User:Chen Junyu/Graduation Project Seminar/ project proposal/1st

1.内核：

结庐在人境， 而无车马喧。 问君何能尔， 心远地自偏。 采菊东篱下， 悠然见南山。 山气日兮佳， 飞鸟相与还。 此中有真意， 欲辩已忘言。 我试图避开这种东方的核对我的影响，但是最终失败了。直至现在我仍然相信语言永远无法表达正确的自我。我们能在真实的门口徘徊，但当我们开始尝试使用语言来解释自身的时刻，真实的门已经永远地向我们关闭了。艺术品能够代替语言来表达自我，这是我在这一年半中感受到的。言语有词汇的限制，环境的隐形压力，对话者的影响。而艺术，它源自于心，shape by brain，是一种发散式的，从对自身的精神扫描开始的过程。表达的正确性被我们对所使用的艺术的熟练和诚实所影响，但“完美的解释”的可能性是存在的。 正确的自我并不代表社会关系中的自我。自我是脆弱的，它无法承受太沉重的压力，即使脆弱也可以是自我的一个属性，但这属性深刻地影响了作为整体的自我。它影响了自我在除我之外的环境里，用怎样的声音和表情，表达它自己。自我也无时无刻在成长，内置的力，和外在的力互相牵制，此消彼长。

材料：我并不真正地在乎材料，这一切都只是为了表达一个最终的课题。我也不在乎过程，过程是一件无论如何都会发生的东西。过程即是“当下”。艺术品的价值，在它被完成的那一刻，就已经丧失了最重要的部分。如果说艺术品是作者的精神扫描，是作者和自身的对话，是作者对于自我的向往，那么艺术品完成的那一刻，对话结束了，空空的画布上只余回声。

媒介：媒介是重要的，媒介的选择，如何使用，是自我表达的路径。

这是我真正感兴趣的事。不仅仅是磨练自己的技术，同时磨练自身的精神力。甚至于说，作品本身只是为了自身的提高而存在的。通过制作作品的过程，锤炼内心。 我对于在此学到的一切感到困惑，我想那只单纯地由于我无法感受到探索的动力和激情。我希望可以在西学这个巨大的建筑中重新地架构我自身，但事实是，发自内心的抗拒让我无法前进。 因此，无关于所有的西方的美学和艺术流派，我能够掌握的，只有对自身的诚实。我坚信作品是最真实的，它永远无法解释它的作者，但作品能够解释它的作者的理想和欲望。

1st

Description for my work: "Water" Drawings help me think, and talk to myself. For the beginning of drawing, as building the conception of the work, one needs to be totally immerse into the process. The environment is always abstractive, either the annoying noise or the heart beat. So the beginning is very much like meditation of Zen, to get rid of the trifles and distracting thoughts, not just build up the conception of concrete work, also build up the proper state of mind. The materials are important. Every different type of pigment, paint, brush has its own characteristic. I chose these three basic tool for Chinese ink painting: ink, brush and rice paper , it is not just because we are from the same background, they can express myself better, also because the manufacturing operation of each of them. The origin of ink stick is the smoke from burning woods, and it experiences the multiple transformation of its modality -- it is first solidified to be powder then grinded in water to generate ink, when the ink drys on the paper, it becomes solid again. It is the life process of ink. Brush is just a tool to transmit the energy of the painter. Keep the arm always in a distance to the paper, thus we can train the control to brush and ourselves. Every breath would effect on the physical strength thus effects the usage of brush -- make it walk, ramble or run on the paper. Rice paper is just as the screen of a television, it reflects the image, control the resolution and the accuracy of the shape. Water is moving. What I try to present from these water drawing is also the sensation of moving. The four main drawings "water, well, miriness, wave" depict water in different environment.

How to draw a perfect circle This work is consisted by a video of the process of drawing circle and the physical drawings.It starts with the animated circles, then is the three screens showing the repeat of the movement of drawing. Beside the video, there is a transparent box half full with around 300 papers with the original drawn circles. This work is not about "how to draw a perfect circle", it is about the endless way to the imagined perfect. And the "perfect" is unreachable, it is the tool which drive us move towards. The real and concrete thing is the time we spend on the training, either on mental or physical aspect. I edit the video to three screens to emphasis the flowing of time.

