Personae: Jia Fangzhou (Jia for short), senior art critic

　　China Education TV reporter (Re for short)

　　Place: Jia's apartment, Shangyuan, Beijing

　　Time: January 23th, 2014

　　Re: Mr. Jia, Good Day. It is an honor that you should spare your precious time to accept our interview. The program "Cultural China" in China Education TV is planning a feature film about the oil painter, Zhao Mengge. Considering your achievement and status in the field of art, we would like to invite you to talk about her oil paintings from the academic angle and the impressions that she has left upon you.

　　Jia: OK. You ask and I answer.

　　Re: You have ever mentioned, in one of your articles about Zhao's works, that "the present is the age of delimitation and integration." These two qualities are, too, to be discovered in Zhao's works. Please talk about Zhao's works in that light at first.

　　Jia: Oil painting has been borrowed to China for only about over 100 years. The earliest Chinese oil painting began with Li Tiefu. He, going to the United States of America at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, is the first to learn oil painting from the West and, then, to come back to China. For more than 100 years, Chinese oil painters have been seeking a way by which to integrate a method of painting taken from the West with the profound Chinese traditional culture, in order to have a kind of painting that is different the Western one while, at the same time, special for its native characteristics. Such, in fact, is the question that has been deliberated upon by a whole century of Chinese artists. From the earliest generation to the present, artists have been trying to find a direction that Chinese oil painting needs to take. Zhao, too, is one of them. She is an artist in search, and she is special for her attempt to integrate those factors in traditional Chinese paintings into oil paintings. Her artistic works are no simple ones, and they are composed of traditional culture, integrated with traditional Chinese attitudes on nature and the harmony between nature and humanities. In technique, her paintings incorporate many elements in Chinese ink paintings. The abundant use of lines, the color of black, the contrast of black and white, and the effects of blankness-all of these are borrowed from traditional culture and integrated into her own oil paintings. If oil painting is the body, tradition is the spirit integrated into it, and vice versa. She is seeking to embody the Chinese spiritual elements by a Western form of art, and she is trying to make integration of both. She is also seeking traditional poetry, which is an important factor in traditional Chinese paintings. In a nation of poetry like ours, poetry is to be found universally. Poetry is reflected in Zhao's works as well.

　　Re: We are now talking about poetry. Audience that happens to switch to our program may believe by mistake that we are talking about an ink painter. We are actually talking about an oil painter.

　　Jia: Such mistake rightly reflects one of her characteristics. Her paintings, at an immediate glance, looks more like an ink than an oil one. Her stroking and the thickness of her paintings could only be revealed at a close look.

　　Re: Can we say, therefore, that if Zhao can continue to evolve in the same direction and make it better and better, it is possible for her to leave a chapter, for the integration of Chinese and Western paintings, in the history of art?

　　Jia: It depends upon the qualities of her potentials in her future development, and she is bestowed with them. As she begins to understand the spirit of Chinese culture better and as her experiences of life begin to enrich and deepen themselves, her works will gain the depths of thought. Technique is not the final achievement of an artist. It is her self-cultivation, her understanding of painting, her insight into the human arts as a whole and her mastery of traditional culture that finally determines her accomplishment in her artistic pursuit. As Zhao moulds herself more comprehensively, she shall reach a certain cultural depth in art. That, I believe, is a kind of art that is composed of our traditional culture and those new things borrowed from the West, and that is still deeply rooted in our own Chinese art. By then, we shall not call it simply oil or ink painting. It is an art of different media.

　　Re: Shall we also learn and integrate those advantages particular to the Western paintings?

　　Jia: Yes, and all of them. Oil painting is a comprehensive art, and we cannot afford to leave unutilized some of the good things in it. It is unwise to ignore such elementary materials as greasepaint, canvas and etc. It is necessary to borrow from some of the excellent qualities of the oil painting. We cannot ignore oil painting completely because, if so, we'd better be occupied only with ink painting, making use only of writing brushes and inks. What is the meaning of oil painting, then? It is necessary, therefore, for Zhao to create her works on canvas in the form of oil painting. Oil painting has some values of its own, and it serves as a base upon which Chinese culture can be integrated into it. It is unadvisable and impracticable to leave oil painting in the dark. Zhao's works are significant in that oil painting, in them, serves as the elementary materials while, at the same time, traditional culture is also reflected. Her works are her understanding of, and insight into, the spirit of Chinese culture and it is, exactly, what matters the most in Zhao's art.

　　Re: Just the other day, we mentioned Pan Yuliang, another competent woman painter. Her art, too, is combined with the factors of both ink and oil painting. Pan and Zhao are particular in their own ways. Then, in which does Zhao's particularity in integration lie?

