A quiet new wave different with the New Wave of Fine Arts in 1985 is not only a wave of classic but also a wave of abstract from Shanghai which is almost out of exhibitions, and a wave of new realistic from Beijing. They have a common feature: to value vision language and method exploring. Precisely for this significance, I praise highly those oil paintings by Chen Wenji.
　　Actually, Chen Wenji had changed the style of painting before this series work, practicing various materials and been infatuated with abstract art. The period is a way to find his himself. He is not good at mental analyzing to step into the rational profundities of abstract art. But his exquisite intuition enables him to have a slighter observation to the realistic objects, his natural humor with naughty lets him discover the connection of realism and fantasy; his light and fine way of sentiment advances him a cool poetic sense similar with Magritte, the master of surrealism. Those constitute the integrity of Chen Wenji’s painting style.
　　Chen Wenji’s painting is factualitic, but factuality is certainly the realism by no means. The basic characteristic of realism is to reflect the reality by original life style. Although it does not rigidly adhere to the reality scenes really happened, it respects the logic of real life. Just because of that, regarding such as one kind of illusion state, bewildered incredible feeling and agitation which can not be talked clearly and so on, the language of realism is helpless. The tendency of non-realism of the language about modern art in the twenty century adapts the kind of universal incredible consciousness of people in this century. Chen Wenji’s painting benefits more from the surrealism, but compares that kind of surrealistic partial factuality, Chen Wenji’s painting maintains a realistic scene. The creation of incredible feeling of surrealism depends on a skeleton of grand image and realistic objects dismembered (like Dali). But the incredible feeling inside Chen Wenji’s painting is a combination, which belongs to the life style, changing the realistic objects. Yellow Sofa, for example, it is a common scene in daily life, but it rejects the environment sofa belonged to which fills with taste of Beijing life to turn into a deep grey background without any sentiment and touch of humanity. The sofa of the reality is placed in non-reality, this kind of contradiction then has created the incredible feeling. Pink Paper on Net, combination of paper and net; Red Wall, combination of red paper and heating, are all used an unreasonable combination to create the incredible feeling. Moreover, please have a notice on this key point that these paintings are concise unusually. Such as Yellow Sofa, just because it takes some stuff like sofa, but not something in the life as a corner with a sofa in the room, the sofa has been separated from its meaning in the life to be a visual symbol with the metaphor of spiritual space. This is the first meaning of what I said that although it is factualitic, but not the way of language transforming on realism.
　　Second, the incredible feeling created by unreasonable combination is a vague state which is an undoubtedly enrichment for realism art always with an explicit thematic thought. It is like music, or, as speaking of the substantive character of that the music can cover all artistic ambiguities, rather to say that it approaches closer to the essence of art. For Blue Sky, Gray Environment, if to redisplay living condition, it is no doubt to be clear at a glance, but what will that be except a room? This work perhaps makes people to think of the unconcerned modern society, or it is so disturbingly in the silence as if something must be happened, it maybe different from various person. Of course, this is not uncertain, because the incredible and indifferent main theme has stipulated. Just like we are not able to hear out the joy from the Missa Solemnis by Beethoven, but it creates different lofty and holiness in different people’s heart. The creation of vague state in Chen Wenji’s painting is also because he makes mold to the color of neutral sense: 1, large piece of black grey without color favor in most of his paintings; 2, although many pure colors has been used, but all light and shade changing are not ruled in temperature and adjusted completely by black and white, which make the feeling of pure color as neutrality. Color is rich in sentiment and, neutrality is ambiguous, the sentiment of color is rejected by the neutral grey. Therefore, the painting avoids too personalized expression with forcing created by obvious tendency of colors. And the painter’s subjection of color also becomes ambiguity in a distance of sense.
　　There are no great construction, no intense color contrast, that make Chen Wenji’s painting not be exciting. But there riches a poetic sentiment in his painting for the ordinary details and uniform composition, and just because of the cool and calm poetic sentiment, the incredible feeling turns more much deeper. So I like better Pink Paper on Net and Blue Sky, Gray Environment. To compare several other pieces of painting concentrated obviously in visual language, these two works discover an energetic implication more obviously, hiding a restlessness behind the calmness. In Blue Sky, Gray Environment, the indifferent and inhuman environment let us think of the death; the blue color of the sky is immeasurably deep and the weird cloud shape is gentleness, tempts us to crash into the depth of blue. What is Pink Paper on Net? Is it an invitation to guide us to move toward another world? Is it another world on the other side of the net? So spacious, so chilly, the bloody net too strong to stop breathing, the little path forward to the endlessness, the stern horizon burying hopes… the feel at a loss of modern people is raiding in this such quiet poetic sentiment. This is the third meaning of what I said—a depth consciousness causes the language transforming of art.
　　The energetic level of discovering life→the esthetic level of incredible feeling→the surrealistic language level of poetic sentiment. This kind of structure of Chen Wenji’s painting is quite similar with the rational drawing in the New Wave of Fine Arts in 1985, and he just emphasizes the visual language much better to be precise and meticulous. For this significance, his painting is a quiet revolution to old style.

作者：Li,Xianting