Works of other artists: Bill Viola

Barry Le Va - Shatter scatter As I see this work is very much like the process of drawing: the result is unpredictable, the artist(painter) only can control part of his work--the shape of scatter, the quantity and the size of the fragments, are all uncontrollable. And every layer which lays upon the older ones, has effected and been effected to the older ones. Drawing is similar in this way -- the painter can do his/her best to control the paint, the brush, the canvas by training, but he/she can never grasp the whole proceeding. Different layers of paint, ink or pigment is always influencing each other -- mix or conflict. There are always some emergent factors happen in the between, it can either be the increasing heart beating, the noise from the outside, or the unpredictable shaking triggered by a passing truck. ( Here "digital" drawing is beyond the scope of the discussion.) Barry Le Va called this work as "isolated isolated contained art", there is on pristine glass tops the others, this act is the relative mounting, to "encases the raw energy of the work's creation"(from the description of Barry Le Va - Shatter scatter by MOCA).

Gary Kuehn -- Gesture Project 2011 This work is simple and clear, it seems present a cool truth of drawing: the symbiotic limitation and freedom. The track generated by chalk is beautiful and the sound of the grating of the chalk and canvas do build a feeling of immersive. However the shape of drawing cannot jump out of the frame, somehow it can be seen as painter is creating his/her own three dimension world on the canvas( width, length, height), or in an other way, the canvas sets a boundary for the creation. He uses video to record the process, thus we can see the linear change happening on the canvas. By video, it does show the "time" as a factor in drawing, but somehow it loses the charm in every single moment of the proceeding ( of course Gary Kuehn may have other aim for this project ). The "charm" of the drawing process is subtle and quiet, even sometimes it seems wild and free like Jackson's gesture painting, but the real enjoyment in between is the moment ( not every moment ) when the painter can really feel the tension between himself/herself and the medium, the desire to express, and the isolation from outside world.

Xu Bing -- Background story series What this series of work attracts me is, It shows the exact beauty of Chinese painting and at the same time it doesn't use any traditional materials. The works are made by light, by shadow, by construction and space. It makes me think if the range I set up for the definition of drawing is too narrow, drawing can also be something over the canvas, can be made by something lively ( such as Xu Bing uses leaves, branches). Compared with Picasso pasting leaves or branches onto canvas, the background story is even closer to the conception of original "drawing". Of course because of the different type of material, the way of making the work, the process of this kind of drawing also changes. It is still about the composition, the "strokes" built by all these material, but it has more "uncontrollable" factors.

Walter De Maria -- Lightening field Lands art has the most attractive process for me. Since the proceeding of the work is not ended up with the artist finished his/her work, it lasts much longer, changed or even presented by the environment. This work is a proper example. The artist placed 400 stainless steel poles in the form of a grid in the east of the continental divide, once the thunder coming, flash will be lead to effect with these poles. The duty for the artist is just completing the medium between art and nature, on the other hand, his activity becomes part of art. All the uncertainties of the work -- timing of happening, quantity of flash, shape, energy of the storm, and the constructed, artificial stage is the approach to eternity. “Art historians have noticed his change of mind, and it has been said that before the early 1920s, Mondrian thought of his compositions as part of an infinite plane, which could go on indefinitely in all directions. Starting with paintings like this one, the canvas is the whole object, the whole universe, and there is nothing beyond it.” Quoted from < How to look at Mondrian> by James Elkins.

The Process of Western/Eastern Drawing Firstly, how to define "Western art" and "Eastern art"? （ this part is very vague, and has problem with the accuracy of the descriptio, and the association about Western and Eastern philosophy is based on Tao Te Ching and the An Introduction to Zen Buddhism) Western drawing/painting has its source from Greece. The thought of "recording things we see correctly" is from Greek and Hellenistic art, therefore ancient painters started depicting expressions of space, trying to interpret the real world to canvas in a physically correct way ( includes properly beautify by painter). Based on Greek art, the history of painting starts.

