Zhang Hongtu: Zhang Hongtu Solo Exhibition
Over the Boundaries: Recent Works by Zhang Hongtu
By Zhijian Qian
To an audience which has some knowledge of both Chinese and Western art history, Zhang Hongtu’s recent paintings based on the fusion of old Chinese landscape painters with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters may not appear something very original and creative. Superficially, these paintings appear to be nothing but copies of landscape masterpieces executed in the palette and brushwork of Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh or Paul Cézanne. His Gong Xian – Cézanne, for example, looks like an exact copy of Gong’s 17thcentury Thousand Peaks and Myriad Ravines. The configuration of mountains, rivers, waterfalls, trees, rocks and clouds in Gong’s original hanging scroll seem to be transferred from paper to canvas. Even Gong’s signature and seal were copied at the same spots in the painting. On the other hand, the brushwork executed in a palette of blues, pale brown and green colors is instantly reminiscent of Cézanne’s early 20thcentury landscape paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire.
Zhang’s Gong Xian – Cézanne, however, is by no means an accurate copy, of either Gong Xian or Cézanne. The crucial elements that make a Gong Xian work have been substituted for something else. Ink, paper and pointed brushes have been replaced by color, canvas and flat brushes. Some details are missing – for instance, there are fewer trees in the lower left side of Zhang’s painting than in Gong’s. But some new details are added, such as the reflection of mountains and rocks in the lake. The scale of Zhang’s painting is almost twice the size of Gong Xian’s. The brushwork that looks like Cézanne’s is not that of Cézanneat all. The echoing forms and dynamic patterns of colors that dominate Cézanne’s paintings such as Mont Sainte-Victoire seenfrom Les Lauves(1902-04) are borrowed by Zhang Hongtu in the painting, solely to be retained in the rigid contours of the mountains.
These paintings, in the words of the artist himself, are products of zaizhi,or “re-creating” the cited masterpieces. Thus, Gong Xian – Cézanneis the “re-creation” of Gong Xian, but in the manner of Cézanne, while Shitao – van Goghis the “re-creation” of the former in the manner of the latter. Zhang’s idea of “re-creation” is stated and reinforced in the titles of his most recent works completed from late 2005 to early 2007. They are part of his on-going painting project which he began in 1998. To those who are not unfamiliar with post-modern art, this concept of “re-creation” is a footnote to the post-modernist efforts to reconcile with the past. Yet, for Zhang Hongtu, the past is a dual one – the Chinese and the Western. Therefore, his reconciliation with the past is also a dual one. Just as he reconciles with the past, he also reconciles the eastern with the western. This dual reconciliation has been a task for generations of Chinese artists since the late 19thcentury. Artists such as the academic Xu Beihong and the modernist Lin Fengmian impressed their different styles on the modern history of Chinese art with their syncretistic works. Unlike Xu or Lin, who tended to blend elements from different cultures in the hope of creating a new Chinese art, Zhang Hongtu appears to have no intention to label his art “Chinese” or “Western”. In his Mu Xi – Monet: Study of Mi Dot Cun, Zhang added his own inscription to Mu Xi’s composition, which says, “(This is) a re-creation of Sunset at a Fishing Villageby Mu Xi from Song dynasty in the method of Mi-style dots (Mi refers to Song dynasty painter Mi Fu) and Monet’s brushwork. Is it eastern, or is it western? I can only answer this with a laughter: It is just a painting!”
Zhang’s re-creation is not a simple blending of elements from the past of two different art traditions. Rather, it is the overlapping of one with the other. In Bada – Cézanne, for example, the composition and structural details are without doubt not far removed from Bada Shanren’s original A Panoramic View of Water and Mountain. But the colors permeating the mountains and trees, the strong sense of light, and a distinctive depiction of water and clouds are added to the painting in the style of Cézanne. The result is that the Bada composition is being re-viewed through the lenses of Paul Cézanne. This is true of all the works in Zhang’s on-going painting project, whether it is a Fan Kuan seen through the lenses of van Gogh or a Zhao Mengfu seen through those of Monet. The lenses that Zhang borrowed from the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters allow viewers of today to see much more than what were represented in the original compositions – visual effects and details that the old Chinese masters tended to omit or ignore according to their philosophic understanding of nature. Thus we see shimmering sunlight reflected on the waves in Mu Xi – Monet, and water and clouds in the distance in Bada – Cézanne. The two becomes one, yet each of the two is still present on its own. Mu Xi is now Monet’s Mu Xi, whereas Monet is Mu Xi’s Monet. The two artists are bound together over the boundaries of culture, time and space, with Zhang Hongtu as the trans-cultural matchmaker.
