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| Abstraction: An Expression Concerning Liberty |
| By Huang Zhuan |
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 iberalism is not only a political and social idea, but a psychological state as well. There appeared in art history two types of elite liberalism: One is the ancient Chinese theory of “qi-yun”, another is the concept of “avant-garde” expounded by the American art critic Clement Greenberg. They seem to have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but they do provide us with a theoretical reference that is fit for us to make an observation of the Chinese abstract art. 
Qi, according to ancient Chinese scholars and intellectuals, is the life principle but also the stuff of inanimate objects. Qi-yun refers to its free and harmonious rhythm of movement. It was as early as in the Six Dynasties (around the 6th century) qi-yun was considered as the first of the “Six Principals” that were used to make comment on traditional Chinese paintings, and later developed into a key word in evaluating Chinese classical art.
When Guo Ruoxu of the Northern Song Dynasty (about 11th century) claimed that “qi-yun cannot be learned to master” (namely, the “qi-yun” in painting was thought to reflect the nature of a painter and to come from innate talent alone), he was trying to endow the term with special implications of the elite personality and identity. The art in Song Dynasty was therefore divided into two different groups: the elite group (the literati painting) and the common group (the craftsman’s painting).
By bringing the calligraphy brushwork into painting, the Yuan literati painters made efforts to endow the literati painting—the elite art—with an independent technical standard: the handling of brush and ink. Literati painting, as the mainstream of Chinese culture is an art in pursuit of free expression, which refers certainly more to the philosophical, spiritual and moral level instead of political and social level. It is first reflected as the transcendental expression not the representational imitation of the nature, and then as an introspective look and symbol of our human beings’ subjective world instead of social instruction and guidance (another typical Chinese expression which is very close in meaning to the liberalism in art is “to treat art as a play”). Though in Chinese philosophy there exists such concept like “what is sorted is produced from what is formless”, Chinese elite painting has never developed into a visual expression that is totally “formless” or completely “abstract”. Even the extremist literati painters would express their freedom merely with “unconventional and free brushstrokes”. This is on one hand because the communication of “qi-yun” in Chinese concept can only be achieved by “basing the form on the subject matter”; on the other hand, the ideographical element of Chinese calligraphy checks the desire to completely give up the image.  Therefore, the difference between the aristocratic and scholastic literati painting and the worldly popular painting is mainly determined by whether or not the “yun” is more important than the “form”, not by whether it is “formal likeness” or “formless”.
Chinese intellectuals use the term “qi-yun”—the metaphysical aesthetic criterion to distinguish the above-mentioned two artistic worlds, while Greenberg, in a totally different cultural context, also adopts the idea of “avant-garde” to differentiate the superior from the inferior. Liberalism in art is also used here to make judgment of the value. However, the property of this liberalism trends to be more political and social. According to Greenberg, liberalism in art would resist politically to both representational art subordinated to the autocratic culture and the popular art catering for the broad masses of the people. And the basic stand of avant-garde is to criticize in way of self-examination and stop the vulgar attitude towards the aesthetic of realism, replacing it by the clearly self-pointed abstract art. This avant-garde is not only an extension to the formalism in art, but also an effort in ideology to recover the tradition of elite art in a cynical atmosphere of the post-modernism. This view of elite liberalism in art makes up the logic of aesthetic in abstract expressionism. It is these two types of elite liberalism based on totally different historical contexts that provide us with reliance on which the ideological history of Chinese abstract art can be discussed. During the 1980s Chinese abstract art was brought about in a very complicated atmosphere mainly represented by the enlightening of culture and the critique of autocracy. If Wu Guanzhong’s praise of “the beauty of form” and “the beauty of the abstract” unwittingly aroused the theoretical thinking to the stereotyped “socialist realism”, the variety of abstract art appeared during the’85 Movement was not merely an imitation of the Western style but a deeper expression of self-value and wider spread of individualism. Apparently, this liberalism in art was imbued with the characteristics of the Western ideological history, and its cultural mission was to be borrowed and criticized, and had no time to find the thinking resources in the native cultural tradition. With the development of Chinese economy at a global scale as well as the overflowing of the popular culture in 1990’s, Chinese abstract art had to be enriched with more complex thinking resources, cultural standpoint and aesthetic attitude so as to answer those artistic questions appeared at the time of radical social changes. It was on this course of transformation that a group of abstract artists as well as their works were brought to light, offering us a very important angle to view contemporary Chinese art. 