At the beginning of the history of Chinese painting, the calligraphy and drawing has no difference. Calligraphy, also known as pictographic character, can be considered as source of drawing. For calligraphy, an important factor is the spirit, the strength, the atmosphere transmitted by the characters. It may because of this different start point of Chinese painting, the accuracy of depiction is barely the most important thing.

For one of the oldest civilizations Egypt, which sits in the between of Greece and China, also has this standard that correctly depicting something is not their aims, the abnormal size of characters, the erroneous angle of different parts of body are all serves for the beauty of the shape, and the significance of the character.

Synopsis of the texts

Philip Rawson, Drawing

"Drawing" explains what is drawing from a very fundamental level: why drawing is the most fundamentally spiritual art activity, how does it work with human mind( from the painter's view), how to experience a drawing/painting from spectators' aspect. Quote "drawing is done according to general principles of structure which can be discussed intelligently without the need for mystical jargon. Drawing is that the element in a work of art which is independent of colour or actual 3d space,the underlying conceptual structure which may be indicated by tone alone. drawing is the most fundamentally spiritual(subjective) of all artistic activities. 视觉－－引发－－人工判断 basic ingredientsL strokes/marks (which have symbolic relationship with experience. not a direct overall similarity with anything real) the relationships between marks embody the main meaning of drawing can only be read into the marks by spectator , so as to create their own mode of truth."

Fritz van Briessen， The Way of the Brush: Painting Techniques of China and Japan :

This book explains the concept behind the Eastern painting, and the general principles of Chinese painting. It talks about what is the gap when people who have western culture background appreciate an Eastern painting, and what is the possible way to decrease this gap. This book explain the vitality clearly in from a western view, it is a good example when explaining this concept of "vitality".

James Elkins, Chinese Landscape Painting as Western Art History

This books focuses on how to look at Chinese painting from the aspect of Western Art History, what is the possible similarities and the misreadings. Comparison: I agree with James Elkins says in his book "Chinese Landscape painting in Western Art Theory", Of all cross-cultural descriptions, comparisons seem especially fraught. Outright comparisons can appear rude (are the Han Dynasty or the Yuan really akin to Western modernism, as both have been claimed to be?) but qualified, introductory, or otherwise informal comparisons can seem both appropriate and useful. Because the different culture background sometimes misunderstand spectator for the purpose of the painter. For example in the book of Benjamin Rowland "Art in East and West, An introduction through comparison" , he compares a detail of Matthias Grünewald’s The Temptation of St. Anthony with a painting attributed to Li Cheng 李成 called Reading the Tablet, in order to show how “demon groves” are a theme in China and in the West.Quoted from James' book: Rowland “Li Cheng’s painting “represents a traveler seated on a donkey, scrutinizing with fearful intensity the inscription on a stele that rises like a menhir before a grotesque group of pine trees that arch their dragon branches against the empty sky.” Rowland is hypnotized by the “concentration and isolation of the twisted trees with their tortuous, iron-hard trunks and crab-claw branches,” and he finds the same “sinister” mood in The Temptation of St. Anthony, where “all nature, dreadful and deformed, enters into the demoniacal conspiracy against St. Anthony.” The branch Rowland excerpts is an icon of evil: it “stretches its dead, moss-covered branches in a kind of malediction over the ampitheater of monstrosities.” Then he mentions, Richard Barnhart has written an excellent short essay on the meaning of old trees in Chinese painting: they have more to do with longevity and independence than evil.But some comparison in <Art in East and West> is nearly perfect. Such as the comparison between Friedrich and Ma Yuan. This comparison focuses more on the atmosphere which the paintings transmit.

D.T.Suzuki, "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" Zen is mysterious，ambiguous, Zen accepts paradox, accepts language can never tell the truth.

Vitality 气韵生动

Here is a story about the great Chinese painter Zhang Sengyou (Chinese: 张僧繇). Quoted from Fritz Van Briessen's The Way of the Brush, originally written by Zhang Yanyuan from Tang Dynasty:

Zhang one day decided to paint a dragon on the wall of his house. He guided his brush with full confidence, and after a while the dragon was finished except for its eyes. Suddenly the master's courage failed him. He simply did not dare to paint those eyes. When, many months later, he at last felt brave enough, he groped for his brush and with swift strokes dashed in eye and pupil. Within an instant the dragon broke into cloud roaring and flew away, leaving a trace of fire and smoke.

