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Before talking about Fanbo’s oil paintings, I will list some keywords I have mentioned in recent years while discussing the relationship of oil paintings with realism. These keywords have great significance in understanding contemporary Chinese oil paintings. To understand Fanbo’s oil paintings, we need also to know these keywords.

First, what is “realistic painting”? In my view, art revolution has gone by so many years, and “realism” has become the education basis for many fine arts schools, but, from the angle of art history, few people have clearly identified its meaning. Here I give my preliminary definition to this word while I review the oil paintings of Guo Runwen. In The Fate of Realism in China, I clearly point out that realism is a concept from western art science.1 Why I have said so is that I hope “realistic painting” can be restored to its original western concept, rather than some universal or essential interpretation, which regards that realistic painting conforms to visual principle and therefore it is not a kind of discourse, but some “essence” expressing the truth.

In my Classification of Realistic Paintings2, I point out that “classification” change exists in realistic paintings. This text is the foreword written for the painting album of Guo Runwen. In his painting album, Guo Renwen collects various different brushworks on faces from contemporary famous oil paintings. His collections give me a chance to propose and discuss the “classification” phenomenon in “realistic paintings”. In this text, I point out a rudimentary but seriously neglected fact that “classification” change exists in recognition and depiction against the concept of “realistic paintings”. I write: “‘realistic painting’, as a visual concept, includes identification of the classification in realistic painting. It is a historical process itself and is gradually reflected by actual works. Nobody can do well in realistic painting from the start. From our predecessors’ efforts and experience, we can find how our latecomers surpass the predecessor in terms of the classification of realistic painting.” Then, I take Xu Beihong as an example irreverently to certain extent to exemplify the echelon change in the classification of realistic paintings. Subsequently, I give my view on China’s century oil painting development history: “whether in detailed depiction or in vigorous expression, China’s oil painting history is the extension of the concept of realistic paintings. Horizontally it becomes the object of the fine arts, while vertically, it shows diversified classifications. Of course, its development is sociological, other than formalism. That is to say, it is unimaginable or even impossible for the development of oil paintings if there is no social appetite for realistic paintings. Only after understanding this can we understand the development track of Chinese oil painting history and find out the ways of discourse to interpret its existence. This requires us to arm our mind with the thoughts of art history.” To be frank, the wording of “thoughts of art history” is somewhat obscure at that time and its real meaning is that I hope to substitute “advancement” with “classification”, the reason for which is that “advancement” always leads to some bias in depicting the history, thus making the history disappear due to irresponsible or intentionally writing.

When we talk about the “realistic” still life oil paintings of Huang Maoqiang3, I further clarify the above views by identifying the three objectives of “shaping, tone and texture”: “it can be imagined that when realism appears in China, its complete set of concepts concerning shaping, tone and texture will certainly apply great pressure to original Chinese visual arts, which happens gradually. What is first to be changed is shaping. The realism shaping based on anatomy will undoubtedly repulse the elegant taste in Chinese figure paintings. Western tone also gives strong impact to Chinese, making a nation having no ideas on light and shade gradually get accustomed to and readily acceptable to the light and shade  system. The most profound change happens in texture. For Chinese tradition, just as what Su Dongpo has illustrated, the “nonexistence” directly exposing the object texture has never been the objective to be pursued by art. Chinese landscape paintings since the Song and Yuan Dynasties have taken “real emptiness” as its value orientation. That is to say, the paintings taking the superficial qualities of objects as the objective will undoubtedly be repulsed by Chinese figure paintings. However, just because of lack of the deep study for the object qualities, and lack of realistic value in painting, the qualities reflected B by oil paintings since its access to China have bewildered many new artists. For them, how to express the qualities better and how to ensure more astonishing qualities to the objects painted have become their great concerns.”4 Why I have mentioned the issue of “texture” in discussing Huang Maoqiang’s oil paintings is that I think under the concept of realistic painting, the artists may have more detailed pursuit according to the special visual context. Viewing the development history of western arts, “texture” has been a potential objective existing with the oil paintings of the North Europe since the 15th century. Gombrich has given detailed analysis to this in his Texture and Light in Oil Paintings in North of the Alps5. When I once had the chance to visit Holland Royal Museum and Rotterdam Arts Museum, I get to understand the value of Gombrich’s study. Certainly, in the past several hundred years, the Nordic people have made astonishing efforts in expressing texture. Oil paintings, as a painting genre, just originate from here. In Jan Van Eyck’s oil paintings, the superficial luster once astonished the whole Europe. Oil painting began to embark officially upon the platform of European art history till Van Eyck’s student Weyden publicized this genre of paintings. Till the 1900s, the Nordic people are still bewildered by light. In the Northern Light6, a monograph introducing the Nordic oil paintings and published in 1988, we can still see the traditional pursuit for texture and light. 

