张东红毕业于吉林艺术学院，这个学院的油画家很有特点，自由奔放、色彩强烈。吉林油画家从胡悌麟到贾涤飞到赵开坤、刘大明，还有一批新起的青年画家，对于中国油画的表现性风格有很大的推动，形成了一个强有力的现代画家群，他们的艺术无论对于人生还是自然，都具有发自内心的感动和自由的表达，没有那种很沉闷的东西。

　　张东红在这个画家群体中是承先启后的中坚力量。他的作品，体现了具有学院训练的艺术家所具有的艺术视野与审美品味，那就是对于绘画本身的关注，重视油画艺术语言的研究性。身处一个平面图像和平涂手法泛滥的时代，张东红保持了对绘画的热爱，这在今天看来已经很古典了。张东红放不下对绘画语言的热爱，他的绘画表明了他和许多流行艺术家的不同。这在今天是相当不容易的，这个时代不太讲油画性甚至是绘画性，流行的是以平涂为主的图像与符号，而且这种图像要求很强的识别性，也就是直截了当。当然，图像与符号还是有一定的差异，当作品中符号性不断增强时，图像性就会减弱。图像包含着比较多的涵义，它不是单一明确的所指与能指的对应关系，否则它们不会成为解释学的对象。但是当代绘画作品中有大量的作品着重于某种个体自造的符号，它接近于商业广告中的符号，像麦当劳的符号，一目了然，直接传递特定信息。张东红的作品，着重于提炼当代生活给予他的感受与思考，并且以独特的图像加以呈现。他的作品中的图像具有相当大的空间，他没有简单化地往符号方向走，也没有在自己的作品中堆砌现代生活中的物象与符号。

　　20世纪90年代早期张东红的艺术具有一种“反现代性”的美学特点，也就是说，他的艺术不是对现代社会嘈杂的竞争生活的追随与赞颂。相反，他的作品具有中国传统文人画的气质，有一种自觉地疏离于现代生活，回到个人内心的沉静与灵魂自由的倾向。无论是强烈还是轻柔，张东红的作品都让人感到对自由的向往。从1995年画的鸟笼到后来的瓶中花、家居生活，他都表现了一种无言独上高楼的宁静独处。一壶清茶，一盏心灯，平静的构图，通过梦幻般的云山到达一种想象的空间。虽然，张东红在画布上采用了明艳的颜色，但那可以理解成繁华落尽见真纯的寂寞，却也是一种闹中取静的方法。张东红用鲜红的颜色表达了一种平静的安逸，这一点与法国表现主义画家马蒂斯有些相近，马蒂斯在其晚期作品中常使用色彩鲜明的大型剪纸，表现了一种奢华中的宁静，一如陶渊明所说的“结庐在人境，而无车马喧”。由此，张东红的艺术走向了现代社会所常见的焦虑的反面，宁静致远，将精致与艳丽结合为一体。

　　张东红的绘画另一个特点是他比较早地注意到中国传统绘画的审美意境，并且自觉地吸收到自己的创作中，相对于中国油画界近几年才开始讨论的“油画的意境”、“油画的写意性”等话题，张东红可以说很早就开始了这方面的探索。他画中的女性，虽然是现代女性，但却具有古代仕女的某种神韵和意态。通过《休闲图》、《庭院深处》等描绘女性的系列绘画，他表现出一帘深闺幽梦的象征性寓意。通过画中的室内环境与生活用具，他表达出内心如静物般的静如止水的状态。通过中国古典服装与现代女性的结合，他间接地表达了对当代生活的态度，从而表明了现代生活与传统文化的内在关联。也可以说，他描绘的是一种“现代仕女画”，其中不只是对女性生存状态的关照，也是对现代人生活状态的反思。

　　对于东方传统文化的借鉴，并不限于描绘现代女性的绘画，张东红对于传统中国山水画的研究也很深入。他最为推崇的是八大山人，不仅是其美学品格，更有其艺术构图与笔墨语言方面的极简主义，深刻地启发了张东红的艺术创造。张东红对八大山人的学习，一是通过风景借鉴山水，着重构图与云水的表现;一是通过静物借鉴花鸟，将现实转换为梦幻。比较一下八大的《仿倪云林山水》与张东红的“海市蜃楼”;八大的《瓶菊图》与张东红的“瓶中花”，我们可以看到，张东红的艺术中，确实有中国画的笔墨趣味，浓淡相宜，虚实相生，更具有一种主观性很强的自由构图，将现实与梦境糅为一体，具有了某种象征性的超现实主义风格。

