Modernism and Hybridity in the Works of Lin Fengmian (1900–1991)
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Modernism and Hybridity in the Works of Lin Fengmian (1900–1991) Sandy Ng reated during an era of extraordinary social, political, and cultural upheaval, Chinese paintings of the twentieth century were attacked and critically challenged both within CChina and externally. Modern developments in Chinese painting provide us with the means not only to investigate problems of artistic representation and expression, but also to gain insight into some of the intellectual issues pertaining to modern China. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China’s encounter with the West’s advanced technology led its intellectuals to question the viability of Chinese traditional culture. Since then, Chinese artists have struggled to create works that express the country’s unique cultural characteristics within a global context. Lin Fengmian, one of China’s most important artists, conveys his perceptions of modernism and hybridity through his use of techniques and styles that are seen as originating in what is considered the West. Lin’s use of vibrant colours and his experimentation with composition produce a new kind of Chinese art and demonstrate his commitment to bring Chinese painting into the modern era, where the idea of self- expression is vital. Lin Fengmian was born in 1900 in Guangzhou, in southern China. He started his formal education locally and practised his painting skills throughout his adolescence. In 1919, he went to Shanghai and joined a study programme that allowed him to travel to Europe. Upon arriving in France, he immediately became interested in the modernist paintings of the Fauve movement. 1 In 1926, he returned to China, where he was appointed Director of the Beijing National Art College. Throughout his directorship, he steered the school along a course that was both modern and traditionally Chinese, exposing students to the latest Western art concepts as well as to traditional Chinese painting. Unfortunately, his appointment as the director ended following the 1937 Japanese invasion. After the 1949 liberation, Lin’s views on art did not meet with the government’s approval, and he was largely excluded from participation in the Chinese art world. Although he taught oil painting, most of his works were painted on Chinese paper, a practice he continued throughout the rest of his life.2 Lin was immensely concerned about his country. He believed that emotional issues were the source of social problems. Artistic expressions, in his view, would invigorate the spirit and motivation of humanity. He emphasized that the freedom to create is the most important element and that art should not be separated into different schools nor defined as Eastern or Western. In his images, he focused on combining the concepts of time, ethnicity, and individual expression to comment on social situations in China.3 Throughout his career, Lin exhibited a keen interest in the expressionistic side of Western modernism, particularly the use of non-naturalistic colours to evoke emotions. A sentimental emphasis is evident in his figurative paintings, where one often feels that the scene depicted is the result of an intensely personal artistic vision. This is reinforced by his use of colour, which becomes Lin’s most important and individual contribution to modern Chinese painting. He is perhaps the Chinese artist who best recognized the expressive potential of this resource. 25 Lin Fengmian, Nude, circa 0s, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the estate of the artist. Nude (Renti) (1930s) is one of his earliest innovative works painted in oil; it was repeatedly published in various Chinese art journals when it was first completed. It is now lost and only known through colour reproductions. In this painting, Lin experiments with his newly acquired knowledge of Western artistic practices and explores human emotion through the genre of the nude, an unusual expressive avenue for a Chinese artist, especially at that time. The composition consists of a female nude positioned in the centre with a background of axe-like black lines that separate different blocks of mostly red, orange, and yellow. Dabs of blue are noticeable on the lower left corner and close to the figure’s left forearm. The mood of the composition is one of contrast between the strong and vibrant background and the inert posture of the human figure. There is a cubistic quality to the composition, and it was around this time that the artist began to explore the concept of Cubism and how to interpret it meaningfully in his work. This image was circulated in print as a radical work of art in an era when Chinese intellectuals were eager to learn about new ideas and incorporate them into their own practices. Popular publications provided the means to circulate knowledge that otherwise would have remained unknown to the masses. For the readers of these publications, it became immediately clear that there was an intense contrast in modes of visual representation between what was seen