　　Jia: It is possible for us to make a comparison between Zhao and Pan. Zhao, after all, belongs to our age, and it is possible for her to make a better understanding of different paintings. Pan, in her age, however, had little for reference. She had fewer sources to which to refer for the ways by which to add to oil painting a Chinese flavor. Zhao, in a different situation, has her pioneers to whom to turn for inspiration. She is, actually, on a road to integrating traditional Chinese philosophical ideas-such as those about nature, humanities and heaven-into her own works. The relationships between humanities and nature, in her works, are abstract ones. Women, in most of her works, are no concrete existences. They have no actions and there is, about them, neither story nor theme. They are only a symbol, or a symbolized personae. Nakedness, furthermore, is not commonly seen in reality. It is abstraction because, when a persona is being symbolized, it is as proper that she wears clothes as that he doesn't. If a persona wears no clothe, her social factors disappear because no one knows her status without clothe. Naked, she is a natural human. When she, deprived of her social factors, becomes a natural human, the relationships between man and man, humanities and nature become more natural and harmonious. Then, humanities are a part of nature, and it is in close accordance with our philosophical ideas. Besides, from the angel of technique, all her personae are white or close to white. White plays the role of moderating in the painting. It is an inclination in Chinese paintings that white usually play the part that black plays. Blankness, thus, is one important feature in Chinese paintings. Zhao places humanities in nature, paints them all white and poses them against nature. It is similar to the effects of blankness in ink paintings. When white is not taken for concrete human bodies, blankness, in relation to mountains, trees, waters and stones, becomes important and necessary in the painting. It will be complete difference when it is, if not blankness, in the color of incarnadine. The relationships between different colors necessitate the presence of white, and it strengthens the taste of ink. Humanities are concrete but Zhao, when she makes them all blankness, is asserting her own way of creating, and that is to blur the subjects, seen from the effect of technique. Zhao's works look like ink painting at an immediate glance, made out of writing brushes, because she makes profuse use of lines, of many traditional techniques and integrates these techniques with the instruments and materials of oil painting. She, of course, has many difficulties to overcome. The color of oil painting, for instance, is thick. The lines don't come smoothly on the ground that, after all, there is a great difference between the tastes of oil and ink paintings. Zhao, however, is trying her best to find a kind of thinness similar to that in ink painting by which to counterbalance the thickness in oil painting. She has done a great deal to achieve that sense of naturalness.

　　Re: At present, a young painter or an art amateur, if he wishes for prominence or for wider recognition, needs to explore a way by which to combine Chinese and Western arts and they, to this purpose, have done a lot. Zhao, too, has her share in it. What is more important, however, is that she did find a way out. Seen from a different perspective, her way is widely accepted and recognized. Such achievement is not easy. Why, then, is her way, particular in itself, is acceptable and recognizable?

　　Jia: It is like this. It is by a preexistent structure that men first begin to make appreciation of beauty. If one, for instance, appreciates traditional ink paintings, he has in his mind a structure of beauty appreciation. It is called, theoretically, "preexistent structure." Such "preexistent structure" determines what he sees for appreciation. If the object that he sees coincides with the "preexistent structure" in his mind, he appreciates and affirms it. He, either a collector or an art lover, if he appreciates Zhao's works by such a preexistent structure, can easily realize communion with her. If Zhao makes purely oil paintings, communion cannot be achieved immediately. When Zhao, however, adds Chinese flavor into oil paintings, the taste of ink is so strengthened that communion with Chinese audiences becomes easier. For the same reason, foreign audiences, when they, too, find so many factors akin to Chinese paintings, are prone to agreeing with, and appreciating, her efforts.

　　Re: Zhao, herself, is a woman painter and the subjects in her works, too, are women. Can you, from this angel, talk about her subjects in paintings?

　　Jia: You have read my article that I have consecrated to her. I, in it, didn't take it as a major question. I didn't focus upon her as a woman because she tries to express to her audiences something that is purely of her own style, something that is the result of integration and delimitation of oil painting and traditional art. That is, possibly, the subject-matter of her thinking. Her own experiences of existence, though no so prominently, also appear in her works. About them-her individual experiences, the obstructions that she met in life and all kinds of difficulties to overcome-I talked, too. All of these are sensible in her works. A kind of sadness, a feeling that is deeply rooted in her heart, even in a highly poetical situation, is detectable. It is all that flow naturally from an artist, thought she doesn't mean it on purpose. She is a woman, and feminine bodies as the subjects of her works are closely related to her sex. Her own feelings, furthermore, are embodied naturally in her works. Considering those two points, it is natural to attribute the characters of her works to her sex. Her personae, however, are only of her own style and, therefore, they cannot be considered as the direct expression of her own inner mind. The Personae, when abstracted, are, not the direct, but the indirect expressions of inner feelings. Her advantage lies in that she, in her process of seeking, had finally found out her own style. There lie her charms.