　　在今日美术馆展出的张东红近期作品中，有一种从象征到抽象，从现实到超现实的发展趋向。从《欲望像花儿一样》到《万山红遍》，他作品中的鲜花，具有惊人的繁殖力，在画中弥漫，逐渐地扩张到传统的山水，并且逐渐覆盖了整个画面。这是一个深刻的隐喻，花儿代表了一种欲望，而传统山水象征着一种古典的宁静。在现代生活的欲望扩张面前，古典山水所代表的静观与沉思，正在悄然退隐到历史的深处。

　　而在《山水之苹果界》、《山水之石榴界》、《山水之桔子界》等作品中，张东红打破了西方传统的静物画与风景画的界限，将静物放大为“一花一世界”的宏大构图，而用出色的油画技术，他所擅长的用笔，将透明的颜料糅入画布之中，表现了苹果、石榴、桔子的微观景象。很好地实现了抽象与具象的统一，在这里，已经初步具有了徐悲鸿先生所赞赏的“尽精微、致广大”的艺术境界。在当代艺术中，不乏对日常静物高度写实的描绘，但是，将风景画与静物、花卉这样相结合，纳万里江山于天地造物之中，却是不多见的。张东红的这些作品，近看是造物之灵，远观亦是人生的梦境，在亦真亦幻之中达到了物我合一。

　　说到底，张东红是一个讲究艺术语言纯粹性的画家，他认为艺术家应该把艺术本身的问题解决好。我觉得，张东红在图像和绘画的视觉性方面有一个综合，达到了比较好的平衡。这里说的视觉，不是那种设计学所讲的“视觉识别”，而是视觉感受。面对张东红的作品，你可能一下子没法识别，但是你可以感受它给你带来的许多东西。例如张东红作品中的视觉感受很强，他对于色彩的把握和形象的塑造，乃至扁平水珠的表现，具有很强的控制力。这些是职业画家必须具有的素养，但是在今天为许多青年画家所忽视，认为是已经过时的形式主义。有些像现在的小说，经过先锋文学的洗礼和冲击之后，小说家不会写小说了。小说最基本的是要讲故事，要有情节，要把一个故事讲通顺，要有对现实生活的传达能力。但是先锋小说现在非常尴尬，连专业的文学评论家也读不懂，离老百姓越来越远。当然，我们不是要求当代艺术像通俗的电视连续剧、肥皂剧，完全成为世俗生活的流畅记录，而是说绘画就是绘画，有它自身的要求，要能给人审美上的视觉感受，而不是符号和观念的堆砌。

　　我非常欣赏著名的现代雕塑家贾柯梅蒂，他的雕塑能够让我们产生丰富的艺术感受，能够带给我们很多贴近生活的经验和体会，那些看似纤细的雕像在空间中行走，却具有惊人的精神空间的扩展能力。在这个意义上，张东红作品的价值观也可以说是现代主义的，面对一个当代的商业化社会，张东红保持了自己的生活理想和价值观，对待生活，他不是无所谓，而是有所为有所不为。说到平衡，我认为张东红对于图像传达的意义和绘画的视觉感受性都给予同样的重视。他的作品体现了当代画家的一种综合性，而非现代画家对某一艺术语言的偏执性追求。

　　这种综合也是一种吸收，一种创造。但是最终张东红要面对一个无法回避的问题，面对当代艺术的群雄并起，他在美学上或者在其他方面能不能确立自身的独特性?彭德先生喜欢张东红的“水果”系列，我有同感，尤其是那幅《山水之苹果界》。张东红描绘了一个被咬过的苹果，然后把它陌生化，放大成为群山一样的巨大形态。我认为这种视觉上的转换很自然，抽象的感觉很强烈。也许张东红在以后的创作中可以强化抽象性的因素，从中扩展出更大的视觉空间。要之，我认为，张东红的作品中那种肉感的、黏质的、滑腻的东西，那种虚实相生的模糊意象，带给我们的是一种莫名的、复杂的综合感受。他作品中的水果，既像植物也像动物，具有动物的肉感和黏质。也许这是张东红的艺术的一个特点，值得他从美学观的角度去探讨和强化。如此，他可能会进入一个“雾非雾、花非花”的境界，在现实物象的陌生化过程中，完成自我感觉的表达和观众视觉感受的陌生化转换。

　　Zhang Donghong graduated from Jilin College of the Arts; the artists from that school are very distinctive with their free style and bright color. From Hu Tilin, Jia Difei, Zhao Kaikun, to Liu Daming and the others, the younger oil painters of Jilin have a great impact on expressionistic style of Chinese oil painting. They form a strong modern artist group. Whether to life or nature, their art manifests the inner affect and free expression, without the touch of that dreary academicism.

