The core value of my painting is innovation, the innovation of painting concept, the innovation of painting form, and the innovation of painting color. 

 

The ancient Chinese said things that change with the environment and trend can exist longer Any circumstance hitting a limit will begin to change Change will in turn lead to an unimpeded state, and then lead to continuity Innovation is to pursue change and accessibility I think the highest state of painting, is “Elegance appears from ordinary” Appreciation on both elegance and ordinary is “harmonious”, but apperception elegance from ordinary is “integrated” Harmony is the unity of opposites, but integration is the transformation of contradictions The former is the golden mean, and the latter is the dialectical logic; the former is “man- made”, and the latter is “natural formed” So, harmony is common, but integration is ultimate.

 

The ultimate harmony“seems not harmonious, but in fact fuses most”, like the two hexagrams in“Book of Changes” Lao zi considers “one thing looks like the opposite of it” as the highest state.

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As to my understanding, Chinese traditional painting doesn’t apply any color Even in the Song Dynasty, when the “visually realistic” flower and bird painting reached the peak period, it is only the realistic painting of shape, but definitely with no color expression A lot of people may object and disagree with me You see, we have cinnabar red, malachite green, western red, how could you say no color? These, of course, are colors, and all nations over the world have their native decorative colors for expression, but this is only a kind of regional color, far different from the universal painting color language generated from science.

 

In 960 BC, science in Song Dynasty had not yet reached the understanding of color in the nature In the west, during the Renaissance period in Europe in 15th Century, people's criticism on religion and concerns for reality were decided by historical conditions In order to get rid of single classic Christian theme, make more artists observe and describe the characters, scenery and objects in life directly, inherit the artistic concept of shaping typical plots and typical image from Rome and Greece, and explore the scientific principle on anatomy, perspective, painting light distribution and so on, in 17th century a part of oil paintings began to emphasize light perception and use contrast of warm and cold colors, contrast of light and shade, and contrast of thickness layers to create light perception, forming a dramatic atmosphere In the same period, many painters paid great attention to the application of strokes The forms of light, heavy, slow, rush and movement directions made the artistic expression of stroke fully exerted.

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In the 19th Century, oil paintings had gained a new development on a revolution of oil painting color The British artist J Constable found the principle of complementary color in practice and enlightened the French painter E Delacroix That he applied dynamic strokes on his works to form a color contrast and increase brightness and gorgeousness on colors astonished the painting circles at that time The French Barbizon School had recognized the relationship among light source color, inherent color and ambient color of scene from the landscape painting, and the great significance of color tone on reflecting time, environment and atmosphere Based on that, French impressionist painters had made innovative contribution on color application They adopted achievements of optics and staining chemistry, and solved the problem of oil painting by use of color mixing principle In the 19th Century, European oil paintings appeared a lot of schools with distinct artistic views, although mainly on the theme and content of art, but also some differences in oil painting techniques From the end of 19th Century, western oil paintings had become highly saturated because of its limited function and similar realistic description, and its philosophy and artistic concept had been completely changed No longer to consider imitation, reproduction of nature as the art creation principle, but to express their own spirit and emotion through imagination and illusion, V Van Gogh, P Gauguin and P Cezanne, the three painters, had become the symbol of drastic change on oil painting expression Till 20th Century, the oil painting language had been highly valued.

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China painting is mainly expressed in black, that is, ink Multicolored ink refers to thick, pale, dry, wet and black, and seeks abundant changes in black, as using many other colors of green, yellow, purple, light green, to depict things lively The change of ink shades is the change of layers “Ink appears colorful”, for there is no real color and no cognition of link with light, ink shows different colors by different shades Shen Kuo in the Northern Song Dynasty described ink painting like: “Juran has inherited the painting style from Dongyuan who represented the Southeast Landscape School, which makes the ink and shades as a whole” Painters in Tang and Song Dynasty used to apply wet pen to landscape painting, to reach a “faint traces of water forms shades and layers” effect Painters in Yuan Dynasty began to use dry brush, making an artistic effect of “colorful ink” In the Qing Dynasty, Tang Dai described in his book “Hui Shi Fa Wei” that: Ink has six colors What are they? They are black, white, dry, wet, thick and light This is different from the cognition and expression of natural colors in western paintings In fact, Chinese ancient and modern painters don’t apply colors based on a scientific cognition of lights and colors From the perspective of the color theory applied in Western paintings, Chinese painting is a kind of no color painting.

 

In 1666, Newton decomposed sunlight into a color spectrum by a prism In the experiment of mixed lights and colors, Newton discovered that an intermediate color or a new color could be generated from mixed colors The difference of colors in the nature is actually the difference of reflected lights on objects Later in 1874, Impressionists applied the scientific theory of color on their paintings Their points were all colors are generated from lights, lights are changing; only captures the moment of shining light can reveal the secret of nature Painting must pay attention to the expression of light, and changes of light will make the scenery in different environment show different colors and tones Painters paint with intuition, grasp the temperature change and interaction of colors, and replace drawing simple lines and planes of traditional painting by stippling to show subtle changes of colors under the irradiation of light.

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Light and color in the western culture symbolize a kind of holy power In the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, various schools of painting were generated in the European Art Movement which was centered in France, such as Neo classicism, Romanticism, Impressionism, Realism, and so on, overturning the traditional classic painting form from “pattern” to “theme” The most important skill of Western painting is about color expression skill, referring to allocation and management of the relationship among colors For this reason, artists’ understanding and recognition of colors had become especially important Hue is an important character of color and the most accurate standard on distinguishing different colors Any other colors besides black, white and grey have their hue attributes, such as red, blue, lemon yellow, etc The basic hue refers to red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple The color relationship means the general regularity reflected by objects under different illumination Due to different capabilities of reflection or absorption of lights of objects in the world, we realize that besides their inherent colors, the light color and environmental color affected on objects play an important role on appeared colors as well Warm colors refer to the tendency of red color, and red makes a hot, and exciting visual sense; cool colors refer to the tendency of blue color, and it makes a feeling of retreat. Applying color contrast of warm and cold colors will create a strong sense of space.