Superficially, “realistic painting”, “classification” and “texture” depict only the oil paintings in technical terms. At least in the beginning of the last century when western oil paintings began to enter into China, the early painters thought so. Irrespective of the artistic atmosphere at that time, and the expression of depth cultural conflict in real world due to social transformation, the surprise to oil paintings by the fine arts circle undoubtedly originates from their realistic effects. To respond to such impacts, Chinese painters swarm to study abroad to find the true techniques for realistic paintings. Obviously, Xu Beihong is one of the outstanding representatives. With great aspiration in transforming traditional Chinese arts, he tried to create new art time by western realism. After years’ study, he came to the conclusion that “sketch is the foundation for all shaping arts”, which has brought incomparable influence to China’s education practice in fine arts. The core of his thoughts is just “realism”.

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Why I have bothered to list the keywords related to oil paintings is that I want to provide a rudimentary background in reviewing Fanbo’s oil paintings. In my view, Fanbo studies and creates oil paintings just under such a background. I believe that he, like many other painters mastering massive techniques in realistic paintings, has acquired techniques in oil paintings from the same framework. I was once lost in this framework for 4 years and therefore I am familiar with all the details. Maybe for my long study in art theory, I find out few people know the true connotations, though many of them understand what is “realistic painting” from this framework. Considering the classification of realistic painting, most people just mastered the ordinary skills on how to draw solid images on a plane. From their works, they are far from the ideal status. For quite a long time, the oil painting circle turned a deaf ear to the detail-adding technique common to European oil paintings. Chinese oil painting circle is almost dominated by Soviet-type one-time techniques till 1980s and 1990s when some foreign experts were introduced and some painters began to adopt the detail-adding techniques in their works. From then on, great progress has been made on the classification of realistic paintings.

For ordinary people, the most astonishing effect from oil paintings is to paint as it is. The sentence “Paint as It Is” is the fundamental knowledge to realism by outsiders. In fact, not only the outsiders, but also the professionals have shown great enthusiasm to realism and taken it as their only objective. They have tried to create more truthful effect than their predecessors. For some time, the competition on the classification of realistic paintings became fierce. Leng Jun’s works have brought great surprise to the audience. Some people even go near his works and wander how he draws the texture of the fabrics in his works, or how he makes the tiny scars on the shabby chairs. Shi Jun is also an expert in realistic paintings. Even one goes near to his works, people can find no strokes, except for details. Of course, they are artists full of strong ideas, but the details in their works make people neglect the ideas expressed in their works. This is what Su Xianting has criticized Shi Chong. According to Su Xianting, in as much as that ideas have been expressed through the pre-prepared “device” (for the time we call the “object” by Shi Chong in creating his paintings as “Device”), then it is meaningless to depict it elaborately, even in such details. I suppose what Su Xianting wants to express is excessive depiction often influences ideas themselves and imitative realistic paintings will make no contribution to improving the grade of works. Shi Chong, of course, shows objection to Su’s opinions and in his viewpoint, tracing itself is one of the meanings. He is a board artist and therefore, he will not remove this meaning. Otherwise, board painting is not board painting at all.7

Leng Jun and Shi Chong are two interesting examples, in addition to Guo Runwen in Guangzhou. Though they are different in painting techniques, people still consider they are important symbols in Chinese realism development. In addition, there are some oil painting painters in north China once called Academism and their works give indication of “classical oil paintings”, but can’t be compared with the above three painters in terms of ideology.

