sleeping on the snow’, in which were bajiao and snow. It’s just what the heart wishes his hand accomplished. It seems that Yuan’an obtained the will of Heaven, all this is hard to talk about with layman.” It’s suitable for this conclusion to apply to the issue of abstract painting’s position in China and the issue of abstract painting appreciation. What’s your opinion?
Li: Mr.Zong Baihua had asked: what’s on earth the deepest heart presented in Chinese painting? It’s neither the admiration of reality as the definite perfect world, nor the endless pursuit for the indefinite world, nor the fidgets or hesitation. The spirit it presents is “the integration of deep silence and the indefinite nature, indefinite space”. It’s same to today’s abstract painting. As a Chinese abstract painter, I have a natural inherent gene of “the situation that man is an integral part of nature”. The integration of the inherent gene and the acquired life experience forms my abstract artistic conception. The direction of my painting is deep heart. I need many ways to express correctly and completely my internal feeling. Some of the ways are inherited from the tradition, and some are learnt from the West and some are my grope. So long as they are useful, it’s no necessary for us to tag.
In general, when viewers visiting a painting, they firstly judged from “image” and “rationality” and there are various appreciation for the “meaning” and “heart” according to different people. The essence of the world is the same and the rule is linked, though nowadays world is complicated. Many people said they couldn’t understand abstract art, but it’s ok if you see the essence through the abstract phenomena. If you still couldn’t understand, then you are the layman who couldn’t know of materialized art.
I’m in embarrassment for a long time: people always asked me different questions pointing at my painting, such as what’s the meaning of this painting? What do you want to present in this painting? I often couldn’t answer. Many people’s appreciations are based on the thinking in terms of images. They tend to equal image in painting to concrete image in life. “Rhythm of May” created in the long holiday of May, 2006 is a set of joyful rhythm with bright color. Whereas one of my friends said it’s like a washboard. How pitiful a poetic title was misunderstood humorously, and how could we get the sublime aesthetic feeling? But we can still find out the entrance for appreciation of abstract art. The logical structure of the all the works in the series is the jumping rhythm formed by co-function of the transverse color bar and portrait space, the jumping rhythm is the correspondence of the joyful feeling. All the colors and textures clung to the scene became the reason and the flourish of the scene variation. This is the relationship between invariability and variability. In fact, the Chinese should have a natural sensibility on abstract art as the theoretical base and the express way of abstract art could communicate with Chinese traditional aesthetic thoughts. “What the heart wishes one’s hands accomplish, and the charm of the painting structure endowed by the destiny.” For abstract art, the feeling is very important and should go ahead of the brush. Why does our understanding for the abstract art seem to very far away our daily life? It’s mainly as the lack of aesthetic experience. We could accept though we saw seldom. We all could accept the true-life works professedly as the realism works has an image which we can see alike or not alike, we can guess the meaning from its behaviors. It seems that views understand the scene, in fact not really understand because there may be other meaning behind the scene. The works expressed an era or a kind of spirit. Do you really grasp the meaning? Not everyone could understand its meaning as they could not grasp it. You may acquire a suddenly feeling in facing an abstract painting. No matter what kind of this feeling, joyful, depressed or peaceful, so long as you acquired physically and mentally, you felt it directly. But as your aesthetic experience is not enough that you could not confirm it, you thought you didn’t understand the meaning. In fact, you get the meaning as it’s very directly and isn’t mysterious. West abstract art has existed one hundred years, whereas Chinese abstract art appeared only in ten years. It is natural that there are confusion, doubt, censure, argument, admiration when the special expression for abstract art appeared. In the mainland of China, it’s only more than twenty years for Chinese artists to systematically experience abstract art, and it’s only more than ten years to discuss and show abstract art stately. Abstract art is quite a young art in China. We shouldn’t regard abstract art as a model of art simply. Abstract art actually is a set of whole thought method and expression method, is an article means which is easier to dig out human nature. All these means greatly advanced and enriched the development of West art, and the same to the development of Chinese art.
