The Folk Expressionism in China ——The Freehand Brushwork Figure Painting Of Wang Fuming Wang Yong Wang Fuming, the contemporary figure painting artist, former dean of Lanzhou Academy of Painting, now is the painting artist in China National Academy of Painting. In January 2014, he visited Germany, participated in the Beautiful China-China National Academy Fan Art Exhibition hosted by the Art and Design Association in the German city of Dusseldorf. His exhibition of the fan artworks is the performance of Chinese folk community fire, with the freehand brushwork figure painting, which aroused great interest in the German audience. According to the German commented: “Wang Fuming’s artworks are of nature and freedom and are real pure art.” Many visitors feel it a bit like German Expressionism, but the paintings of Wang Fuming also embody a deep feeling of china, bringing people to imagine the rural life of Chinese people. This comment accurately summarizes the artistic features of Wang Fuming, described as “The folk expressionism in China.” The term expressionism in art history and art criticism usually means to achieve emotional effect with the use of exaggerated and distorted artistic methods. In a broad sense, it refers to any kind of art that the subjective feelings are above the objective observations, which performs the artist’s state of mind rather than reflecting the image of the external world. In a narrow sense, expressionism refers specifically to one of Europe’s modern art schools in the early 20s century, especially German Expressionism including Dresden Die Brücke, Munich Blaue Reiter communities. The French Fauvist also belongs to expressionism in a variant way. For all kinds of expressionism, a common feature of modern western expressionism is based on “Expression”, which is the core concept, referring to the being away from the classical academic realism tradition, respecting the original vitality and emotional personality, rejecting the objective representation of naturalism with the pursuit of self-perception and subjective expression, resorting to non-realistic image and emotional colors. American scholar Werner Haftmann analyzed the difference in modern western expressionism between the variant way of French and German: “The French variety stresses the formal aspect—— ‘expression’ implies ‘form’; the German variety stresses the subject matter——‘ form’ implies ‘expression’.” Relatively speaking, the French Fauvist committed more to explore the shapes, lines, colors and other elements of the form of painting with particular emphasis. The expressive color itself evokes people’s aesthetic pleasure. German Expressionism concerned more about the situation of human existence and social issues, highlighting the conflict between violent environment and human emotion, stimulating people’s mental disturbance. In the 1930s, the French Fauvist and German Expressionists both have influence on China’s modern art and movements like Woodcut Movement and Juelan groups. In the 1980s, German expressionism and neo-expressionism have greater impact on the “85 New Wave” in Chinese art world. The exaggerated and distorted way of self-expression has always been popular in Chinese art world. In fact, the traditional Chinese art like freehand brushwork also implies the similar spirit as the western expressionism. Traditional Chinese painting like freehand brushwork emphasizes the expression in a spiritual way, that is, to emphasize the performance of individual emotion. Chinese contemporary artist Zhan Jianjun, said that there is communication between western expressionism and Chinese freehand brushwork painting. The China’s great freehand painting is actually western expressionism. In addition to the traditional Chinese literati freehand painting, there is also a way of performance related to the modern western art. This channel leading to modern art is also very important, but often ignored by us. Father of modern Chinese art Qi Baishi, never had the influence of western modern art, but his freehand brushwork paintings, including Tie Guaili, Zhongkui, tumbler and other portraits, absorbs the aesthetic express spirit of Chinese literati paintings as well as the innocence fun of folk art, expressing his own distinct personality. Chinese modern art pioneer Lin Fengmian, despite the nourishment of western modern art, his color paintings still extract much from Chinese-style expression language such as folk paintings, ceramics, paper cutting, shadow puppets and drama character modeling. Born in 1961, Wang Fuming was in a folk art family. His father is Wang Guangpu, who is well-known at home and abroad as folk art collectors and researchers. He has published more than twenty books. Wang Fuming had influence by his father since his childhood with the art nurturing from paper-cut, shadow puppets, masks, embroidery and other folk art. His daughter Wang Boying is also a rising star on shadow art research. In 1995, Wang Guangpu donated his own collections for decades over 10,000 items to the country. In the previous ten years, Wang Fuming helped his father to collect these artworks. In the artist’s eyes, these folk arts are the most natural and the purest ones. One painter said:” I admire the folk art very much. Folk artists express their yearning for a better life in a free way. They do not perceive like that the space and time is rational, but sensible. Therefore, their artworks are full of simple ideas, simple language, no trick tips, which our professional painters precisely lack. The idea is the soul of from the artworks. Chinese folk art forms have inspired western modern art after the impressionism, while for our own, this local folk style system has begun to be cold and dumb. The masters like Qi Baishi and Lin Fengmian have also been in the folk art’s nourishment. Most of today’s painters are trained based on the western modeling system (I have also endured years of basic training on sketch modeling). The issue we need continue to explore is that: how to create Chinese painting in a more liberal approach, taking advantages of Chinese ink painting’s nature, integrating the honest charm of Chinese painting after being trained on the western modeling method for years? The freehand brushwork figure painting of Wang Fuming is on the road which was opened by the