Among the competitive tide of realistic painting, I think Fanbo is somewhat alternative.

I have paid attention to Fanbo’s oil paintings since long. He has been calling his paintings as figure paintings and has been taking this as the subject in his works. His figure paintings are rather characteristic. These characteristics, I think, can be summarized as: first, emphasis is laid to the transitional faces in shaping. Through a series of methods, these transitional faces become the node to explain the form change. This makes his works different from superficial imitation from the very start, which simply deals with the contour line. Undoubtedly, it is fundamental to deal with the contour line and is the must that every realistic painter has to master. But, only familiar mastering of contour line is far from forming unique sense of forms, to say nothing of changing the planar monotony. Since oil paintings appear in China, generation after generation of canvas painters have spent all their efforts in how to deal with contour lines, rather than on how to interpret the meaning of forms. From China’s oil painting history, there are rare works strongly impressing the audience with form creation. The reason, I think, is that people always consider superficial painting of objects as realistic painting, but forget the importance of establishing unique shaping views in creation, which is more important than common painting. I can see that from the very start Fanbo hopes not to be constrained by the superficiality of objects. To show the depth of forms on the planar canvas, the meaning of depth shall be studied. If we trace back to the above keywords, I think Fanbo’s understanding to depth is, in fact, pursuit for texture, or qualities. That is to say, maybe from long, Fanbo has developed an idea that realistic painting has to be integrated with some ideas on forms, by which some special force can be produced. If we interpret the classification in realistic paintings as fidelity, then we will lose the meaning of oil paintings. Such examples are really numerous. 8 When Fanbo turns his eye to the spatial node of dimensional transition, it means he gives up the narrow understanding to realism. Meanwhile, the individualistic sense of forms reflects the unique understanding to object portrait by the painters. As a figure painter, Fanbo knows deeply that drawing of personality is more important than drawing of appearance. But, the problem is that this wording is always specious, making people fail to grasp the main points. All painters know that what a painter can do is to “draw” and it is true ability to “draw” well. But the difficulty is how a painting can be viewed as “good”, or what drawing technique can be regarded as “good”. When Fanbo lays emphasis to the treatment of transitional faces as his individual style, the object features are incorporated in his works naturally. Therefore, this results in his second characteristic in his figure paintings: Indifference. The figures in his works always put on indifferent air, evasive and lonesome. Strictly speaking, indifference is a way of de-individualization, from which the figures are placed in similar environment and with certain distance to the audience, rather than individual personality. Such distance will, in turn, enhance the non-authenticity of the works. What is interesting, the figures in Fanbo’s works are always concrete, most are his colleagues or friends. Therefore, when his friends see his works, they always identify who are the archetypes of his paintings at one glance. Meanwhile, the “indifferent” treatment of figures along with abstract background and the unrelated figures make the “individual” figures in the works thoroughly different from the true selves. To this point I have described the 3rd characteristic of Fanbo’s paintings, that is abstract background plus combined figures lacking normal logical relationship. Fanbo’s figure paintings, whether single figure, double figures or multiple figures, are placed in a strange and abstract ground. Sometimes, the painter may “plant” several trees under such an environment, but the trees have nothing to do with the trees in the real world, only functioning as the supplement to the indifferent emotion at most time. In dealing with multiple figure combination, Fanbo, on the one hand, applies “indifferent” processing to the true friends or colleagues, and on the other, he keeps them away from mutual communication and contact, thus creating similar “indifferent” abstract relationship. Many people fail to understand this and so they can’t express their opinions on Fanbo’s works, even can’t classify his works. But in fact, Fanbo’s oil paintings are neither realistic nor ideological. His emotion has been covered with a sense of distance, which is expressed by indifference and de- logicaliztion.