　　Re: Then, is Zhao's style special and clear in outline in modern Chinese painting?

　　Jia: Zhao has her own characters and styles in her own works, different from that of others. She is still young, and is continuously evolving herself. I have already seen a group of sceneries that she has newly painted. She is unceasingly seeking. She, when she stays in her studio for too long a time, will go to nature to feel it, to experience it and to attain from it some new feelings about life and nature. In such a process, she is gradually perfecting herself, and beginning to form something original. She is, to say it in affirmative, a painter of her own style, an artist different from others. To summarize her style: factors akin to Chinese paintings are abundantly added to her works and her insight into this world, too, is integrated into them. It is necessary for us, therefore, to pay attention to those in which an artist excels. It is not easy for Zhao to reach such a high standard at so young an age. The usual case is that a young artist may not realize his own existence and, as a rule, it is difficult to find his characters in his works and to distinguish his works from that of others. Zhao's case is different in that her works are easily detectable. I can distinguish her paintings at any situations without needing to turn to authorship.

　　Re: Is it not to be hoped for from an artist of her age?

　　Jia: No, it is not. Her achievement depends upon the education that she received when she was still small. Comparatively, she is a more intelligent, cleverer artist. She, though lacking a systematic academic training, senses, understands and experiences the spirit of academy. It is, therefore, due to the absence of academic confinement that she can try her best more than academic rules allow her to. She can make use of her own characters and styles to her advantage.

　　Re: Mr. Jia, then, at what time and under what condition did you make acquaintance with Zhao? Are you familiar with her changes in style in her works from the earliest to the latest?

　　Jia: It is during the past two years that I made her acquaintance. It is only recently that I have composed that article about her. Then I saw her works, but she only became mature these a few years. Her early works didn't impress me deeply, but she was obviously in the process of seeking. She, then, seeking unceasingly, was, in the strictest sense, not mature in style. The wholeness of the painting and the ideal condition for creation are to be realized at one stroke. The accomplishment of these two needs a process and failure is inevitable, natural and meaningful during it.

　　Re: We have already talked about Zhao's works. You have known her for about two years, and may have some contacts with her. Can you talk about the impressions that Zhao has left you?

　　Jia: She, as far as I know, is an extremely strenuous, independent artist that is willing to devote all that she has to art. You may see that she is leading a simple life, with neither a family for which to care nor her parents by her side. She, therefore, can focus her attention with ease. She, apart from painting in her studio, often drives to paint in the open. She, I believe, has a willingness of devotion to art. Such are the impressions that she has left me. Once, as I remember, I met her in Shanghai when she was driving south to make paintings there. It is not easy for her, as a woman, single in shadow, to do it and to advance, step by step, in her career. It is also the embodiment of her spiritual strength.

　　Re: Is it necessary for women painters to make even more strife, than men painters, to harvest success?

　　Jia: Yes, and it seems to be so. If a man painter needs to work ten times harder, a woman painter needs to work at least twenty or fifty times harder. It is because she has more problems in life with which to deal, and she has more to give up, such as caring for a family, raising children and attending to parents. All of these, Zhao hasn't shouldered. She, for instance, if she wishes to form a family, needs to shoulder the responsibility of raising children. She, then, in the process, will waste a lot of energy while, without a family, she will lead a simple life, be concentrative and pour all her attention to artistic creations. If, then again, she has a family of her own, with her parents and children by her side for whom to care, with her husband whose feeling she needs to consider, how much energy, you can imagine, is left for her to make paintings? The accomplishments that she is enjoying nowadays are closely related to the sacrifice that she has made. She has given up a lot but she, we can say, doesn't give up on purpose. Marriage is rather wished than hoped for. Everyone, actually, is trying to lead a full and happy life. It is always possible to make compensation for discontentment in life by art, a spiritual outlet for humanities. Those troubles and difficulties in life can be artistically compensated. She, therefore, tries to perfect her life by means of art. Her life, then, is a good road. If it is possible to make perfection, that is, to have a family, children and parents, to be full and happy and to excel in art, it is, of course, the most desired. Such consummation, however, is not a human lot. It is impossible for humanities to be perfect in everything. Zhao, however, as one that can realize a complete individuality, can be perfecting herself and approaching perfection in her own ways.