Depiction and Tracing of Images

Zhang Xinquan’s paintings always remind us of images in our memory.

Or maybe, not images in our memory, but images that store the past time and existing traces.

Art originates from life, but never imitates it. In the current production of paintings, some artists often mistake art that imitates life for art that reflects life, which leads to the fact that many works can’t go beyond the daily visual experience. Works merely become awkward imitation of images in life. Realism is great, but it doesn’t necessarily mean imitating life images without any cleansing of souls or without any spiritual appeal. Works that can’t present human souls and spirits are merely copying and reproducing images in life. Since the essence of art is to reveal the spirits or emotions of human being as a whole or as individuals, the representation of art will not be confined to loyal recording and imitating. What artists should pursue as a lifetime goal is probably to span from imitating life images to presenting human souls.

Ways to present spiritual appeal could vary, and Zhang chooses concrete expressionism. That is, his works always draw away from reality. He never tells people what it was like or what happened here with realistic style, no matter in “Gusu” series or in “The Bund in Shanghai”, “The Wharf” or “Sea Soul” series. Instead, he breaks through restraint to depict and characterize a scene or an object. What he depicts is undoubtedly characterized by representationalism, from which his spiritual appeals stem. When he depicts, he is not confined to portray details, but to survey it in the distance, wherefrom he depicts imaginarily, exaggerates willfully and works off his emotions freely. His artistic creativity lies in his choices of objects, the distance to survey, and the extent of imagination and expression.

He used to live in Suzhou, a city that is affectionately portrayed by Chinese literators and painters about its Taihu Lake and picturesque bridges and streams, but Zhang tried to evade painting these. Literati painting is not his style, nor does he paint in rapid rhythm with blacks, grays and whites like Mr. Wu Guanzhong. Where he gets inspiration is those timeworn images. Either in “Canglang Pavilion in Gusu”, “Classical Gardens in Gusu”, “Two Pagodas in Gusu”, or in “Fengqiao Bridge”, “Moments in Gusu”, “West Garden in Gusu”, he removed the presence of these monuments, deprived them of the baffling richness of colors, just to place them in the historical sense. Vanity and uproariousness were washed away from those gardens and monuments, and only solitude and meditation were left in the paintings.

While those paintings about Suzhou is a leach of his life, “Sanjiang Normal College” and “Jinling Machine Factory” reflect his recognition of the changes of time and space and the ups and downs of life. As the sites to spread new culture and western civilization, they’ve already disappeared in history. The whole painting seems to be concise and neat, simply with black and white buildings themselves, without any presentation. But there the artist devoted all his emotions – the architecture is integrated to history by the endless sky. We could even sense the anxious and indignant breath of those people who barely exposed to western civilization. We could even hear the rhythm of “A Valediction”: Beyond the distant pavilion, beside the ancient road, fragrant green grass stretches far into the sky…… Apparently, what evokes retrospection is not the emersion of the original scenes, but the artist’s observation of the architectural complex through times, or the historical time and space created by the artist. Realism could be found in the painting, but more is the recreation with imagination and expression. It’s just for people to review the existing history.

When the rambling streams and rivers gather in the regions south of the Yangtze River, there forms the rippling Taihu Lake. Rivers of the Republic of China period seemed to be endowed with characteristics of the times, to witness that all the rivers converged to the Huangpu River and finally to the ocean. Along the aesthetic orientation, his paintings touched the Suzhou River in the Bund, and reached the ocean after a halt in the metropolis Shanghai. Either in “The Metropolis Old Shanghai”, “The Tram” or “The Suzhou River”, “The Wharf”, “The Signal Tower” and “The Shiliupu Wharf”, he depicts the prosperity and pandemonium of the eastern paradise in the last century. But the hustle and bustle in that century, compared with the totally different new Bund, left people just a vague impression. His works, with some realistic sense, are covered by historical marks. His strokes, full of passion and personality, are quite refreshing and free, integrated with melancholy and dignity. Wandering between representationalism and expressionism, his works are interwoven with images and illusions in history and reality. Maybe that is the meditation and exclamation of Zhang Xinquan in his artistic language and concept.

The rambling rivers eventually washed away the vanity of the metropolis, and the siren of the trams and vessels in the Bund finally vanished into the vast ocean. We have no idea what kind of experience aroused Zhang’s affection for the vessels that ride the wind and waves, but definitely, his aesthetic pursuit drives him to a more passionate and individual ocean from the picturesque streams and bridges in Suzhou. The weathered sea crafts might as well manifest the tension of life and struggle to survive. In “Zhiyuan Vessel”, “Second Contact”, “The Patrol Vessel”, “Lying at Anchor”, “The Merchant Ship”, “The Aphrodite” and “Xuelong Vessel”, he depicts the turning point of history with those distinguished vessels and demonstrates visual shocks with gigantic cargo vessels. As historic vessels, “The Aphrodite” and “Zhiyuan Vessel” withering in the waves stand for the arrival of a new era, but as gigantic steel ships, they will still be turned and swallowed by the ocean. The former symbolizes the hardships of history and the latter metaphors human’s struggle with nature. His works repeatedly remind people of Hemingway’s description of the ocean that the boundless ocean constantly arouses human’s ambition and imagination, but in face with history and nature, humans doom to survive and then vanish.

Zhang’s works always draw back from the reality to investigate the changes of things in the distance. The preterit is his aesthetic basis to reflect things. The preterit deprives him of the reality and drives him to pursue his ego. Therefore, the preterit, where he finds his artistic language and appeal, is the basis of his expressive painting. The preterit turns his paintings into old photos and images, where lies the spell of narration and retrospect.

Many contemporary works spare no effort to pursue the images of paintings, and Zhang strives to combine these images with expressionistic subconciousness, to add more aesthetic experience to the visual culture of the paintings.

-- By Shang Hui, Director in China Artists Association A Commissioner in the Theoretical Council of China Artists Association Executive editor-in-chief of Art magazine 

June 29, 2011 In Beijing 22 International Art Plaza