From the three characteristics in Fanbo’s oil paintings, we can see his development track: emphasis to form transition is almost purely visual. Fanbo tries to establish personal views on forms through spatial nodes and to infiltrate these views into all his works and all aspects of his works. Indifferent treatment, abstract background and non-logical combination of figures are more of emotional or even ideological offspring. However, his orientation is subversion to the long-lasting conventional aesthetics.

Therefore, it can be concluded that, for Fanbo, to be elegant, to be lyric, to be pleasant, and to be excessively smooth or even oily in his works is natural to his creation. For him, the meaning of oil paintings is for taste, rather for realism. Or, he shows no objection to realistic painting, except for catering for the worldly taste through realism. He does not consider texture or quality as vivid imitation to the object superficiality, but as pursuit for certain taste. That is to say, he has developed clear understanding to the difference between imitative realism and taste-pursuing realism, which makes him give up both the political tradition in oil paintings to express important events and the worldly aesthetic preference for making objects as the subject for paintings. When Fanbo regards oil painting as some individualistic transformation, taste has naturally become the core of his whole sense of values.

Of course, the word taste is hard to be defined accurately in whatever aspects. From Fanbo’s individual experience, his understanding to taste may be related to his appreciation to ancient porcelains (especially the porcelains in the Song Dynasty), or may be related to his expert appreciation to traditional Chinese paintings (especially the drawings in the Song Dynasty). In his view, visual texture is not to enjoy the details, but to deal with taste. It has been long for Chinese oil paintings to discuss the nationalization. The advocates take it for granted that to substitute planes with lines, folk color relationship with traditional tones of oil paintings, and depth space with plane drawing is called nationalization of oil paintings. Viewing from social aspects, this is a typical political activity and therefore, it diminishes with the change of the overall political environment. As we have seen today, the unsolved problem in nationalization of oil paintings is the problem of taste. Superficially, the activity seems to lay emphasis to the indigenous culture, but it represents the excessively pervasive national nihilism. Therefore, the canvas painters began to pursue for superficial texture after China’s opening up and reform, which is a reaction to the nationalization maneuver of oil paintings, but with the national nihilism remained unconquerable. This is why I have paid much attention to Fanbo’s oil paintings. In my view, only through pursuit for taste can we rejuvenate our cultural essence passed down for thousand of years. When Fanbo turns his preference from his familiar figure paintings to landscape ones, his superiority in understanding to taste stands out prominently. This is rather interesting. In his small and free paintings with lively strokes and simple structure, Fanbo pays attention to the interest found from contemplation in ancient works, rather than to the objects. Here I believe that the tree forms in Guo Xi’s drawings have played important roles in Fanbo’s works. The light strokes in oil paintings give much association of the elegant painting status, which is just beyond the experience from the narrow understanding to the drawings from nature. 

When we trace back to the figure paintings from Fanbo’s landscape paintings, I believe that the taste in his works is obvious to everyone.  In the past, such taste is some atmosphere hidden in Fanbo’s works and spread out through careful treatment of tones and strokes. But now when Fanbo applies these potential elements to his landscape paintings in a more direct way, the full contents of his works are fully exposed. That is to say, we can acquire panoramic understanding to Fanbo’s works only through the above three characteristics plus our understanding to taste. Only when we have acquired panoramic understanding to his works, we can go back into the history of Chinese oil paintings and identify the difference between and meaning of realistic painting and taste and find out more appropriate direction for the future development of realism. In this aspect, Fanbo, undoubtedly, has been the best example.

