殷雙喜
在中國當代藝術的整體圖景中，朝戈是一位有著執著信念與理想的藝術家，他以堅定的意志、獨到的見解和持續的工作，確立了自己的獨特風格。就我所知，許多中國當代藝術史的研究者在相關藝術史的寫作中，都十分關注這位畫家和他的藝術。
一、人性的關懷
藝術是走向神聖超越的途徑，是向人類啟示存在的真理，藝術家處在人與諸神之間，他用民族的語言表達“詩”的本質。朝戈對藝術的態度具有宗教般的信念與虔誠，他認為藝術應該對人類的精神生活有所貢獻，應該是當代人生活現實中不可缺少的精神維生素，而不是生活的裝飾和居室的點綴，或一種謀生的技巧。在當代世界的背景下，朝戈的藝術方位就是尋找與發掘人類曾經有過的重要的人性的價值，以獨特的視覺方式呈現出一個時代和一個民族的精神發展史。
朝戈在中國畫壇的聲譽建立在20世紀80年代後期，這是中國美術在面向西方開放後的一個劇烈變革時期，受到西方現代藝術的影響，中國各地的青年藝術家以群體的方式，組織展覽活動，對中國既有的主流展覽模式和具有很強意識形態特徵和宣傳性質的藝術體系是一個巨大的衝擊。
處在這樣的時代藝術潮流中，朝戈堅守在架上繪畫的領域裏，開始了對真正意義上的油畫本體語言的研究，他和同時代的一批學院裏的畫家被視為中國“新古典主義”的代表畫家。按照一些學者的解釋，“新古典主義”畫家是以西方古典主義的油畫語言作為研究對象，歌頌人性的純真，強調語言的完美，與社會現實保持著一定的距離，以優雅的形象特別是青年女性的優美形象表達一種對於人性的浪漫想像。在一定程度上，朝戈被劃入這個群體有其合理因素，因為他的一些具有研究性的人體藝術作品，如《坐在椅子上的女人體》，被視為新古典主義畫家群體中最具有代表性的語言典範。但是朝戈的作品從一開始就不是中産階級的休閒優雅的消遣品，他所關注的是人性與時代的遭遇所發生的變異，這與那些描繪舒適慵懶的室內女性的寫實繪畫有根本的區別。
80年代後期他創作了油畫《大氣》，這幅作品的浪漫和舒展，代表了那個時代中國整體的開放與人性的甦醒。朝戈在作品中表達了一種宏大的存在，希望在空氣中顫動，女性人體如同德拉克羅瓦《自由引導人民》一畫中的自由女神，以一種象徵性的姿態展現了人性的勝利。朝戈一直把自己的藝術和他所經歷的時代的某種真實的存在聯繫在一起，藝術的困難就在於它必須與那個時代所産生的思想感情，以及那種莫名的、難以捉摸的情緒以及一種精神本質聯繫在一起。朝戈的作品為這一目的做出了極大的努力，從而獲得了一種沉著的歷史感。千百年來人們為藝術所作的不屈不撓的努力是為了什麼呢？就是為了保存某種記憶，某種自己生存經驗中最為感人的價值和感情。
朝戈認為“在這個時代最深刻的人類變遷是人們正在迅速地失去人的內在價值感。當代藝術對此的反映為，把因價值危機而出現的種種畸態的藝術作為對現實的回應。其實我認為這個現實真正需要的是正面地堅持內在價值的人與具有這種崇敬感的藝術，對人類的某種寶貴精神的持守與昇華。這是面對世俗大潮的最具挑戰性的回應”。事實上，亙古以來世界諸文明所擁有的一些人類基本價值是共同的，當代生活中的各種人類危機，正是這種價值丟失的反映。
面對正在迅速物化的世界，我們深切地感覺到，文學藝術所關心的“人”，現在正在發生著明顯的變化。人性中本身具備的重要品質在淡化和消失，或被人們輕視和嘲弄，而人性中的某些弱點，卻被無限地刺激、放大與被欣賞。當代人“像處在乾涸的沙漠中的生物面臨荒漠和孤立”。朝戈將藝術定位於探索人們的精神生活以及它與人的日常慾望的衝突，他在作品中尋找繪畫的持久存在與人性的精神，選擇並實踐持久精練的造型方式。他所探求的是人類有史以來具有支撐作用的那種人文精神理念，這使他在當代藝術中成為知音甚少的精神守望者。
90年代初朝戈創作了《敏感者》、《西部》、《兩個人》、《靠墻的人》、《年輕的面孔》等作品。這些人物帶有某種真理追求者的烙印，他們代表的是一些真正具有心靈生活的人。在這些作品中，最具有代表性的是《敏感者》，這件作品敏銳而又有力地表達了那個時期中國社會迅速的變化所帶給普通人的強烈的心理失衡與文化震驚。朝戈由此開拓了中國當代繪畫中具有心理研究與表現主義性質的繪畫道路，他的作品影響了一些更為年輕的青年畫家，如毛焰所描繪的一些知識分子的肖像性作品，而此時有關英國畫家弗洛伊德的心理性表現風格才剛剛為一些青年畫家所了解。與弗洛伊德不同，朝戈沒有以表現主義的粗獷筆觸來獲得表層的視覺震撼，而是逐漸發展出一種屬於自己的含蓄語言，在進行了深入的構圖研究後，他在畫面上以一種平面性的推延手法，將複雜微妙的色彩從局部擴展至整體畫面，其中的色彩傾向與感官性很強的西方近現代油畫很不相同，具有古典壁畫的沉穩與內斂氣質。
90年代朝戈的作品對現實生活有很強的干預性，他描寫知識分子的特性，作品具有對觀眾心靈的衝擊力，但他後來轉換了思路，因為他認為人還是要有信念。當代藝術中有一種及時行樂的取向，這是對人的精神世界的極大損害。藝術畢竟是人類精神生活的高級方式，應是持久的，它使人類的精神生活延長。西方當代優秀的藝術家內心深處也是非常孤寂的，中國當代藝術也受到影響，它已經找不到來自自然、來自人類生活或是其他任何方向的精神慰藉了。
二、歷史的文脈
朝戈的藝術發展有兩個重要的時期，一個是90年代初期，他在國內比較早地發展出一種表現主義與心理分析的繪畫，他用獨特的藝術表達打開了人的內部情感世界，他的藝術語言在當時的中國油畫發展過程中産生了很大的影響，在中國的美術院校中，刊載有朝戈作品的《美術研究》等專業雜誌，成為青年學生重要的參考資料。著名版畫家廣軍先生認為朝戈啟發了很多人，許多青年畫家從朝戈那裏學到很多。而當代一些優秀的青年畫家都臨摹過朝戈的畫，他們共同的特點是強調油畫作為一種傳統繪畫對於畫家的心、手相應的表現性要求。