But the boundaries are not to be blurred or erased in the trans-cultural marriage. They are still there, or even more distinguishing when they are examined together or against each other. The two traditions are “married” to become a “couple”, but in the meantime they also remain independent individuals. One would immediately recognize Shitao in Shitao – van Goghwithout even looking at the title if he or she has memory of the former’s handscroll, Thousands of Nasty Dots, that is so compelling with dynamic calligraphic ink lines and freely applied dots. Similarly, Vincent van Gogh is recognizable by anyone who has ever seen any of his works filled with lines and colors of passion, anxiety, instability and nervousness. The boundaries are preserved, but not for the purpose of denying the existence of the other artist across the boundaries. Quite the contrary, they are there to demonstrate, confirm and appreciate the presence of the other. To some, the image of van Gogh’s style imposed on Shitao’s landscape might be as disturbing as the image of 19thcentury van Gogh in a 16thcentury Chinese costume standing by 16thcentury Shitao wearing 19thcentury western suit. They might look weird, but also fascinating in the eye of a post-modern audience which seems always eager for the new and the different. The meaning and value of each are elaborated by this very tie that may appear strange but ultimately becomes quite fitting.
There are other dimensions in Zhang Hongtu’s seemingly hybrid and visually re-interpretative works. For Zhang, who has long immersed himself in the increasingly multi-cultural environment of New York City, the aspiration to return to his own cultural heritage grows stronger as he gets deeper into an art world that has been inevitably affected by the reality of cultural diversity and ethnic difference. A design student at The Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in Beijing in the 1960s and a western art student at The Art Students League in New York in the 1980s, Zhang Hongtu has had very limited experience with traditional Chinese art. His passion for that great tradition turned into concrete artworks in the late 1990s when he started experimenting with Chinese painting from his memory of doing ink painting at The Attached High School of the Central Academy of Fine Arts as well as from his growing interest in reading classical texts on Chinese painting. This renewed connection developed in Zhang Hongtu the desire to understand the Chinese tradition through the Western art lenses that he had become more familiar with. Zhang’s life experience as an immigrant in a foreign land also contributes to these mutually interpretative paintings. The aesthetic aspects of a Song or Ming dynasty landscape painting could be better understood and accepted by a western audience when the painting is translated or re-interpreted in the language of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters with which they are more familiar. Thus, the unfamiliar is turned into something familiar and becomes part of what is already familiar. In Zhang Hongtu’s work, shanshui(water and mountain) is no longer shanshui in the Chinese sense, nor landscape in a purely western sense. It has become something different, something new, and something that only happens in a space between two cultures. And this could only be accomplished by someone who lives and works between different cultures.
However, one point remains tricky here. So far Zhang Hongtu uses only three Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters –Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne and Vince van Gogh – in his efforts to re-interpret, or “re-create” in his own words, the works of Chinese artists from a wide range of time – Song to Qing dynasty or the 10thto 19thcentury. While he is critical of Dong Qichang’s over-simplified treatment of the past masters, as Jerome Silbergeld discussed in his essay on Zhang Hongtu, Zhang is reading and re-creating the past masters whose understanding and representation of nature differ very much from each other exclusively in the styles of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. While it is true that the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles largely elaborate the selected masterpieces in an inspiring way, it might be a new over-simplified treatment of a great tradition that is distinguished not only by its historical consistency but also by its dynamic development over the centuries. Zhang Hongtu may be already aware of the position he has chosen, as is, perhaps, evident in his new works such as Study of Pima Cun and Jiesuo Cun. Nevertheless, one may still want to ask the question: “What’s next?”
Zhijian Qian
Zhijian Qian is an art historian, critic and curator. He currently teaches modern and contemporary Chinese art and East Asian art at Parsons The New School for Design, and is expecting his doctoral degree from New York University. Since 2004, he has taught Chinese and Asian art at Fashion Institute of Technology, William Paterson University, Drew University and Kean University. His recent curatorial works include “Travelers Between Cultures” at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey and “East Transplanted West” at Kean University. Before he relocated to New York City in 1997, Mr. Qian was a senior editor of Art Monthly, a Beijing-based art magazine published by China Artists Association. Since the early 1990s, Mr. Qian has written widely on modern and contemporary Chinese art, and he has worked closely with a number of contemporary artists, both in and outside China.