　　Zhang Donghong is a backbone among that group. His work embodies the artistic vision and taste of an academic artist, who is concerned about the painting itself and the study of oil painting language. Living in an age of graphical image and coating method, Zhang Donghong keeps his love of painting, which seems very classical these days. Zhang Donghong can not abandon his love of painting language, and his paining shows a difference between him and many other popular artists. It is very difficult at present, for people in this era do not care about the method of oil “painterliness”, or even “painterliness”. What become extremely popular are image and symbol made by coating method. Those images have to be easily identified, namely, have to be straightforward. Certainly, there is a difference between image and symbol. When the symbol in an art work gradually strengthens, the image will be weakened. The image contains more meaning. It is more than the corresponding relationship of the signified and the signifier; otherwise, it will not become an object of hermeneutic. Nevertheless, there are many contemporary paintings laying emphasis on some self-made symbol, which is closer to the business symbol such as that of McDonald’s, being straightforward and conveying specific information. The work of Zhang Donghong lays emphasis on refining his feelings and thought that the contemporary life gives him, and presents them through the unique images. The analysis of the image in his work is very feasible. In his painting, he does not simply turn to the symbol or pile up physical images and symbols of modern life.

　　Zhang Donghong’s creation in the early 1990s carries an aesthetic trait of “anti-modernitiy”; namely, he does not follow and praise the noisy, fierce competitive life of modern society in his art. On the contrary, his work shows a temperament of Chinese traditional scholar painting, an inclination to escape from modern life, to return to his inner peace and enjoy a free soul. Whether intense or gentle, Zhang Donghong’s work makes the viewer feel a yearning towards freedom. In his painting, from the bird cage of 1995, the flowers in a vase to the family life, he demonstrates a quiet solitude of “climbing onto the high tower silently”. Looking at his calm composition of a pot of tea with a lamp, the viewer will enter an imaginary space through the dreamlike clouds and mountains. Although Zhang Donghong adopt the bright color on his canvas, it should be understand as the loneliness after flourishing, a way to seek quietness in a noisy environment. Zhang Donghong uses bright red to express placid coziness; this method is close to that of Matisse, the French expressionist painter. In his later work, Matisse often uses colorful paper of large size to express a serenity in extravagance, just like the lines of Tao Yuanming: “In people’s haunt I build my cot; Of wheel’s and hoof’s noise I hear not.” The art of Zhang Donghong then turns to the reverse side of the anxiety that is normal in modern society. It reveals a peaceful mind, unites the delicacy and flamboyance together.

　　Another trait of Zhang Donghong’s painting is that he takes notice of the aesthetic ideorealm of traditional Chinese painting earlier than others, and absorbs it into his own creation consciously. Compared to the recent discussion on “the ideorealm of the oil painting” and “the impressionism of Chinese oil painting”, Zhang Donghong has long since begun his exploration in this area. Although the women in his painting are modern women, they have some kind of charm and gesture of traditional ones. In those paintings that reflect the woman life, he manifests the symbolistic meaning of those girls in their boudoirs, such as “the Picture of Leisure Time” and “Deep in the Courtyard”. Through the indoor environment and living goods, he presents his calm and quiet state. The modern women in traditional dress indirectly show his attitude to contemporary life, indicate the inner connection between modern life and traditional culture. His portrait painting, so to speak, represents his concern about the condition of both woman and modern citizen.