Liu: what’s your opinion on the artistic conception of painting? All the painters and commentators are quite persistent on this question.
Li: Jinghao in the Five Dynasties gave an expression of the artistic conception: “Qi meant that heart moved according to the brush and would not be confused by the images. Yun meant that image existed and trace was hidden.” That is to say artist should master the spiritual essence of subject, to find out the main point, to create image and at the same time conceal all the trace so that viewer couldn’t see the painting skill, to integrate artist into the subject of painting so that viewer have abundant imagination space. Artist need to give free rein to his article imagination in order to achieve “vivid article conception”, to get the effect of core trueness for the subject. That is “subtle imagination acquired occasionally” stated by Gu Kaizhi in talking about painting. Painter should put his imagination into internal image of the subject by heart feeling in order to present the inner meaning of the painting; after hard efforts, painter could master real expression of the subject and penetrate the concrete image in the scene. “Qi” is “the impulsion for the existence of Nature”. Philosophers called the subtle change of “Qi” as “spirit”. Just as Shen Zhongqian said, “all objects which come into being after acquiring Qi from the heaven and the earth have their own spirits.” The literal meaning of “spirit” contains the meaning of “energy”, “spiritual essence”, “gods”, “supernatural”, “unimaginable”, “the rhythm of the force of life”, “essence for the universe”, etc. Zengzi said, “Energy is the essence of Yang, soul is the essence of Ying, spirit is the origin of all the creatures. We call it essence rather than Qi because it is spirit. ” Therefore, the “Qi” in Chinese philosophy is not only the impetus for all creatures, but also the movement process for all the creatures, the root for all the creatures. “Qi” is the cause of life and growth in nature. Man could experience in heart the mysterious process of the universe. This experience is animated concrete experience, rather than purely rational projection. Intellect is abandoned as a kind of “selfish desire” because it weakens the real ability to participate the transformation of Heaven and Earth. During the surpassing, man re-found the deepest essence. Compared with other people, artists go farther in exploring the field more than human sense and scope of understanding because they put themselves in situation of the top of experience where hide all the secrets that artists are looking for. So the meaning of artists existed in the “way” rather in the “painting”, in the “heart” rather in the “eye”. Artists explored and expressed the secret essence by the means of art. During this period, art is not only an art, but a life mode, a way for life. Artists expressed directly life and nature, feeling, meditation and comprehension, in short the deepest experience. In another words, artists attach great importance to the master of origin, truth and existence, to the hearing of “being”. At the moment of interaction of self-life and the great life of the universe, the real art creation comes into existence. From now on, artists appreciate it by drawing everything in their own experience, rather from the appearance. What out of the artists’ meditation and comprehension are neither knowledge nor reality, but wisdom and truth. There is a tendency of worshipping “rationality” in painting: to experience the internal sympathy is more important than the need of expression his own feeling during the painting. What we saw is not only an aesthetic large charge, but also a materialization of harmony between the heaven and the earth which requires people to obey the essential order in the heaven and the earth. In this meaning, art possesses the universal meaning and the epistemological meaning.
Liu: how did you choose and start your abstract painting?
Li: I started systematically my abstract painting after 1997. This derived from my “Burying Flower” series which has strong imagery. I concluded all the “flower” images to the utmost as more as possible to express the uncertainty and helplessness of life. No matter how beautiful the life is, it will return to earth and start the new transmigration in the end. During my painting, the image of “burying flower” could not satisfy my heart pursuit. The flower gradually was suspending and finally turned into a group of graphical symbol. In remarking the series works, Zhuqi used the concept of “void space”, I agree with him. I called all the works in the following years as the “Dhyana Flower”.
In 2003, I went to the U.S for painting and visiting. Tell the truth, American art didn’t give me a special impression. It’s in the American Vermont Arts Center that I could calm down to comb my thoughts and engaged in new painting. I had almost 200 pieces of paintings on paper or on canvas, mainly of which explored the visual and psychological relationship between abstract symbols, form space (dummy space) and image world. At the same time, I tried to explore the visual and psychological relationship between color and image world. These works were embodied in the picture album of “Tao---Li lei 2003”
In 2004, I focused on the visual structure relationship of “man-nature-color-psychology” and some of the works were embodied in the picture album of “poem—Li lei2004”. From now on, I began to engage in human body sculpture, and most of them were female bodies which I called “angels”. In fact they were eidolons struggled in the desire world.
