The Return of Significance
The Art by the Faculty of the Department of Oil Painting of CAFA in the Progressive Tense
Oil painting has a unique position in China for its leading role in modern Chinese art history. In the early 20th century, Xu Beihong’s generation of aboard students went to study in Europe and believed that European painting (mainly oil painting) would become a reference for improving Chinese painting; thus they introduced the system of European painting into China and opened the history of Chinese modern art education. CAFA, since the founding of its predecessor the National Beiping art school, has been the pioneer and practitioner of this modern art education, producing a widespread and lasting impact on modern Chinese art. So far, oil painting’s teaching and creation in CAFA has been a banner of China and had a historical influence and demonstration effect during different periods. After 1949, CAFA’s painting teaching system has become the model for other colleges to study and take the reference, and thus enhanced the overall painting studies, teaching and creation in China. In the 1950s and 1960s, CAFA’s teachers produced a great number of classic works and made outstanding contributions to the development of painting language and shaping visual experience of modern painting. Appealing for new image and attitude of Chinese society, this period mainly focused on the realistic picture, which created the visual and textual material of modern Chinese history through oil painting as the primary media, becoming an essential chapter in Chinese art history in the 20th century.
Since the reform and opening in the 1980s, CAFA’s art education has ushered in the new trend of the times. The teaching and creation of the Department of Oil Painting were brought in line with international practice again, with mutual-learning and integration, research and creation being carried out simultaneously, which not only improved the teaching of painting’s discourse system but also widely absorbed the essence of modernist painting. Therefore, the Department of Oil Painting developed its features in education and creation, offering benefits for numerous students while promoting the reformation of Chinese painting. This exhibition brings together works of 22 teachers from the Department of Oil Painting and demonstrates a transition of CAFA’s painting education, showing their belief and perseverance for oil painting as a collective force in a more significant international context of art while initiatively confirming its current significance in the global dialogue between inflection and speculation. They agree that painting—as a visual expression of the human being—became more glamorous after its value received the baptism of modernism art thought and what it evokes is the indomitable spirit and endless imagination. Despite not being a large-scale exhibition, this show of the Department of Oil Painting is enough to present a complete spectrum of painting language. Throughout history painting has been covering a variety of aspects: from ideographical expression to facial expression, from appearance to presentation, from form to connotation, from narration to concept, from the figural to the abstract, from universe to human being, from the static to the dynamic, from reality to imagination, from surface to inside, from group to individual, from other to me, from objective image to mental image, from society to status, from language to politics, from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, from space to time, from territory to race, from the simulative to the virtual, from past to future, and so on, which invariably constitute the present situation of contemporary art and can be all reflected and contrasted in the displayed works of this exhibition. The participating 22 teachers are a miniature of millions of teachers who are engaged in art education and creation in China, and the context behind their works is the artistic change in the forty years since the opening up of the country. There are inextricable relationships between these works and the Chinese context. Viewing CAFA, in a sense, is viewing China; while the creation pattern of the Department of Oil Painting in CAFA also means the creation scene of China, with its messages delivering rich argumentation and discourse, it delivering the aura of Chinese culture as well as unfolding many routes for envisioning the road of Chinese art.
When “The Return of Significance” is interpreted, it is not only a question of painting phenomenon of China but also a quest about art and painting in the global context. The “significance” here tactfully raise the question of what is painting and how is it painted. There are a thousand routes in a thousand answers. This exhibition of the Department of Oil Painting of CAFA is planned to make this kind of questions and answers.
Does painting has meaning or not today? What kind of meaning does it have? How to present? If painting has meaning, then how and where does it come from?
All the paintings are born out of human being and exist for them. Why and for what?