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Different from Western painting in terms of concept and visual feelings, Chinese painting skill mainly refers to application of ink and mastery of relationship between ink and water.

 

Chinese ancient people were not living in the natural environment only black and white, although they considered brush and ink should follow the times There was no color applied in Chinese traditional paintings, a major reason could be China didn’t go through the industrial revolution Painting pigments in early East and West were almost ground by artists, or called painters or artisans, they themselves or their assistants by hands For pigments production was quite labor-intensive and time-consuming, this less important work was done by apprentices under the guidance of painters later in their small scaled studios In the era of considering painting as an important art, some formulations of painting materials and production methods were taken as secrets by painters without exportation In the 17th Century, small scaled pigment manufacturing industry appeared in Europe, and later developed into a specialized pigment industry In 1865, since the French Alessandro Rafran patented invention of metal hose with a spiral port for pigments, it gained further popularization, and in a sense also contributed to the rise of sketch under natural lights and the birth of Impressionist painting Development of capitalist economy led the painting from the palace to a common society, in which the most important was that the landscape painting became an independent school, and later the generation of Impressionist painting impacting greatly over the world couldn’t be divided from the industrialized production of pigments.

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However in China in early 19th Century, the independent national painting material industry just began to sprout In 1919, several entrepreneurs and painters in Shanghai jointly founded the Marie’s craft factory and began to produce watercolor and poster pigments branded Martol, and this was the origin of Marie’s brand today, and said to be the start of Chinese modern art pigment manufacturing In 1933, Shanghai Jincheng craft factory developed and produced the first batch of domestic oil painting pigments branded Eagle.

 

Another important reason leading no color applied in Chinese traditional painting is probably the conservative mindset and backward ideas.

 

The creation of oil painting is particular about painting nature What is painting nature? In narrow sense, the painting should ensure unique characteristics of handcraft, resisting on mechanical reproduction of mass production, normalization, standardization and impersonality In Western artistic history, the discussion about painting nature was related to the invention of photography in 1839 Western classical painting describes the objective world by constantly pursuing of technological progress, skillful techniques and perfect painting skills When logging function of painting was replaced by photography, the painting turned to present how the form of art shows the independent existence of value and significance The famous British art historian and esthetician Roger Frye pointed out that the form of art referred to basic factors of painting composition -- line, size, space, light and color The form was to transform the visual materials and objective images into an independent and self-satisfied art structure, conveying emotional information from artists to audience The formal structure was not a random choice of the painter, but his psychological structure materialized in emotion, and the basic elements of his psychological structure presented his unique personality, emotional intensity and visual sensitivity Frye himself was a painter, and he refused the prevailing mode of criticism, proposing that the form rather than the content was the most basic elements of artistic expression.

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In 1996, when I arrived in the United States, a completely unfamiliar world with a new visual feeling made my heart stunning This was a subversive experience, a completely different life feeling against my thoughts and mindset, even felt unusual air while breathing Western painting forms could be so diverse, and colors could be so bright and abundant I was surprised that the oil painting could be painted like this, while my learning from Soviet Union, the oil painting of gray tone was so boring, even lost my own style Sitting by the Hudson River, I felt fierce collision of two kinds of cultures, never astounded from the deep heart.

 

Painting should be a kind of art with extreme personalized expression Why painting should follow traditional norms? Why it couldn’t be freed from the form established in the traditional pen and ink system? This era is full of colors, different colors are to build the rhythm of the times; people and nature coexist and develop in the change of colors We should integrate culture spirits of East and West organically, to create a new painting language, a new visual experience, and a kind of painting that brings people (not only Chinese people) deeper and wider feelings in terms of depth and scope.

Many people asked why I like to draw flowers and birds? My answer is: painting freely, following the heart and feelings, flower and bird painting is unique in the painting art on creation of an artistic conception of “Insight through the surface of objects” Tradition is a platform The day when I picked up a paintbrush, I was neither an observer, nor a man stupid enough to rebuild the platform I was just standing on that platform to make the audience forget its existence My painting pursues to unveil a state of spiritual level: detached, not confusing, magnanimous and tolerant “meaning under surface of objects”; a purified soul with Free State, igniting people's spirit and thoughts while exploring beauty of this objective world.

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My study of painting started at the age of fourteen and I had received very strict and professional training, almost achieved more than a hundred character sketches per day while hardworking At that time, taking with a pot of water, cold steamed bread with sugar and a stack of paper, I departed with sunrise and returned with sunset For forty years, I have been involved in watercolor painting, gouache painting, oil painting and Chinese ink painting From dedicating to the study of figure painting to wallowing in the creation of flower and bird oil painting and ink painting, the reason is not as easy as to tell which one is more difficult and which one is easier This makes me cannot help thinking of the poem “Question and Answer among the Mountains” composed by the Chinese Poet Li Bai in Tang Dynasty: 

 

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountains; I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care As the peach- blossom flows downstream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men.

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Zhang Shiying:

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Famous contemporary philosopher and aesthetician (1921-September 10, 2020).

Famous professor of the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, Honorary Member of the Academic Committee of the 24th World Philosophy Conference, Honorary Dean of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Innovation of Peking University, Director of the Academic Committee of Peking University Aesthetics Research Center, and winner of the Peking University Philosophy Education Lifetime Achievement Award.