Liu: please talk about your “humanistic and landscape painting series.
Li: in my life experience, I found out a new method in the humanistic and landscape painting series. Since the mid and the late 1980s, I began to go on article creation consciously which in general was made in the closed door and by self-examination. The key point is self-analyses and to find out true life of the universe by self-analyses. At that time, my creation state was entirely self-confirmation based on the pure spiritual field, and was none of the business of the ethos.
I began to self-exam my painting experience from the angle of the Chinese culture in the last two years, then the humanistic and landscape painting series came into being. One of the impetuses for the change was that in 2004, I participated in the Shanghai Spring Art Salon and national oil painter painting organized by Yin-xiang Gallery, Hangzhou. The other impetus was that I realized pure spiritual self-examination lacked social echo. During this period, I realized that there were quite great correspondence between Nature and humanism. The improvement of spiritual level should not be correspondence of air to air. It should be the projection and reflection of living beings and to find out self-level of man from nature level. The level which we are pursuing may exist in Nature. Therefore, we should go into the Nature.
Liu: if “the Dhyana Flower” series was purely spiritual self-examination, “the humanistic and landscape painting series” was the poetic expression of the natural humanism. “The humanistic and landscape painting series” is more luxurious and more common, but its spirit and internal structure are still super-organic, and become more humanity, more approachable. From the surface, “the humanistic and landscape painting series” is somewhat a “descent”, in fact is an “upgrade”.
Li: my works finished in 2003-2004 were embodied in the picture album of “poem”. There were already the trace of “the humanistic and landscape painting series” in this picture album. I used “the Color in Heaven” as the title which was heart color, was related to mountain and water, while not the pure the correspondence. Later works, such as “Recalling Jiang Nan”, “Wu-Yi Mountain Images”, “Drunk Lake”, and so on, were completely poetry, music, as well as landscape.
Liu: we can feel the “humanistic spirit”.
Li: from ancient times, Chinese painting was full of poetic and artistic conception. There were not real mountains and real waters in landscape painting, but the landscape in heart.
The “humanistic spirit” was the need of human being. Why did the ancients say they hoped to indulge in landscape? All the Chinese poems on landscape were to express one’s emotion by using the scenery. The author was the emotion or the feeling. The author was moved by what he saw when he faced or was in harmony with nature. The sight in nature stirred up certain feeling. In the end all were related to “feeling”. This kind of feeling and this kind of artistic conception had profound sedimentary accretion in Chinese culture.
Liu: do you have many bosom friends?
Li: poet Chen Zi-ang in Tang Dynasty stated in his poem: “unprecedented and unrepeatable person; Heaven and Earth seems to drag, how sorrowful and tears out.” It’s really hundreds years of loneliness and thousands years of loneliness. I put this poem in my painting.
Liu: I think you should have your unique appreciation angel and apperception on Chinese classical poem.
Li: yes. Libai, Sushi, Li Qingzhao and Xin Qiji are my most favorite poets and ci poets. You could apperceive a lot of article conception in the lines of poems and ditties, at the same time, poems and ditties are musical. Poem and ditties are rising and falling in cadence, which are the psychology reflection of rhythm change during the time passed. Similarly, painting has musical nature, and the capability of apperception and appreciation for the musical nature depends on the level educated degree of viewers. The musical nature of poems was preinstalled, but the musical nature of painting depends on the level of painter and viewer.
Liu: that should be the aesthetic sense.
Li: the correspondence of beauty is happiness, or pleasure. Beauty agitates a certain emotion. I’m looking for the beauty and the harmony. In fact, poetry, music, painting and food are the same in essence. Tea, for example, is the essence of nature. The limpid for good tea is a kind of beauty; and alcohol, on the other hand, is decayed as alcohol must experience ferment.