Aug. 9, 2006 in Kangle Garden of Zhongshan University

Xiao-yan, Yang’s resume:
Yang Xiao-yan was born in Guangzhou, 1957. PhD, Associate Professor.
From 2004: Chairperson Department of communication, Zhon Shan University communication and design school.
1998-2004: PhD, from Architecture Department of Architecture School of Technology and Engineering University of South China.
1987-1998: Chief Editor of South Fine Art Press in Guangzhou
1984-1987: Master Degree, Art History Department of Guangzhou Fine Art Institute.
1984-1987: The Editor, Flower City Press.
1978-1982: Bachelor Degree, The Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Fine Art Institute.
1973-1978: Farmer, Conhua Minle farm.  

Notes:
1 See the Foreword in Collection of Oil Paintings of Guo Runwen: “realism is a concept typical of western arts. According to Gombrich in his Art and Illusion, “realism” is an objective set for art development, based on which, it can be called illusionism, by introducing Popperrian philosophical term. That is to say, in the long art development history, numerous artists, under the objective of illusion, have been finding and creating some “know-hows” to reproduce 3D objects on a plane. This objective was first proposed in ancient Greek times and was publicized in the Great Renaissance. Meanwhile, in the 18th century, the concept of “art” began to integrate with the concept of “aesthetics” and art has become the substitute of aesthetics to certain extent. From then on, the aesthetic art familiar to contemporary artists began to enter into the frequent vocabulary of artists and aestheticians. However, some deviance happens in understanding realism when it enters into China, which continues till today and has not clearly identified. Generally, people think the “realism” in painting refers to truthful depiction of the objective objects. Under the influence of former Soviet’s dogmatic aesthetic ideology, literature theorists have written lengthy and tedious articles to apply mark “realism” with “typical” concept, and to stipulate how artists can extract “art” from life. However, when “realism” comes to rudimentary practice, it refers unexceptionally to the abovementioned “truthful” creation. In China, such creation is given a pleasant name: Painting from Nature. Under the influence of certain ideology, realism is even tainted with certain political connotations, which is used to countermine the traditional master-apprentice imitation method.  Since 1919, several disputes on the future of Chinese paintings have shown strong repulsion and criticism to the malpractice of old Chinese paintings, which, in fact, advocated imitation. This indicates that painting is to inherit the outstanding patterns (or schema in picture science). To certain extent, painters are professionals with high appreciation capacity.” For this, I have acquired further understanding and I will go into deeper discussion in the future.

2 See the Foreword in Elaborate Collection of Figure Head Portraits in Chinese Oil Paintings edited by Guo Runwen, with original title of Classification of Realistic Painting: the Meaning of Faces in Oil Paintings.

3 It’s a pity that I have no chance to discuss the oil paintings of Leng Jun. I have mentioned the oil paintings of Shi Chong just in one of my articles. But in fact, they are more representative than Huang Maoqiang, and therefore, they are more worthy of discussion.

4 See the Foreword in Collection of Oil Paintings of Huang Maoqiang, Lingnan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2005

5 See Gombrich Collections: Words and Images, edited by Fan Jingzhong, China Fine Arts College Press, 1996

6 Northern Light: Nordic Art at the Turn of the Century，by Kirk Varnedoe，Yale University Press and NewHaven and London，1988。

7 Refer to relevant disputes among Su Xianting and Shi Chong

8 Please note my judgment on the pursuit for texture by Chinese oil paintings in my discussion on Huang Maoqiang, which goes: “I think Chinese oil paintings in the 20th century can be completely regarded as the history for pursuing for texture. Furthermore, even in today, we have to admit that Chinese oil painting painters have surpassed their predecessors in expressing texture. Chinese people have acquired astonishing

progress in their understanding to texture in a period not exceeding 100 years. In my view, all predecessors in realistic paintings in China, no matter how outstanding they were in terms of sense of values, are inferior to some modern oil painters in terms of texture expression. Just for their hardworking efforts, Chinese art has developed its own understanding to this strange concept of texture.” Only after understanding this, we can get more clear understanding to the meaning in Fanbo’s works. This is also the key point to be discussed in this text. Refer to the Foreword in Collection of Oil Paintings of Huang Maoqiang for the reference.

作者：Yang,Xiaoyan