Quoted from "the way of the brush" In the Asiatic world, belief in the supernatural power of the artist remained alive over greatly prolonged period. And there was no absolute division between magic, religion and philosophy in the east, especially in China. Taoism, as the primitive Chinese philosophy, effects the developing of Chinese painting on a fundamental base. It influences the establishment of the material system and the construction of the painting principles. This is how the German writer understand Chinese painting. Somehow I am not sure if the word "magic" is precise enough to define the mystery painters want to express in a painting. Maybe it is part of the purpose for the ancient Chinese painting, but it is not fit for the Modern Chinese ink painting. What is the vitality ? how to define the vitality? ( Vitality is not best translation for “气韵生动”，that even brings more misunderstanding to understand the eastern painting.)

Clear and vague till now: Clear: The unpredictable changing in the process of drawing is what I feel excited with. Every timing there are countless possibilities of the future of the drawing. ( Also as an art work, such as the "Lightening field", there is not a clear time point when the making of the art piece is done. It keeps continuing after the artist's proceed. ) Vague: If I get rid of the frame of drawing, using other medium to depict the "drawing process", there must be gap between the original idea about drawing process and the work.

2ed

Metaphor and Nature There are two things of Chinese philosophy influence Chinese art on a fundamental level, one is the aspiration to "nature"( the ideal nature in Taoism also physically beautiful nature in the ancient time), and the usage of metaphor. There is a poetry describes the aspiration to nature by Tao Yuanming (365–427) from Eastern Jin Dynasty:

I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,

Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach,

Would you know how that is possible?

A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.

I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,

Then gaze long at the distant summer hills.

The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;

The flying birds two by two return.

In these things there lies a deep meaning;

Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us. (Translated by Arthur Waley)

" Here we have Taoism at its best." ( Fung, 1948）Taoism is one of the main philosophical genres from ancient China. "In these things there lies a deep meaning; Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us." It does express the most obvious differences between Chinese and Western philosophy. Thus the usage of metaphor in Taoism is quite common. Metaphor is so vague and unspoken. The widely appearance of metaphor in literature works of philosophy makes it so difficult to be understood the whole purpose, somehow it asks the reader to train their ability to think and feel, either for daily routine or the real truth of life and universe. I don't believe this "unspoken" feature is an expression of mysticism of Chinese philosophy, it is more like what Zen says, human language is not a proper tool to express the deep truth , and it can only be experienced by the deep heart. ［emphasis on how to live with yourself and nature -- gives room for reflection]]

Thus when we look at Chinese paintings, there is so much empty space in Chinese painting, whether landscape painting or still life. For example, Ma Yuan, one of my favorite painter activated in 12th century, he is famous for his special composition style “one corner” , in which he only places the subjects of the painting to one corner or one side, more or less leave the other parts empty. (pic 1, Facing the Moon, Ma Yuan)

Or another great painter Badashanren, who lived in 17th century, is famous by his minimalist image and technique with strong personal style to depict still life. He rarely follows the traditional principle of Chinese ink painting such as certain expression of branches or leaves, but we can still observe the similarity from his work and works by “ordinary painters”. The good control of the empty in a painting is always highly prized. (pic 2 , Lotus, Rocks and Water Fowls, Badashanren )

What is in the empty? Maybe it is better ask, why do painters leave so much empty in a painting? If we look at Western painting history, from the very beginning of Geek painting till Modernism, the canvas is usually carefully covered by paint.For Chinese painters, empty space on a canvas, if uses it properly, it would generate beautiful tempo, breath and imagination. Here we must notice another metaphor, the metaphor of the materials of ink painting. Also, the physical reason of the empty space on painting.

The origin of ink stick is the smoke from burning woods, and it experiences the multiple transformation of its modality -- it is first solidified to be powder then grinded in water to generate ink, when the ink drys on the paper, it becomes solid again. It is the life process of ink. Brush is just a tool to transmit the energy of the painter. Keep the arm always in a distance to the paper, thus we can train the control to brush and ourselves. Every breath would effect on the physical strength thus effects the usage of brush -- make it walk, ramble or run on the paper. Rice paper usually experienced more than one year to be mature, it is made by certain type of plants, after being boiled, dried, dissolved in water then dried to paper at the end. This kind of paper has very good water-absorbing quality.