How did artists express themselves in the course of painting by two –dimensional or three-dimensional means? Vivid spirit is beauty, alive, as well as harmonious. It is the true, the good and the beautiful. Those that are not “the nature” are false, evil, as well as ugly as they restrain the nature and they are unnatural. Harmony is an important essence of nature.
Liu: nowadays, the concept of “harmony” seems to be expressed and emphasized in many fields.
Li: that is true. Today it is advocated “harmonious society”, “harmonious world”, I think we should advocate “harmonious life”. “Harmony” means to respect individual and identify each other, at the same time to adhere to the relative unified norm of conduct. “Harmony” is a broad and profound mind in seeking common ground while reserving differences. The Chinese should often advocate “harmony”.
Those who devoted themselves to abstract art easily started from the subjective evaluation, and easily went into the relative narrow condition on the diagram and the handling. Where did the fresh and alive goods come from? Actually, they came from the diversity in the real life. For example, I ever took part in a painting activity name “Humanistic Jiang Nan (regions south of the Yangtze River)”. How could the abstract art find the correspondence in this topic? The essential way is that the subject in the scene can meet with the sensation in heart. Firstly, the general tune is green; secondly is the water of Jiang Nan, I presented in my painting something fluid; thirdly is ‘diffusion’, that is the uncertainty of the image. I’m just looking for the humanistic Jiang Nan of my heart through the combination of the three elements. The essential way is that the subject in the scene can meet with the sensation in my heart. In fact, the process of constructing inner heart image on the basis of “thing-in-itself” subject is an appearance of spiritual subconscious, is a kind of harmony.
Liu: I know you have deep love for music, especially classical music. You will be immersed in music when you were painting. Abstract painting is actually a kind of “Visual Music”. Would you please talk about the subtle relationship between music and painting, the relationship and inter-induction between you and music, between your painting and music?
Li: it seems that painting is the art which is the farthest away form music. But so long as you tap musical nature in painting, you can explore the tendency of pan-music in art. Switzerland abstract maestro Paul Klee “paint music” specially. He said in his diary: “for me, music is bewitchment of love”. Before painting, it’s necessity for him to play the violin for an hour in order to nourish his heart. Abstract composition of his painting expressed more freedom on move and posture. This should attribute to his musical comprehension in a great extent. We can hear every line in his painting. We must be a “sensitive primitive” when facing music.
Paul Klee was a professional musician and a music practician. So the example of Paul Klee was relatively unique. For me, music is a kind of “aid-reason”. By studying maestros’ music, I learnt their control over the music structure and its correspondence. Not long ago, I heard German Dresden Philharmonic’s play. Beethoven’s “the Fifth Symphony: Fortune” and Bolamus’s “the Forth Symphony” made me understand deeply the difference between the two maestros. The structure of “the Fifth Symphony: Fortune” was very rigorous, and the segment went forward one by one. The strength was accumulating with each segment’s acceleration. It mixed various musical elements like a snowball and rush to the ultimate break-out point (climax point) forcefully. The spirit of “the Forth Symphony”, however, was relatively loose. Its whole strength was relatively weak though the skill of it was magnificent. In fact, strong or weak of the strength depended on the internal structure. For viewers, music or painting is a kind of “stimulation”. The jump of musical note can arouse body reaction, can bring about large charge. Just as acupuncture and moxibustion beat certain points which belong to a reflection area, excellent music could get through passages in the body, make blood and Qi smooth, so the painting. Compared with music, the “stimulation” of painting to the viewer is relatively at random as music of painting completely depends on the article conception of author and viewer, whereas poetic rhythm and music note are preinstalled. Which color or which line you will catch at the first sight is different according to different experience of viewer. The music and the “stimulation point” of the abstract painting are more essential, more pure because they aren’t restraint by story plots and images, just as happened in sketch painting.