traditionally in China and in its modern Western counterparts. In a way, this image promoted an awareness of Lin within the public domain, where he was expected to participate in finding new directions for twentieth century Chinese art. 6 Lin emphasized that painters must draw their inspiration from nature. He recommended translating reality through twentieth century notions of “memory, imagination, and fictionalization” of both European and Chinese origin.4 Raw materials must be reconstituted in order to create new formal compositions. These formal compositions are not the “random strokes” that traditional scholar-painters liked to play with in the past, however; rather, they are a “crystallization of the character, material, and spectrum of colours shown in natural objects.”5 Lin regards the freedom of self-expression as a prerequisite for any meaningful representation of reality. His paintings received criticism for being too Westernized to be called Chinese. Since his youth, he had been eager to experiment with mixing Chinese and Western elements from both classical and modern sources, his best remembered motto being “introduce Western arts, reorganize Chinese art, mix Chinese and Western arts, create contemporary arts.”6 This motto reflects his strong desire to make national—that is, Chinese—painting globally competitive. In his view, since modern Chinese literature and art evolved as the result of its encounter with Western imports, one could not talk about national identity without first considering transnational disposition. He believed that modernity should not be a singular entity but a more complex manifestation of cross-cultural transformations that result in a fusion of various representational systems. An example illustrative of the artist’s ideas is a 1959 painting titled Farewell My Concubine (Ba wang bie ji) that depicts a famous opera scene where the emperor bids goodbye to his favourite concubine. Lin chose to render the dramatic moment when the concubine kills herself to prove her loyalty by cutting her throat with a sword while the emperor looks away. In this scene, Lin combines elements from both Cubism and Chinese shadow puppets in depicting the subject. The costumes are rendered angular and in dark colours (with red strategically placed on various spots) against a plain white background, emphasizing dramatic gestures that are frozen in time. In this work, Lin made a breakthrough in his Lin Fengmian, Farewell My Concubine, , oil on canvas, x 8 cm. Courtesy of the estate of the artist. exploration of incorporating Cubism into his painting. In an unpublished letter to one of his students, he discussed how, particularly in his paintings of Chinese opera, he was finally able to employ Cubism to embody time and space. In his analysis, the separation of scenes in the old style of Chinese opera represents the continuity of time, while the separation of places in the new style of Chinese opera symbolizes space. He believed that Western painters were generally concerned with spatial representation 7 Lin Fengmian, Farewell My Concubine, 78, crayon on paper. Courtesy of the estate of the artist. whereas Chinese artists focused on representing time, and it was only Cubism, in its ability to place different temporal and spatial elements together, that captured the essence of time. Hence, combining Cubism and Chinese opera was the only way to represent time and space together visually.7 This work also reflects his keen interest in Chinese shadow puppets, which was a popular form of entertainment. Colours are deliberately subtle so that the forms of the figures are emphasized, as in the traditional Chinese art form. Thus, Lin combines Cubism, Chinese opera, and Chinese shadow puppets in the same work, demonstrating his original and creative processes. Though his composition embodies methods and ideas he learned in Europe, the sentiment is distinctly Chinese. It reflects his experimentation with multiple cultural backgrounds and demonstrates that it is possible to re-evaluate and revive tradition while adopting new concepts, creating innovative forms of expression that are appropriate for the era. In addition, he proved that one does not have to break with the past in order to embrace modernity, and, instead, he emphasized that the inherited resources of Chinese culture are adequate for responding to and incorporating changes associated with foreign ideas.8 As a result, this work embodies a modernity that comprises different levels of interpretation and ambiguity; a clear definition is not its ultimate goal. Photographic reproductions of this hybrid work of art continue to be regularly published, which establishes it as a milestone of Lin’s artistic achievement in his quest for a new form of visual representation in Chinese art. 8 The fusion of traditional Chinese and modern Western ideas has become a renewed and central feature of contemporary Chinese painting. Chinese artists again incorporate the Western themes, styles, and techniques that are most suitable to convey their ideas and feelings about past and current social events as a matter of course.