(I don’t know if there is a important reason to choose mostly plants as the raw material—need to check it out later) .

How much information a viewer can get from a Chinese painting, it is not so relative to the knowledge of the art history, it is more about this ability to “feel” and “think” by her mind and heart.

The widely influence of Chinese philosophy on art is the reflect of the combination of philosophy and life itself.

3rd

Process The process of drawing.

The unreadable enjoyment of the process of drawing is my starting point for this project. Does the result matter? Of course. Painting/drawing as the final result of a sequence movement, either continuing or not, has recorded the spiritual activity of the painter, and present the completed image of what the painter wants to depict. Because of the layers of paint, the strokes which may disappear during the process of painting, fully understanding a painting/drawing is not an easy work. The process of drawing, only talking about the Western paintings, I think it is gaining its importance through time overall. Paintings has gone through the ancient time which painting has a main function on religion and magic. Afterwards, painting became a medium which can precisely record or depict a scene. When painters finally realise the charm of the free strokes, the restriction of a smooth surface, the enjoyment of the process is finally admitted.

“ When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. ” — Jackson Pollock.

He already answers the question why the process is important. There may have painters who have a completed and detailed plan of the procedure of the painting, and a clear image of how will it looks like. However most of painters is having a conversation with the “painting” during the process, a conversation of what the painting should looks like and what it wants to express. While a new stroke attach to canvas, the texture of the painting has been changed, the impression also changed, these changes influence the painter.

the empty between the horizontal lines: When we start using abstract marks to describe what we have seen from the nature, it(marks) becomes our obscure imagination of the nature.Thus lines, especially horizontal lines, are given our illusion to the beauty of nature. For example, photos taken by hiroshi sugimoto. Looking at his pics which are constructed by unique horizontal line, we get to touch the peace, eternity and depth of nature also life itself. I make horizontal lines, while it produce the empty between each other. it is a Yin Yang thing in a way, while one is growing, the other is damaging, or the opposite. I devote myself into the process of drawing, keep my breath always in a balance -- or fail, then the image I generate reflects the broken balance. And there is a lot distractions, what I should to, is exactly releasing these distractions and treat them as what <a zen to archery >says : like the sound of remote sea wave, it is something quietly diving in the reality.

The fifty different black. Ink Painting by Gao Xingjian Gao speaks about his work: in the old ink painting, Chinese painters thought ink has 5 level of black. I think is fifty, these fifty darkness constructs my work. His work floats outside of the "traditional format of ink painting" . But somehow it differed with the modernism western paintings. They are lonely existed in the art world. The monochrome paintings generated the reflection of the world which only death and birth growing and damaging inside. "People" who only have a shadow standing either close or far from us, they are ghosts, spirit, illusion, and loneliness itself. Get rid of the color, is getting rid of the vitality of life itself. but, somehow there is something left, or reborn from this silent and cold world, it is the respect to death and birth itself.

但绘画：这是一件只穷其一生才能证实它的诚实性的行为。表达有诚实与假装，有技术娴熟和拙劣，这一切都无法从一件单一的作品断出玄机。只有在画家成熟期开始，严苛地观看和感受，才能抓到蛛丝马迹－－这福祉是否是至善的福祉，亦或只是伪装自己的撒旦的微笑。

托尔斯泰把作品与作者分割开来，但是绘画，作为一种精神的扫描，心神直观的输出，它无法与“作者”分隔开。甚至说，作者是作品本身。无法长久地淬炼自身，作品只能是物和欲望的映射。

drawing 中说，艺术就是通过把潜层的涵义和连接挖掘出来，并且用同样的隐晦的比喻表达。 那么时间的隐喻应该是什么？ 时间： 年老，生长，死亡，快和慢，物理时间的概念，时间与空间无法分割的连结。

wave has a lot metaphor within: the new and the old, replacing, growing and damaging. and the end, it is empty.

墨水做成海浪？火做成海浪？（ruben's tube） 了解过程到底为什么重要？ 缓慢的海浪。