Before my painting, I like to listen to Tibetan music “Auspicious highest Heavens”. After hearing, a senior West art staff said it’s same to their presently fashionable music. I told him it’s the West learning from China. In fact, “Auspicious highest Heavens” is not only music, but a kind of “incantation” which gets through passages in the body, and makes blood and Qi smooth, so that all the obstacles and blocks are resolved in music mentally and physically. It seems that human body is in the harmonious situation. It’s a good beginning for me to paint in such position.
Liu: most of your paintings expressed the essential study on pure painting. The visual images in your early works “the Dhyana Flower” had more symbolization meaning and concealed meaning. It seemed that you were trying to combine certain orient correspondence and west painting form on spiritual level. “The Dhyana Flower” series was an image of the orient wisdom, an object of self-correspondence and self-examination, a spiritual space in which to build a kind of painting form, as well as a combination of form structure and spiritual image space. Your relatively new works reflected the desalination of the corresponding relationship between form and spirit, reflected the trace of transforming image space into direct expression painting.
Li: traditionally, painting form constituted the distance between painters and the world. Form this distance, painters depicted, metaphorized and built a corresponding world. Such form gradually surpassed world noumenon and hindered human being to feel directly the world. I have already desalinated the form correspondence and metaphor relationship, and extracted the distance from the relationship between artists and world-being in order to acquire some essential experience. This method was similar to the way of studying in Phenomenology. Artists can feel the existence of nature during the course of scribbling and depicting. The unanimous and simultaneous efforts for heart, eye and object are in fact the direct correspondence to the essence of painting.
From the aspect of scientific principle, painting and writing could be divided into three lays, and become perfected and surmounted. For the process, there are three periods. In general, from the period of “focus on framework only” to “focus on color and brush”; from “meaning before brush” to “also focus on interest out of law”, and at last to “bush without brush” and surpassing conventional painting and writing. Painting and writing is always the means rather than the end, the object of using painting and writing is to surpass painting and writing. Jinghao regarded the situation of “leaving real scenery while forgetting painting and writing” as the highest degree. Shitao regarded the situation “even brush is not brush, oil is not oil, painting is not painting, I still be there” as his destination. I always looked painting activities as a mysterious experience. During this experience and at the moment of being enlightened, I could combine the idol in my heart and experience of outside world. Artists’ inner reality and inner illusion could not only be expressed in topic, color and the form of restricted entity, but also be showed in the period of creation.
Liu: Jinghao in his book made a strict distinguish between “similar” and “real”: similar meant that to get its image only while lose its Qi; real meant that to get both Qi and image.
Li: similar is just appearance likeness and has no inherent vita (“Qi”), whereas, real contains the essence and inherent vita for things. So call “must understand the origin of image for things. The birth of wood is the result of nature……” has the article philosophical meaning completely—to establish “essence” and “nature” for things so as to get the “truth” for the universe.
Liu: it can be said that the beauty for all arts, even the beauty for moral quality is similar to the beauty for jade which has implicit luster inside. This kind of luster is most gorgeous and most pedestrian. Sushi also said: “freshness comes from infinitude”. “Freshness” is similar to “purity and truth”. The form of your abstract works is contemporary and the background is orient traditional culture.
Li: the study of art is the study of human being, and the art creation is re-discovery of human being, no matter internal or external.
Abstract art is a tool which helped us to discover ourselves. It’s difficult for abstract art to express concrete events and process. However, it’s convenient and direct for abstract art to express emotion and artistic conception of human being. The theory that man is an integral part of nature, and the theory of indulging oneself in landscape, as well as the theory that heart is Tao, are all focus on the subjective cognizance of object. In short, article works is materialization of author’s internal thoughts. Works equal to heart. The origin for abstract art creation is the inner demand of author aimed to convey the truth of painter’s inherent experience and mystery of discovering inner world. I blend my understanding on Chinese traditional culture into my painting, therefore, the spirit of my works is entirely oriental, and the way of my thinking is also oriental. What I drawing are Chinese abstract paintings. My works has strong oriental character which wasn’t the obstacle of international communication. All my exhibitions I hold abroad were very successful. Foreign audience believed that they could comprehend deeply the epistemology and methodology of Chinese artists through my paintings, as well as they could reach the spiritual climax from another thought path.