seniors like Qi Baishi and Lin Fengmian. He combines the Chinese freehand painting spirit with the simple but pure approach of Chinese folk art, creating a unique style, that is, the folk expressionism in China. The Chinese folk expressionism style freehand figure painting by Wang Fuming, is mainly represented by two series: Tibetan series and Community fire series. Chinese characters especially the Tibetan character portraits have become a popular theme in contemporary Chinese art. Wang Fuming has focused on this theme for years. Through the painting of the northwest loess plateau, the painter began to get familiar with the theme of snowy Tibetan folk customs and life styles. The Tibetan folk culture is familiar with the life and customs in the northwest that is the reason why his feelings are very involved when creating artworks on this theme. In addition, he pays much stronger attention to the piety and spiritual religious atmosphere in Tibetan folk culture. During his tenure in Lanzhou Academy of Painting, he often went to Tibetan folk places to practice sketches, creating a series of artworks which performance the vivid life of Tibetan folk, representatives like Song of Anyemaqen Mountains, The Shambhala, God of Heaven and Earth, Kangding Love Songs and so on. The artwork Songs of Anyemaqen Mountains, created in 2004, won the best artwork in the National Award Painting Exhibition, standing out from the many works with the Tibetan character theme. The characters in his painting are with vigorous ink style and simple modeling, without paying attention to the details of Tibetan costumes or realistic portray, but on the spiritual atmosphere and nature of life beyond the appearance. Based on the profound life experience in the northwest of the artist himself, he combines the northwest folk customs with the Tibetan folk customs. Or we could say he observes the Tibetan folk life with the view of northwest. Therefore, from his God of Heaven and Earth series and Shambhala Ongkor Festival and such artworks like these we notice the opera masks, parades and other lively scene which have the similar elements in the northwest folk culture, while the Tibetan ones are wilder and more masculine, the masks more vigorous and exotic. However, the folk life of Tibetan folk customs and the northwest folk life are intricately connected. The community’s fire is the traditional Chinese folk celebration, roughly equivalent to the Western carnival of Halloween Parade. The Western carnival can be traced back to the ancient Greek Dionysian Festival. China’s community’s fire can also be traced back to the ancient times that people used fire as ritual to bless the Gods as well as removing the ominous. The Community is the God of earth, while the fire refers to fireworks. The community fire has always been popular in the rural community in the northwest of China. Now it has become an integrated mass folk art performances and recreational activities, including high-profile, stilts, land boats, Yangko, percussion, theater, lion dance, dragon dance and so on. With the revival of Chinese traditional culture, the hometown of Wang Fuming, Qingyang Gansu has flourished on the community fire in the recent years, which provides a wealth of creative material and inspiration for his freehand portraits. In the recent years, he created a series of works expressing the theme of community fire, representatives like Community Fire the One, Community Fire the Three, Community Fire the Three Kingdoms, Community Fire the Township Series, Community Fire the Year of Horse and so on. His works, as the German puts, is of freedom, purity, a bit like German Expressionism, but with a deep feeling of China, which makes people imagine the scenes of the Chinese rural life. His Community fire series absorbs more elements of Chinese folk art style, breaking the space-time and perspective relations of the academy realistic painting with the figures being exaggerated and distorted in an appropriated way. His artworks not only learn from the Chinese opera costume, mask, but also draws on folk paper-cut, shadow puppets and the shape of the masks, expressing the image of free life and the pure personality and emotion of the artist himself. The painter is not just producing the community fire in a realistic way, but to show his unique understanding of life and society through this subject，expressing his feeling of “ life is like a play” and recalling the spirit on heaven and earth. Therefore, the characters played by the people as Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Zhong Kui the Ghost Catcher all have the specific symbolic meanings. The non-logical combinations of these characters in the community fire performances, results in a strange type of magical effects, leading people to reflect on life and society in a free way. The freehand figure painting of Wang Fuming, regardless of the Community fire series or the Tibetan series, the most striking feature is his personalized ink language. His ink style is with bold lines, bright and vigorous colors with the nourishment of Chinese literati painting and also the influence of traditional Chinese folk art. It is both suitable for the performance of community fire series and Tibetan series theme, also suitable to express the artist’s personality. The folk expressionism in his freehand figure painting, based on the traditional Chinese culture and the background of Chinese folk art, combines the western expressionism of French and German styles. His art both intends to the form and also the performance, but is still based on the traditional Chinese culture. If we say the French Fauvist emphasizes on the expressive elements of color itself, the freehand brushwork figure painting of Wang Fuming, however, paying more attention to the performance of ink and color itself, while the ink expression is the most important carrier in Chinese art. If we say the German expressionism emphasizes on the conflicts between people and society, the art of Wang Fuming, however, emphasizing more on the harmony between man and society, for the harmony is the ideal form both in traditional Chinese culture and the contemporary China. (The Author is researcher at Chinese National Academy of Arts, doctoral tutor, chief editor of Chinese painting and calligraphy magazine)

作者：艺术家自助官网