雖然置身於當代藝術之中，甚至在90年代一度成為青年藝術家研究和模倣的對象，但朝戈對某些當代藝術卻有尖銳的批評。他認為20世紀的一百年有許多畸形發展的東西，人們過度強調了藝術的形式可能性，不斷追求新的媒介和新的表達方式，但是漸漸地遺忘了藝術在人類早期的作用，即藝術是人類心靈的最高成就。這一點在古代藝術中一直是傳承不息的，在當代，這些藝術逐漸被遺忘了。90年代後期，朝戈進入了一個相對沉靜的反思期，他對自己的那些具有很強表現主義色彩的創作有了新的自我評價，希望通過個體的感受方式，進入更為廣闊的整體性人類精神狀態的表達。為此，朝戈多次到歐洲進行考察與訪學，重點在於探尋歐洲藝術的精神源頭，特別是歐洲文藝復興時期的藝術與埃及藝術的精神聯繫。這種考察研究確立了朝戈的信念，即西方人文主義繪畫的源頭可以從更為早期的埃及藝術中獲得一種宗教性的基因。朝戈試圖逆流而上，重新發現傳統，面對時代問題，使人類早期藝術的樸素價值得到再生。應該説，在中國當代畫家中這樣做的人是很少的，中心的問題是：當代人強調誇大個性，使藝術更加瑣碎，成為個人的日常生活斷片的表達，許多人不再關心廣闊的人類價值，而認為個人日常生活體驗就可以代替人類的整體性反思。
在世界藝術的歷史傳統中，朝戈更重視有東方特點的藝術，如埃及藝術、早期希臘藝術和文藝復興早期的藝術。東方繪畫對朝戈的啟發，是更加強調造型，讓造型説話。檢視藝術史，我們可以看到，造型在藝術史中起著骨幹作用，埃及藝術使朝戈感動的主要因素是造型——具有巨大象徵力量的造型，而當代一些藝術家更為關注視覺符號的隱喻。也許有人會以此將朝戈劃歸為較為傳統的藝術家，但是這樣就誤讀了朝戈，朝戈的藝術不是舊的藝術，也不是一味考古、摹古，他的藝術是對時代的回應，是發自內心的具有創造性的藝術。朝戈以一種不與時尚合流的獨特方式，在最為活躍的主流藝術的邊緣地帶，平靜地完成了一種對於現實生活的激進表述。
朝戈的藝術在寫生的基礎上具有很強的主觀表達的自由度，充分發揮了藝術的想像力，我將其稱之為“東方想像”。“東方想像”不同於“想像東方”，作為一位著名的中國藝術家，朝戈的“東方想像”，表現了他強烈的回歸藝術、確立自身而非“他者”的願望。這種藝術強調個體的想像力與傳統藝術文脈的血緣關係，強調一種自由的藝術創造力，它也許是在西方強勢文化下的百年覺醒，是一種“東方既白”的自信與腳踏實地的藝術態度。經歷了20世紀80年代以來西方藝術的涌入與洗禮，新一代中國藝術家開始用更為獨立的眼光觀察急速變化的現實，中國當代藝術對西方的想像又回到了自身的文化情境中。
討論朝戈藝術中的沉思氣質，不能忽視中國的人文地理因素對於他的藝術的深層次影響。有許多人把朝戈當做蒙古族出身的畫家，但他實質上是一個來自中國北方的畫家，確切地説，他是一位深刻地表現了中國北方地理環境所賦予藝術家的內在氣質與精神的當代畫家。朝戈在他的藝術中並不強調表層的地域色彩，例如在新中國繪畫中具有邊疆風情性質的少數民族題材的繪畫，朝戈強調的是地域産生的氣質，而且他也不在繪畫中突出故事性的敘述，近五六年來朝戈更趨於強調普遍的人類價值和思想。無疑，朝戈藝術中那種具有宏觀氣質的構圖與精神境界，來源於一個具有廣闊地域和曾經超越民族國家的古老的蒙古民族的遊牧氣質與寬厚心靈，正是這種“文化遊牧”的概念，在當代世界的文化交流中具有無可代替的重要價值，也是我們超越民族國家的局限，探尋人類共同精神理想的基礎。
對於藝術史的這種“遊牧視野”，使朝戈的目光越過千年，凝視人類古典文明的演進軌跡。對任何民族而言，古典文明都是最重要的精神遺産，因為這裡所保存的文化價值具有持久意義。在某種意義上，優秀的古典藝術成為一個民族文化持續發展的文化基因，在它們的基礎上，可以生發出無窮無盡的新的藝術圖像。靠著不懈的研究，朝戈從中國的藝術中獲得了許多東西，特別是中國傳統的山水畫藝術。在中國的早期藝術中，宋代與元代的山水畫是打開氣度、拓展格局的時期，這一時期的人對事物、自然有很好的感覺，比前人推進得更多，像文藝復興早期的喬托那樣，在許多方面開啟了一代風氣。這一時期的代表性藝術，如西方文藝復興時期的幾位大師作品，氣勢磅薄。朝戈對中國傳統山水畫中的撼人氣勢和宏大視野深有感受，産生了強烈的共鳴。他注意到中國早期視覺藝術的巨大優越性，即它不會被媒體時代的影像技術所取代。朝戈在創作中注意研究中國傳統藝術的內在本質，他的風景畫與中國早期的山水畫具有某種關聯，這些山水畫具有很高的境界，大山大水，沉穩寂靜，反映了中國古代畫家對自然的獨特態度。
自20世紀80年代起，朝戈畫了大量有關草原的素描與油畫，直接探求大自然給予人的心靈的豐富感受。他將廣闊的風景與人類思想史所具有的深邃底蘊結合起來，表達了對大自然的崇敬這樣一種“神聖感”。由此，朝戈在中國當代繪畫中確立了一種風景畫的新模式，將風景畫上升成為一種人文主義的象徵性藝術。20多年來，朝戈的風景畫實踐著重挖掘蒙古原野所特有的壯闊的地形地貌，以遼闊平遠的構圖表達了風景中的歷史感，如《克魯倫的陽光》中那壯闊寧靜的原野、《鄂吉諾爾湖》中的優美詩意、《故鄉之影》中的濃郁鄉情等等。他用風景畫表達了蒙古民族對於它所生活的自然地貌的自豪、一種對土地山川的依戀與生存的聯繫，從而在浪漫的詩意表達中滲透了歷史畫一般的凝重。
朝戈的風景畫不同於西方的風景畫，它並不以某一具體的地理地貌作為衡量的標準。恰恰相反，朝戈從中國古代的著名山水畫作品中，獲得了一個民族的文化記憶，一種對自然的超功利的欣賞態度，一種具有宏觀氣勢的全景視野。與人物畫相比，朝戈的這些風景畫更加單純，但更加氣勢撼人。在朝戈那裏，風景和人物本質上是一樣的，都是一種心靈的抒發，只是人物更加精神化、理念化。他的風景從北方的原野上看到了新的繪畫結構，由北方的自然生發出新的藝術格局，在朝戈的風景畫中，“時間”作為一種重要的因素得到了充分關注，這些風景畫因為其高度的概括與主觀化的色彩表述，在寧靜中獲得了一種永恒性。這使得朝戈的風景畫超越了一般意義上的自然風光，具有了歷史與心理的深度。
朝戈的藝術史觀是十分獨特的，他看到某些當代藝術形式方面的膨脹與心靈方面的空洞並存。朝戈與某些時尚的當代藝術保持著有尊嚴的距離，但這不等於朝戈脫離于我們的時代。其實朝戈也面臨著當代的問題，作為藝術家，他敏感地感受到當代人，特別是知識分子在日常生活中普遍感到的精神的緊張與衝撞。可以這樣説，朝戈的目標不是恢復過去，而是經典的再生。面對當代人的危機，他要重新在古代文化中尋找那些對當代人仍然有價值的東西，可以説，這是一門視覺的“藝術考古學”。歷史上的復古大家往往是借古創新，從而在不追隨時尚的過程中創造新的潮流（例如中國文學史中唐代韓愈的古文運動）。