　　His borrowing of the Eastern traditional culture is not limited to the modern woman portraits. Zhang Donghong has studied the traditional Chinese landscape painting thoroughly. He likes Bada Shanren most, not only his aesthetic taste, but also his minimalism of artistic composition and painting language. They enlighten Zhang Donghong’s creation profoundly. It is by two ways that Zhang Donghong learns from Bada Shanren. One is to learn the painting of mountains and waters through his landscape, which focuses on the composition of painting and expression of cloud and water; another is to learn the painting of flowers and birds through his still life, to transform reality to dream. If we compare Bada’s “Imitation of a Landscape Painting by Ni Yunlin” to Zhang Donghong’s “Mirage”; Bada’s “Chrysanthemums in Vase” to Zhang Donghong’s “Flowers in Vase”, we can see that there is a stroke of traditional painting in the art of Zhang Donghong, which demonstrates a symbolistic surrealistic style.

　　In the recent work of Zhang Donghong exhibited in Today Art Museum, we can find a trend of development; that is from symbol to abstract, from reality to surreality. In “Desire Blooming Like Flowers” and “Red-dyed Mountains”, the flowers in his paintings are so fertile; they spread all over the painting. This is a profound metaphor. The flower represents desire, while traditional landscape indicates classical serenity. In front of the desire of modern life, the tranquility and meditation symbolized by the classical landscape gradually retreat to the depth of history.

　　In his paintings of “Scenery of Apple”, “Scenery of Pomegranate”, and “Scenery of Tangerine”,etc., Zhang Donghong breaks the boundary between traditional Western still life and scenery paintings. He magnifies the still life to the grand composition of “one flower one world”. The microcosmic spectacles of apple, pomegranate, and tangerine are expressed by his outstanding craft. Here, he has arrived at the artistic ideorealm of “exploring the microcosmic world to reach the macroscopical one” by Xu Beihong. There are highly realistic still life paintings in contemporary art, but the way to combine scenery and still life together to contain the vast territory of mountains and waters is very rare. Those paintings by Zhang Donghong have reached the unification of object and self.

　　After all, Zhang Donghong is an artist who is proficient in artistic language. He believes that the artist should know how to resolve the issue of art. I think Zhang Donghong has reached the balance of visual effect. Looking at Zhang Donghong’s painting, you may not tell but can feel many things. For example, the visual effect of his painting is very strong. He can be the master of color and image. Those are what a professional painter should grasp, but ignored by many young artists nowadays. They believe it is the out-of-date formalism. Just like the novels of these days, the novelist does not know how to write anymore after the baptism and impact of the avant-garde literature. The basic elements of fiction include that of telling story; you must have plots and know how to tell, an ability to convey the real life. However, even a professional literary critic does not understand some avant-garde stories, which are even more far away from ordinary people. Certainly, we do not ask the contemporary art to become the frivolous record of worldly life, like popular TV play and soap opera. What we want is that painting should be painting. It should have its own requirement, should give the viewer an aesthetic visual effect, not just a piles of symbols and ideas.

　　I like the distinguished modern sculptor Giacometti very much. His sculpture can leave us abundant artistic feelings, give us many experience of life. The seemingly slender sculpture has amazing expansion capability. In this way, the values of Zhang Donghong’s work belong to modernism. Faced with a contemporary commercialized society, Zhang Donghong keeps his own ideal and values of life. He does not treat the life irresponsibly. On the contrary, he has things that will be done and things that will not be done. As to the balance, I believe Zhang Donghong pays the same attention to the meaning of image and the visual effect of painting. His work embodies the comprehensiveness of a contemporary artist other than the eccentric pursuit of an specific artistic language.

　　This comprehensiveness is an absorption and an invention. However, Zhang Donghong at last should face an unavoidable issue. Can he establish his own uniqueness among those contemporary artists? Peng De said he likes the “Huge Fruits” series by Zhang Donghong, and me too. I like that “Scenery of Apple” in particular. Zhang Donghong depicts a bitted apple, and then defamiliarizes it to as large as mountains. The visual transformation, I believe, is very natural, and there is a strong feeling of abstract. In the future, Zhang Donghong may strengthen the element of abstract to enlarge the visual space. The fleshly and creamy quality of Zhang Donghong’s painting brings us nameless, complicated feelings. The fruits in his painting have both qualities of plant and animal. This may be a trait of Zhang Donghong’s painting; perhaps he can explore and intensify it in terms of aesthetics. Therefore, he may enter a world of paradox - “Call it flower - ‘tis not a flower; Call it foggy mist - ‘tis none such either.” And in the process of defamiliarizing physical image, he will accomplish the expression of self-feeling and the defamiliarization of the viewer’s feeling at the same time.