Painting is a process of knowledge-action unity. The state of desire and condition of the body are equally important, as its cooperation and integration is not the result of overlay but caused by human nature yet transcend it simultaneously.Is it really possible? If so, can we explore the relationship between human and the future?
by Ma Lu
The Return of Significance
The Art by the Faculty of the Department of Oil Painting of CAFA in the Progressive Tense
Oil painting has a unique position in China for its leading role in modern Chinese art history. In the early 20th century, Xu Beihong’s generation of aboard students went to study in Europe and believed that European painting (mainly oil painting) would become a reference for improving Chinese painting; thus they introduced the system of European painting into China and opened the history of Chinese modern art education. CAFA, since the founding of its predecessor the National Beiping art school, has been the pioneer and practitioner of this modern art education, producing a widespread and lasting impact on modern Chinese art. So far, oil painting’s teaching and creation in CAFA has been a banner of China and had a historical influence and demonstration effect during different periods. After 1949, CAFA’s painting teaching system has become the model for other colleges to study and take the reference, and thus enhanced the overall painting studies, teaching and creation in China. In the 1950s and 1960s, CAFA’s teachers produced a great number of classic works and made outstanding contributions to the development of painting language and shaping visual experience of modern painting. Appealing for new image and attitude of Chinese society, this period mainly focused on the realistic picture, which created the visual and textual material of modern Chinese history through oil painting as the primary media, becoming an essential chapter in Chinese art history in the 20th century.
Since the reform and opening in the 1980s, CAFA’s art education has ushered in the new trend of the times. The teaching and creation of the Department of Oil Painting were brought in line with international practice again, with mutual-learning and integration, research and creation being carried out simultaneously, which not only improved the teaching of painting’s discourse system but also widely absorbed the essence of modernist painting. Therefore, the Department of Oil Painting developed its features in education and creation, offering benefits for numerous students while promoting the reformation of Chinese painting. This exhibition brings together works of 22 teachers from the Department of Oil Painting and demonstrates a transition of CAFA’s painting education, showing their belief and perseverance for oil painting as a collective force in a more significant international context of art while initiatively confirming its current significance in the global dialogue between inflection and speculation. They agree that painting—as a visual expression of the human being—became more glamorous after its value received the baptism of modernism art thought and what it evokes is the indomitable spirit and endless imagination. Despite not being a large-scale exhibition, this show of the Department of Oil Painting is enough to present a complete spectrum of painting language. Throughout history painting has been covering a variety of aspects: from ideographical expression to facial expression, from appearance to presentation, from form to connotation, from narration to concept, from the figural to the abstract, from universe to human being, from the static to the dynamic, from reality to imagination, from surface to inside, from group to individual, from other to me, from objective image to mental image, from society to status, from language to politics, from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, from space to time, from territory to race, from the simulative to the virtual, from past to future, and so on, which invariably constitute the present situation of contemporary art and can be all reflected and contrasted in the displayed works of this exhibition. The participating 22 teachers are a miniature of millions of teachers who are engaged in art education and creation in China, and the context behind their works is the artistic change in the forty years since the opening up of the country. There are inextricable relationships between these works and the Chinese context. Viewing CAFA, in a sense, is viewing China; while the creation pattern of the Department of Oil Painting in CAFA also means the creation scene of China, with its messages delivering rich argumentation and discourse, it delivering the aura of Chinese culture as well as unfolding many routes for envisioning the road of Chinese art.
When “The Return of Significance” is interpreted, it is not only a question of painting phenomenon of China but also a quest about art and painting in the global context. The “significance” here tactfully raise the question of what is painting and how is it painted. There are a thousand routes in a thousand answers. This exhibition of the Department of Oil Painting of CAFA is planned to make this kind of questions and answers.
Does painting has meaning or not today? What kind of meaning does it have? How to present? If painting has meaning, then how and where does it come from?
All the paintings are born out of human being and exist for them. Why and for what?
Painting is a process of knowledge-action unity. The state of desire and condition of the body are equally important, as its cooperation and integration is not the result of overlay but caused by human nature yet transcend it simultaneously.Is it really possible? If so, can we explore the relationship between human and the future?
by Ma Lu
2018-10-12
2018-10-22
2018-11-02