Liu: there is a saying: position decides everything. Position here can be understood from various angles: geographical, psychological, time and space, spiritual, etc. The location of Shanghai, for example, Shanghai abstract painting is the unique scenery in contemporary Chinese art circumstance. As an international metropolis with the contemporary character, there is a thought-provoking relationship between abstract art and Shanghai.
Li: abstract art is a kind of art form, as well as a cultural form. Before 1990s, as the revolution of visual art, abstract art pioneered much wider development space for the West culture. Today, in West, abstract art belongs to classical art, rather than fashion art or pioneer art.
It’s after 1980s that abstract art was popular in Shanghai. Abstract art developed very fast. It can be said that present Shanghai abstract art synchronize with international abstract art and linked with international abstract art, at the same time, Shanghai abstract art has its strong regional cultural character. There are two advantages for Shanghai abstract art: one is that Shanghai open social modality and psychology, as well as relative convenient communication to international society formed the congenital advantage why Shanghai has most abstract artists and more abstract art activities, for instance, “Abstract Shanghai” exhibition held recently; the other is that Shanghai abstract artists consciously explored the oriental spirit for abstract art and unique article language. It’s important for spiritual level exploration, especially for abstract painting, heart and spirit is endless. Shanghai artists are comparatively independent and tolerate, they can respect the study and discovery each other. Shanghai artists are not grouped, hence there is no genre and group academically, Shanghai artists relatively concentrate on individual article experience and self-examination.
Liu: Mr.Jin Yangping had written to you. On the issue of “building the consanguinity genealogy”, he thought that many countries in the world were building principal part of the consanguinity genealogy, whereas our genealogy was simple and it was the Chinese aesthetic taste, the literary temperament painting by Dong qichang, Xu wei, etc, and post-Chinese, post-orient as well as post-literary…… To build our own consanguinity genealogy is the direction for making progress. No matter the theme or the content in your “Dhyana Flower” series and “the humanistic and landscape painting” series expressed obviously the Chinese aesthetic taste and artistic conception mentioned by Jin yangping, and the spirit of painting was closed to the Chinese tradition. As to the genealogy, I noted that you didn’t pay more attention to it.
Li: in my opinion, compared with history and civilization, the genealogy is a kind of skeleton of the world. Art come from paradise, from higher place. I hope my painting could stand up to all tests, could be tempered by culture, rather than be contemporary art as a fashion. Such idea had been thought over and been expressed in my sculpture “Angel” series. The accept degree of article works is much more important than the wording of “art” from certain meaning, especially in our mechanical replication era. The nature of art is non-historical, or absolute historical. I think genealogy has universal realistic meaning, but it is not the most important.
Your question made me think of the famous remark on Paul Klee’s “New Angel” commented by Benjamin. On the scene of “New Angel”, it seemed that an angel was leaving from what he was staring at absorbedly. He gazed ahead, his mouth opened slightly and his wings spread. He was the angel of history. His face looked to the past, and his back looked to the future. What he saw in the place filled with series historical accidents was a single disaster. The disaster put together all the skeletons and threw them in front of him. Angel wanted to stop to wake up the dead and mended the cracked world. A gust of hurricane from the paradise blew the wings of angel so violent that he couldn’t collect fragments of the world together. The hurricane blew angel to the future he was against undisputedly, and the debris in front of him was higher and higher, and soaring into the clouds. The hurricane was so-called progress. The past is just as the debris which was blew by the hurricane of historical progress into the future. If human being didn’t mend the debris, angel also felt helpless. The past, the present and the future existed continuously. The past was in each moment of the present, and the past and the present form the future. Recalling was similar to the process of rebuilding the ruins and the process of throwing off new luster of the past. So does art. Art is a recalling of building historical ruins. On the surface, the process of painting is a kind of creation. In fact, it is actually a deep memory.