朝戈在近期的作品中，力圖恢復人類早期藝術史上質樸的、精神的、心靈的東西，這是他近期創作的重要轉變。朝戈在嚴格的形式中表現了他對於人的內心分析與體驗，其實早在90年代的《敏感者》一幅畫中，他就表現了對於具有人性價值的精神生活的渴望。這種具有心理分析特性的表達，成為朝戈極具個人特點的表現方法而延續至今。以《兩千年的兩個人》一畫為例，即使畫中的兩個人具有家庭的親情，也表現了相當程度上的距離感，這正是朝戈所關注的，現代人為何在交通與通信條件十分發達的今天，反而覺得更加孤獨？朝戈作品中的人物都不同程度地具有某種緊張與不安，這是我們時代的普遍精神狀態的映射。朝戈的近期作品似乎回到了早期的平面性，在語言的平面化中卻加強了歷史的維度與精神的厚度。這看起來是矛盾的，埃及藝術雖然在平面上似乎有些刻板，但確實更具有精神性和宗教性，而立體化的希臘藝術卻日益具有世俗生活的現實性與人物的肉體感。
三、當代的精神
90年代後期，朝戈的作品描寫了時代的緊張，進入到當代社會的精神深處。雖然在早期，朝戈希望自己的藝術能夠成為時代的圖像記錄，他相信自己有能力表達正在發生的思想情感和形態，但是進入新的千年，朝戈轉向了對永恒的思考，因為這個時代逐漸失去了對永恒的信念。這個時代的人為自己短暫的生命而活，如同我們為今天而活，這樣的價值觀帶來了緊張和貪婪。現代社會富裕的物質生活、發達的醫療保障也許能延長人的生理生命，但對物質財富與名利的貪婪追求卻縮短了人的精神生命。當代有不少人對於歷史、藝術和學術失去了沉潛求索的信心，但卻以藝術與科學的名義在阿諛奉承、玩弄權術中攫取眼前的名利。朝戈對此避而遠之，他多次謝絕擔任油畫係的領導，以便專注于自己的學術研究與藝術創作。他的近期作品如《橙色的人物》、《六月》、《譚》、《遠方》不再是傳統意義上的肖像畫，不再強調瞬間的輝煌和經驗的斷片，而是試圖恢復人類歷史上某些永恒的價值。當代人過於強調現存的價值，縮短了精神價值，有些藝術家將片斷的經驗當做全部，這樣做也許會出現大量的新鮮的可能性，但不是永遠的激勵人心的生活。朝戈的作品追求永恒感，強調精神生活的昇華，有很強的當代性。
進入新世紀，中國當代藝術中一個值得注意的傾向是流行藝術漸成主流，有相當一批學院畢業的青年人，以雜誌圖片、影像圖像為資源，以廣告藝術的方式生産平面化的、艷麗的青春圖像，成為快餐式的流行藝術，而朝戈以其敏銳深邃的藝術眼光轉向人類的視覺文化史，走向了另一個精神維度。經歷了歐洲的十國之行，朝戈的藝術觀唸有了很大的變化，他重新比較當代藝術與古代藝術，更加重視當代藝術的精神性。他的藝術似乎又回到了80年代早期，那時他對文藝復興有很大興趣。特別是文藝復興早期的藝術，使他感悟到人類有兩種藝術—視覺的藝術和視網膜的藝術。在朝戈那裏，“視覺的藝術”是一種與人的心靈相聯繫的藝術，而不是只有視網膜刺激的藝術。繪畫不僅僅是對自然的模倣，我們可以觀察到的繪畫有幾千年的歷史，但它基本上是表達人類信仰的東西，依賴於人類的信仰。西方藝術在進入盛期以後，失去了它曾經有過的重要價值。朝戈不再運用油畫成熟期的語匯，而是回到早期繪畫的質樸，反省人類對待藝術的態度。朝戈試圖使繪畫回到純凈、回到人的精華思想感情。這一點和當代的一些藝術家不一樣，他們過於驕縱，太強調自我，對自然與生命沒有敬畏之心，逐漸失去了藝術原有的令人肅然起敬的東西。朝戈熱愛歷史，他和歷史的共鳴是因為他身上有相似的東西，歷史對他有一種感應力。但朝戈不是單純的學院書生式的愛好，他不想成為一個青年人眼中的“古董”，他努力避免大學教授考古式的泛文化的偏愛，深入發掘歷史與傳統，以現代人的眼光加以新的闡釋和解讀。朝戈的藝術是具有現代性的、簡練的、屬於我們這個時代的中國當代藝術，它反映了“現代性”帶給中國知識分子的困惑以及與傳統價值的衝突，但是理解朝戈需要一些智力上的努力和對於人文主義傳統的了解。
討論朝戈的藝術，不能回避他的作品與整個世界藝術的關係。當代世界日益趨向於動感，而朝戈的藝術則力圖回到靜態，這是一個巨大的反差。朝戈是主動的、有針對性的，他的藝術有很強的主體意識，他在無意中以個人的堅定信念與強大的時尚相頡頑，逆當代的流行藝術而行，試圖重新發現人類早期藝術的價值，超越民族文化而進入普世思想。在語言上，朝戈不滿足於近代油畫的反光的視覺特性，他採用了具有壁畫特性的語言，更加肅穆，具有視覺的收斂感，在視覺的吸收中對話，有一種呼吸的感覺，而當代的許多油畫則顯得過於宮廷化，如同華麗的臉譜，我們從中看不到畫家的內在真誠與對現實的直覺感受。
當下中國市場上流行的古典寫實繪畫受到缺乏藝術史修養的購買者的追捧和投機者的炒作，而朝戈的藝術與已經樣式化甚至肉欲化的寫實繪畫不一樣，像《敏感者》就具有一種與時代的緊張關係。19世紀以來的學院派主要是自然主義，它不能進入到當代人的精神生活中去。這些藝術表達的大多是事物的外表，關心的是技巧和古典主義的樣式，雖然畫了少數民族、美女，但人物的整體力量很薄弱，與中國社會的發展沒有關係。而朝戈的繪畫則超越了學院主義，與俄羅斯藝術有相通之處，即具有悲劇性的因素和現代人的內在緊張和痛苦。他採用了一些坦培拉的技法，將畫面的三度空間加以壓縮，使繪畫在平面性的結構方面獲得了構圖的嚴謹與力度。
有人認為，在當代多元化的藝術場景中，朝戈把自己的一元定在這個場景之外的歷史深處了，他的工作的意義已被從前的藝術所覆蓋。但是朝戈不這樣看，他認為現在的藝術有許多強調新奇，我們可以看到囂張，但骨子裏卻沒有底氣，而遠古的藝術底氣十足，具有力度。他反對人的生活普遍的世俗化，貪婪與追求享受，為肉體和官能而活。朝戈的藝術不追求官能性而強調內在的含蓄與樸素的表達。在2004年舉辦的“精神的維度”展覽上，有些觀眾看了朝戈的作品非常激動，受到了很大的衝擊。總的説來，朝戈在藝術中強調直覺，不喜歡道德的説教。藝術就是藝術，當代藝術家應該具有獨立判斷的能力，這樣才可能進入到人類思考的前沿地帶。我們時代的藝術在表達危機、表達激烈的情緒方面很突出，它的典型特點是表現主義，但我們的時代是精神分裂、多樣複雜的時代，一個畫家僅僅有能力表達這一點是不夠的。朝戈近期的繪畫是對自我的新的挑戰，他試圖使非常遠古的東西經過他的視覺經驗得到復活，這是一個新的審美範疇，即樸素、莊嚴、肅穆。以教堂與超市為例，人類生活有不同的需要，超市滿足人們的日常生活需要，但人類還是有對精神生活的需要，有對信仰的需要。這個時代仍然需要一些藝術家，從事人類精神生活的高端創造，而朝戈的藝術，就是那些喜愛他的繪畫、與他心有共鳴的觀眾的精神家園，他不僅為我們這個時代工作，也是為當代人的心靈史而工作。
