Xin Dongwang

Author: Xin Dongwang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: One of the ideological characteristics of modern Chinese painting is the overall acceptance of "realism." By "overall," it refers to Chinese art, guided by mainstream ideology, using "realism" as the guiding artistic thought for creation and evaluation, with the portrayal of the living conditions of the working class being the focus of "realist" painting. Over the decades, the vast majority of painters have this. Whether inclined toward tradition or innovation in art, people have given positive evaluations or expressed favorable attitudes toward "realism," at least maintaining respect. Farmers have always been the main subject in Chinese painting. Whether depicting arduous labor or pure leisure, farmers often embody an ideal spiritual realm in artworks. The ideal life of traditional literati, "fishing, woodcutting, farming, and studying," is actually different aspects of farmers' lives. In our painting creations, many works have indeed focused on the working class. However, in modern Chinese painting, farmers are often a concept, symbols embodying certain ideological stances. For example, one type is the suffering masses of old China with a spirit of resistance, while the other is the happy masses of new China with a forward-looking vision and heroic demeanor. After the 1980s, the situation changed. The figures in Luo Zhongli's Father and Cheng Conglin's Snow in December 1967 were neither particularly happy nor heroic. Even in these works, the images of ordinary people were still symbolic of ideals. They ("Father" and the "Red Guards") appeared in the paintings due to some profound and noble ideals or a critical spirit rooted in such ideals. After the 1990s, painters began to engage in in-depth, independent social and cultural reflections, no longer serving as interpreters or annotators of mainstream ideology. Writers, film directors, and painters were all allowed to bring commonplace figures from daily life into their works. Liu Xiaodong depicted urban ordinary people with an unadorned brushwork, portraying the aimlessness and boredom of city dwellers who were well-fed but spiritually empty, in a very straightforward manner. Xing Dongwang, however, focused on a different state of existence—the strangers who appeared foreign to city dwellers, the individuals who left their hometowns for survival. Whether it was the migrant workers in Tomorrow Will Be Cloudy to Clear or the girl in The Outside World, Xing Dongwang showed deep understanding and sympathy for them. For this reason, one can taste satire and irony in Liu Xiaodong's works (such as White Fatso and Roasting Rats), while when facing Xing Dongwang's works, one feels more the weight of life. These are ordinary people who are neither "beautiful" nor "profound," but they would never (or never think of) treating life and existence lightly. When we are about to be overwhelmed by the flirtatious or pretentiously profound figures flooding the media, we find a sense of relief in the gravity and confusion of the figures in Xing Dongwang's paintings. In the history of modern Chinese painting, there have been depictions of impoverished rural migrants, such as Wang Yuwei's Depopulated Figures and Yu Ben's Waiting for Employment. Of course, the creative environments and motivations of these predecessors were completely different from Xing Dongwang's, but in terms of social ethics and breaking through popular painting conventions with genuine feelings, they shared the same orientation and equal value. It is worth noting that these predecessors paid more attention to historical contexts, so Waiting for Employment is presented as a scene, a social phenomenon. Xing Dongwang, on the other hand, focuses more on individual lives within specific historical environments. His works are striking for their unforgettable individual figures and their spiritual states. While focusing on farmers entering the city, Xing Dongwang has also painted many ordinary people who are not farmers. His recent work Breakfast was awarded the gold medal at the "10th National Art Exhibition" by unanimous decision of the judges. Although opinions differ on its formal treatment, the painter's straightforward and sincere portrayal of the living conditions of the urban underclass in contemporary China evokes endless reflection and contemplation from the audience. Similar to "migrant workers," the painter perceives "loss" and "aspiration," "indifference" and "warmth," "longing" and "confusion" coexisting in them. He sees them being "marginalized" in modern urban life but does not diminish the dignity of their individual lives. When browsing through historical figure paintings, one can feel the harmonious coordination between the images recorded by painters in different historical periods and the techniques they employed. As painting developed into a specialized skill, painters became increasingly adept at utilizing the skills they mastered, making the skill itself an aesthetic object with personal characteristics. For paintings, there is a certain consistency between the painter's mastery of technique and the subject they choose to depict. This consistency, aside from the same historical atmosphere and cultural soil, also includes a "temperament" and "personality" that can be achieved through the painter's personal exploration: the gentlemen and ladies in Sargent's works, consistent with his elegant and skillful brushwork; the wounded and vast earth in Kiefer's works, consistent with his indescribable surface textures. Xing Dongwang seems to never pursue the refined, unrestrained, or vigorous and sharp flavors that Chinese literati painters admire. His brushwork often carries an unmasked clumsiness and heaviness. He says his brushwork for depicting unemployed migrant workers is "derived from the feeling of using a trowel to patch a wall." This is clearly not a dramatic metaphor for the painter's technique but reveals the consistency in temperament and "expression" between the figures in his works and his painting technique. I cannot explain the source of this consistency, but I associate it with the same perspective the painter and the laborers far from their hometowns share in viewing life, and with the painter's empathy for their inner world and circumstances. For Chinese literature and art, the working class (especially farmers who leave their hometowns) always evokes historical associations, and people perceive these figures based on the foundation of traditional cultural accumulation. Extending from this cultural psychological accumulation is the historical task of contemporary painting: to find the connection between portraying contemporary figures and their traditional psychological heritage while expressing the painter's personal feelings and intentions, as well as the traditional spirit of Chinese painting. Using a simple yet personalized realistic technique to create novel images of the working class—this is the historical contribution of Xing Dongwang to contemporary Chinese painting.