2006年1月15日
殷雙喜藝術史博士、中央美術學院《美術研究》副主編，吳作人國際美術基金會學術部主任，中國當代著名的藝術評論家與策展人。自1989年以來，先後參與策劃了中國現代藝術大展（1989，北京）、廣州首屆中國藝術雙年展（1992，廣州）、中國美術批評家提名展（油畫）（1994，北京）、世紀之門：中國當代藝術回顧展（2000，成都）、東方既白：20世紀中國繪畫展（2003，巴黎）、想像中國：中國當代雕塑邀請展（2004，巴黎）、世紀與天堂：第3屆成都雙年展（2005，成都）、無盡江山：南北油畫邀請展（2006，北京）等。寫作發表了大量有關中國當代藝術的論文與評論，現居北京。
The Call of Remote Mountains: A Brief Comment of Chao Ge’s Art
Yin Shuangxi
In the whole picture of Chinese contemporary art, Chao Ge is an artist with a firm belief and ideals. Through his firm will, his own understanding and continuous efforts-making, he has established his unique style. As far as I know, many researchers on Chinese contemporary art history have given Chao Ge and his art enough attention in their writings.
I. Humanistic care
Art is a pathway to a holy and transcending state of spirit, and enlightens human beings the existence of truth. An artist usually lives between human beings and gods. He uses his national language to express the essence of “Poem”. Chao Ge’s attitude to art is as faithful and honest as a religion follower. He thinks that art should engage in human being’s spiritual life，should be as spiritual vitamin to people’s daily lives, but should not be an ornament or a decorative object in one’s house, or a skill of living. In the background of today’s world, Chao Ge intends to discover important values of humanity ever existed in history, and to display a period’s or one nation’s metaphysical development by using a unique visual form.
Chao Ge established his own reputation in drawing and painting in the late 1980s, when the Chinese visual art was experiencing a period of radical changes in terms of opening its door to the west. Influenced by various movements of western modern art, many young artists all over China attended group shows, which was a great shake to the mainland’s mainstream art and the mode of exhibition as well as the art system related to the dominant ideology and propaganda.
Facing an art trend of a period as such, Chao Ge insists on using oil media as his expression, and began to conduct research on the original meaning of oil media. He and a group of artists also teaching at art schools were regarded as masters of“Neo-classicalism”of China. As some scholars have termed with, the “Neo-classicalism”artists are characterized as using an expression of western classicalism on oil media to depict the subject matter, to praise humanistic purity, stress on perfection of an expression, and keep a distance from a social reality. Its subject matter very often is a pretty young woman in an elegant image expressing a sense of human’s romantic imagination. Chao Ge has been included in this group to some extent with a good reason. Due to some of his experimental work on nude such as“The Sitting Nude”, the work is regarded as the most representational expression among neo-impressionists in China. However, his work was never intended to act as a leisure product with relaxation and elegance for the middle class to consume at origin. What he has focused is the changes and difference encountered by humanism and time. This has got a distinction from its root to those depicting comfortable and laze women indoors in a realistic style.
In the late 1980s, he created the work titled“Great Qi”on oil media. The romantics and vastness embedded in the work signifies the extent of openness and humanistic revival of the period in China. Chao Ge has attempted to express an existence of greatness through his work, and a hope like moving air. The female nude like the Statue of Liberty in Eugene Delacroix’s work titled“Liberty Leading the People”signifies a victory of humanism by its symbolic pose. Chao Ge has always related his own art making to a certain reality of his living period. The difficulty in art making lies in a good relation made between the thoughts and feelings of the time, an untouchable and non-measurable emotion and a spiritual essence, for which he has tried his great efforts, and his work obtained a sense of historical heaviness. For hundreds of thousands of years, why have people made continuous and hard efforts in creating art work? It is just to keep a certain memory, some values and feelings one has gained through a living experience.
Chao Ge regards that“the deepest change of humans at this age is the sense of values which people are losing rapidly. Its reflection on contemporary art is that all kinds of abnormal art forms are responded to a reality due to a value system crisis. In fact, I think what is needed in this reality is people kept with a value system, the kind of art to be respected, and some sort of human’s invaluable spirit to be insisted. This is the most challenging response facing the secular trend”. In fact, some basic values of human beings from her earliest period up to date in terms of different world civilizations are in common. All kinds of crisis within our contemporary life are just the responses to such values being lost.
Facing a rapidly materialized world, we deeply felt that the“people”depicted in literature and art are nowadays taking an obvious change. Some important elements in human nature are deteriorating and losing or being despised and teased, while some weaknesses in our human nature are immeasurably stimulated, enlarged and appreciated. Modern people are just like those isolated plants in desert. Chao Ge focuses his art style on the survey of human’s mental life and their conflicts and desires in our daily life. In his works, Chao Ge tries to search for its continuing existence and humanity, and he selects and practises the style of continuing existence. What he hunts after is that kind of sustainable humanity concept; this makes him become a spiritual watcher who has few bosom friends in the field of contemporary art.
In the early 1990s, Chao Ge created some paintings, such as “Sensitive man”,“The west”,“Two people”,“People beside the wall”,“Young face”. Branded as some truth seekers, all those figures in the pictures represented some true men with true souls. Among them, the most representative one is “Sensitive Man”, which expressed ordinary people’s psychological unbalance and cultural shock caused by the quick and unprecedented changes of China’s society at that time. From then on, Chao Ge blazed a drawing and painting trail in the methods of psychological study and expressionism of China’s modern painting. His works influenced some of the younger painters’ style, such as some portraits of scholars in Mao Yan’s work. At that time, they had just got to know the psychologically-representing style of Freud, an English painter. Unlike Freud, Chao Ge didn’t use the rugged brushwork to acquire a kind of visual shock. Instead, he developed his unique connotative expressing way. Through careful composition of a picture, using a kind of pushing and extending way, he spread the complicated and delicate color effect from one detail to the whole picture. The tendency of colors is different from that of modern western oil painting which is pleasing our eyes. It has a sense of calm and convergence of classical fresco painting.
In the 1990s, Chao Ge’s pictures had a very strong interference to the social life. Some special features in his works had a strong shock to people’s mind. But later, he changed his usual way of expressing, for he thought a man should have a belief. In modern art, there is a kind of tendency of carpe diem, which is a great hurt to people’s mental life. Art, after all, is an advanced manner of mankind’s mental life, and it should be continuous or sustainable. Furthermore, it can prolong our mental life. Those western excellent artists often feel very lonely in their souls, so there is no doubt that China’s modern art is influenced, and it cannot find any warm comfort from nature, people’s life or any other place.
II. The cultural unity and coherence of history
There are two important periods in Chao Ge’s art career. One is in the early 1990s, when he developed a kind of painting combining expressionism and psychological analysis. He opened the inner world of people in a unique way of art expression. His art language played an important role in the development of China’s oil painting at that time.“Art Research”, an art magazine, in which Chao Ge’s works were published, became an important reference for the young students at art colleges. Mr. Guang Jun, who is a famous print-making artist, thinks that Chao Ge has inspired a lot of young artists who learned a lot from his works. Many excellent contemporary young artists even ever took Chao Ge’s art works as models to copy. Their common point is emphasizing that oil painting is a kind of traditional painting, and that artists should paint according to their souls.
Although under the background of modern art, and even being the idol of young painters in the 90’s , he criticized some modern art incisively. He thought, during the 20th century, there were many incompletely developed things. People emphasized the possibility of art style and pursued new media and new expressing style continuously, but they gradually forgot art’s function in human being’s early life-art is the highest achievement in mankind’s souls. This point had ever been passed down all along in the ancient art. However, these arts have been gradually abandoned nowadays. In the early 1990s, Chao Ge entered a relatively pondering time. He gained new self-evaluation about those inventions with strong expressionism and hoped that he could enter a wider expression of complete mental state of human beings through the feelings of individuals. Therefore, he traveled to Europe many times in order to explore the spiritual sources of European art, especially to explore the spiritual relations between Egyptian art and the Renaissance art. Through a series of investigations and studies, he established his own faith that the source of western humanist art could acquire a kind of religious factor from Egyptian art. He tried to rediscover the traditional values and face problems of times so as to give those simple values of early art a second birth. In China,very few contemporary artists would like to do that. One of the central problems is that people of the time emphasize the exaggeration of individuality, and art is shattered greatly, which has become a kind of expression of daily life. Many people no longer care for mankind’s wide range of values; instead, they think personal experiences of daily lives can replace the whole reflection of human beings.
As for history and tradition of the world art, he focuses more on the arts with oriental features, for instance, Egyptian art, early Greek art and early Renaissance art. Inspired by oriental art, he attaches more importance to sculpture. On inspection of art history, we may find that sculpture plays a major role in art history. The only reason for him to be moved by Egyptian art is sculpture the great symbolic power, but some contemporary artists prefer to the metaphor of some visual symbols. Perhaps some people would classify him as one of those traditional artists. However, his art is not old or a blind copy from the old arts. His art is a response to the time and a kind of creative art rooted from his soul. Using a kind of unique way against the time, at the edge of most active mainstream art, he completed a kind of radical expression unconsciously.
On the basis of sketching his art has very strong subjective expression, which exerts the art imaginations. I call it“Oriental Imagination”.“Oriental Imagination”is different from imagining the oriental. As a very known artist in China, his“Oriental Imagination”shows a strong wish to return to art, which emphasizes the blood relationship between individual imagination and traditional art and emphasizes a kind of free art creativity as well. It might be a kind of awakening under the control of western culture in the past century. It is also a kind of self-confidence and solid art attitude. Experiencing an impact of western culture in the 80’s , China’s young artists began to inspect the rapidly changing reality more independently. The imagination of contemporary Chinese art came back to its own cultural background from the West.
When discussing the pondering sense of his art, the deep influence of China’s geographical environment on his art cannot be ignored. Many people regard him as a Mongolian artist, but he should be regarded as a contemporary artist from northern China deeply endowed with inner spirit and personality caused in different regions. He did not emphasize any narrative stories. In the past five or six years, he tended to emphasize the universal value and thought. There is no doubt that the grand composition of a picture and mental state originates from a large and generous spirit, nomadic temperament of ancient Mongolian people who enjoyed great distances. It is this kind of romantic culture concept that plays a very important role in today’s world cultural communication. It cannot be substituted, and it is the foundation for us to ascend above the peoples and countries and to discover the mental world of human beings.
With this kind of “nomadic vision”of art history, he has a spacious view so that he can gaze at the classical civilization progression. To any people, classical civilization is the most important spiritual heritage, for its preserved cultural value has enduring significance. To some degree, excellent classical arts become the cultural factor of any people’s culture which can continue to grow. On its basis, many endless art pictures are created.
Depending on his unique persisting pursue to art, Chao Ge has acquired a lot of valuable things from China’s art, especially China’s landscape painting. In China’s early art, landscape painting in Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty set up a foundation; people nowadays surely have a very good sense to things, the nature, which propelled more than their predecessors. For instance, Geortor has already inaugurated a new era in many aspects. The period’s representative art paintings, such as the works of some Renaissance masters, are great. Chao Ge is very sensible of convulsive vigor and grand view, and he is plugged into this kind of art scene. He noticed the superiority of China’s early visual art, for the work will not be replaced by the photography of media age. In his creation, he focuses on the inner essence of China’s traditional art. His landscape paintings have a certain relationship with China’s early works, these ones usually possess advanced mood and state; those mountains and rivers, calmness and quietness, revealed from his paintings, reflect a kind of China’s ancient painter’s unique attitude towards the nature.
From the 1980s, he painted a lot of drawings and oil paintings on huge grassland, and he directly sought for the inspiration from nature. He combined that broad prospect of landscape with the deepest thought of human beings. In this way, he showed a kind of awesome to the nature. So he established a kind of unique new landscape mode in China’s modern paintings, and landscape painting was exalted to the position of a symbolic art of humanism. During the past 20 years, his landscape paintings have always been emphasizing the vast topographic features particular to the inner grassland, such as the quiet plain of“The Sunshine in Kelunnu”, the poetry of“The Ejinuoer Lake”, the homesick feeling of“The image of hometown”. He used this kind of landscape painting to express Mongolian people’s pride towards their habitation, a kind of love for mountains and rivers; so under the cover of the poetic expressions, his paintings also filtered with historical changes.
Different from western landscape paintings, his ones do not focus on a concrete geography and land feature.On the contrary, inspired by China’s ancient landscape paintings, he obtained a nation’s cultural memory, a kind of appreciative attitude towards nature without any materialistic intentions, a kind of grand visual field on the whole. In comparison with figure paintings, his landscapes are simpler but more shocked. In his eyes, landscape and people are the same in nature, both of which are a kind of expression of people’s souls. In this way, figures are more spiritualized and idealized. In his landscape paintings, time is a very important factor. These landscapes can acquire a kind of immutability for its highly concert and objective colorful expressions. With all these features above, his landscape is far beyond natural sceneries. It is a historical and psychological representation.
His outlook on art is very special so that he can see the coexistence between some contemporary art’s dilation in form and the hollow in soul. He keeps some distance to some contemporary art, but this does not mean that he and his art style are deviated from the mainstream of the time. In fact, he also faces some existing problems. As an artist, he sensitively feels that people nowadays, especially scholars, are widely stressful. We may say so that his goal is not to recover the past things, but to revive some classical things. Facing contemporary people’s crisis, he will restart to search for those valuable things to our people nowadays. So it can be called who could revive old valuable things usually adopt old things to create new things, so as to create a kind of new trend without following a fashion.
In his latest work, he tries to renew some simple and spiritual things that dominate the human being’s valuable things in the early history of art; this is a great change in his latest creations. He shows his taste and psychological analysis on mankind’s mental world. In fact, from one of his masterpiece, the“Sensitive man” in the 90’s , he expressed a kind of desire for mental life of humanity. This kind of expression with psychological analysis has become a kind of his unique expressive feature until now. Let’s take“Two people in 2000”, for example, even the two people in the picture have a family tie, but they still keep some distance from each other. Things expressed in this kind of work are what he really attaches a great importance to. Why do today’s people feel lonelier while they have got better conditions of communication and transportation? Characters in his works are stressful and intentional to some degree. All these things are the reflection of universal mental state of today’s people. His works seem to come back to the planarity in the early days, but it is this planarity that makes his works with wider historical dimension and longer time duration. This seems to be a little contradictory. Egyptian art seems to be a little simple and plain, but it is more about spirit and religion, in comparison with this kind of art, the three-dimensional art has a sense of physical feeling or sensation and the reality of world life.
III. Modern spirit
In the late 90’s, Chao Ge’s works described the tension of the era and went deep into the society. Though in the early days, he hoped to make his works the image record of the age and he believed his ability to express the occurent thinking, feeling and ideology. When it comes to the new century, Chao Ge turned to think about foreverness. Nowadays, people gradually give up their belief in foreverness. They live for their ephemeral lives. This value view triggers tension and greed. Moreover, the rich material life and advanced medical care system may prolong our physical life, but the pursuit of fortune and fame shortens our mental life. Many people lost their confidence in studying history, art and science; yet they pursue temporary fame and gain through greasiness and playing politics in name of art and science. Chao Ge is not such a person, though. He refuses to be leader of the Department of Oil Painting in order to devote himself to learning and art creation. His latest works, such as“Orange Character”,“June”,“Tan”and“Distance”, are not traditional portraits emphasizing on momentary brilliance and experiential episode. Instead, these works try to renew eternal values in human history. Modern people put weight on existent value and shorten mental value. And some artists regard experiential episode as the whole. In this way, fresh things will possibly come forth, but they can not be inspiring forever. Chao Ge’s works pursue a sense of foreverness and sublimation of mental life, and have modern characteristics.
When it comes to the new century, one noticeable trend of Chinese modern art is that pop art becomes the mainstream. Lots of young people who have graduated from academies created fancy planar image in the way of ad art from resources of magazine pictures and videos. Meanwhile Chao Ge focused on human history of visual art with a profound insight so as to broaden mental dimensionality. After travelling in European countries, Chao Ge changed his art view a lot. He began to compare modern and ancient art and thought much about spirituality of modern art. From then on, his style went back to the period of early 80’s when he was interested in Renaissance especially the works in early age of Renaissance, which made him feel that there were two kinds of human art-visual art and retinal art. According to Chao Ge, visual art is what connects to our soul, not only retinal stimulant. Painting with a history of thousands of years is not merely imitation of nature, but expression of what human believe in. Therefore, it depends on human belief. The western art lost its significant value that ever existed when it came to prosperous periods. Chao Ge reflects on attitude towards art and uses simple methods instead of mature oil painting skills trying to make painting pure, full of abstract of human thinking and feeling. He is different from those arrogant, self-centered modern artists who do not respect nature and life. Their works lack respectable things that should exist in art. Chao Ge loves history which appeals to him for it has something in common. But his passion for history will not be old fashioned because he is not a bookish person. His work explores, comprehends and explains history and tradition in the viewpoint of modern people. So his art is simple and modern, reflecting the confused attitude that Chinese intellectuals towards modernity. It needs intelligence and knowledge of humanism to understand Chao Ge’s art.
We have to mention the relationship between Chao Ge’s work and the world art as long as we talk about his art. The world trends change, on the contrary, Chao Ge’s art is peaceful. Chao Ge is active, purposeful with strong subjectivity. He insists on his thought against pop art. He tries to find out the value of early human art. His art is beyond national border and has universal value. As to the expressive ways, he dislikes the contemporary oil painting’s characteristic of light reflection. So he uses expressive ways in fresco style which are serious, has a sense of “breathing” and convergence. By comparison, contemporary oil painting is in royal style like colorful face from which we cannot realize the painter’s trueness and intuition.
Many collectors lack cultural learning go after and speculate popular classical true-life painting in Chinese market nowadays. Chao Ge’s art is different from formatted and sensual painting. Taking“Sensitive man”for example, this work expressed the tension of the age. From the 19th century, the academism was naturalism which cannot connect to contemporary mental life. Naturalism focuses on skills, manners and the appearance of matters. Its characters including minority people and beauty have nothing to do with Chinese society hence it lacks power. Chao Ge’s painting is beyond academism. His art has the same qualities as Russian art in aspects of Thespian element, tension and suffering of today’s people. He adopts tempera to form a 3D to compose a picture of preciseness and force.
Some people may think, Chao Ge orients his field towards history instead of the diversiform art scenes, so the former art deprive values of his work. Chao Ge does not agree. He thinks many contemporary work emphasizing novelty is aggressive but not powerful, while the ancient art is full of profundity.He opposes worldly matters, greed, pursuit of material and living for sexual enjoyment. Chao Ge’s art focuses on implicative and simple expression. In the exhibition “Dimensionality of Spirit” in 2004, some visitors were shocked by Chao Ge’s work. In a word, Chao Ge prefers intuition to sermon. Art is art, contemporary artists should have the ability to judge independently in order to enter the foreland of human thought. Contemporary art is outstanding in terms of expression crisis and fierce emotion, which has characteristic of expressionism. Nevertheless, expression is not enough for a painter in our crazy and complicated time. Chao Ge tries to make ancient matters revival through his latest paintings and go into a new aesthetic category that is simple, solemn and serious. Obviously it is a new challenge for him. Let’s take church and super market for instance. People have different demands, super market is used for daily life, and people have needs for mental life and belief. We need artist in this era who create for people’s mental life. Chao Ge’s art is spiritual homeland for people who like his paintings. Chao Ge does not only work for our age, but also for our soul history.
January 15, 2006
Yin Shuangxi, PhD. in Art History, is vice-editor-in-chief of Fine Art Research of China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Director of the Academic Department of Wu Zuoren International Fine Art Fund. He is also a contemporary art critic and exhibition curator. Since 1989, he has participated in the organization and preparation of the following exhibitions: China Contemporary Art Exhibition (1989, Beijing); the First China Art Biennale (1992, Guangzhou); China Fine Art Critics Nomination Exhibition (oil painting, 1994, Beijing); Gate of the Century: Chinese Contemporary Art Reviewing Exhibition (2000, Chengdu); East Dawning: Chinese Paintings of the 20th Century (2003, Paris); Imagine China: Chinese Contemporary Sculptures Invitation Exhibition (2004, Paris); the Century and the Paradise: the Third China Art Biennale (2005, Chengdu); the Beautiful Landscapes: North and South Oil Painting Invitation Exhibition (2006, Beijing), etc. He has written and published a large amount of essays and commentaries related to China’s contemporary art. He lives in Beijing now.