Liberalism is basically a kind of historical introspection to man’s self-limitation, and a transcendence of the worldly common views. Chinese intellectuals try their best to differentiate “yun” from “vulgarity”, distinguishing “in pursuit of no form” from “concentrating on form”, just because they want to highlight the nobility and superiority of this transcendence. In order to show his elite stand, Greenberg also makes no secret of his distain for the fascist art, the Soviet-styled realism and the American-styled pop art. He even directly calls the art catering for the common thoughts as “kitsch”. The aesthetic logic of abstraction is based on resistance to representational art that acts arbitrarily in meaning and seeks short-term successes and quick profits in function. Only those self expressions appealing to personal consciousness and absolute inutility can win the real freedom in art (its art form can only be “the aesthetic quality refined and abstracted from the best of the past”). In contemporary art this idea of liberalism agrees in certain spirit with the idea of Chinese intellectuals who consider the ultimate experience of natural life as the most lofty state and the highest standard (“qiyun”), regarding the “game-playing” attitude as the most important in artistic creation, though both of them are utterly different in cultural background, in political approaches and in the choices of styles. Contemporary Chinese abstract art contains the above-mentioned traditions of liberalism, its “avant-garde” is often reflected by the languages they borrowed from the Western-styled abstraction, and even their elite stand for liberalism expressed through the abstract art, and their approval and understanding of the individualism in the tradition of their native culture. Most of these artists have practical knowledge in both Oriental and Occidental culture, especially the ability to think about cultural problems and the ability to search for personal expression. At the same time, almost every one of them has received very strict training in realistic depiction. Though they have different reasons and approaches to abstract art, they share the same aesthetic logic in their choice of search for free expression and thoroughly understanding in innermost being.  From the free relationship between the mind and the mood of the Daoism, Qiu Shi-hua understands the meaning of vacant time and space; as for Li Hua-sheng, he draws something from the traditional Chinese landscape to develop the value of temperament by writing repeatedly. Wang Chuan benefits considerably from the great abstract expressionists like William De Kooning and Robert Motherwell, etc. His creation, after going through a life-and-death struggle, has turned to be quiet, unconventional and even elegant. Shen Chen is looking for the implication of freedom by fusing the abstract language of the West with the free and natural state of the East. Yang Zhi-hong, despite of his mastery of the essence of the American abstract expressionism, and his deep understanding of the Chinese natural symbolism and the tradition of mysticism, still makes his work full of oriental atmosphere. As a representative of Chinese “experimental ink painting”, Liu Zi-jian’s “black painting“ is in terms of its spirit very much like the free and unfettered journey of the modern version. Because of her indulgence in modern French formalism, Zhou Li’s art seems especially to be intelligent and transparent.Her identity as an oriental female can only be explained by the elegant and sensitive quality of her work. Lin Yan’s art originally comes from the concept art of “minimalism”; she uses the Oriental media of the (xuan) paper and the ink to enrich the “minimalism” with greater cultural dimensions.
Chinese abstract art of this generation is grown on unsound footing. On the one hand, the Chinese-styled socialist realism has ended its dominant position in history; on the other hand, artists are worried about their uncertain identities in their copying indiscriminately the Western modernism. Chinese abstract art is agreed to the value of the liberalism as well as the elite stand, at the same time it has to look for its spiritual resources in native culture so as to rebuild a style and an introspective understanding of the “liberalism in art.” However I think it’s a try to establish an identity of its own in the history of contemporary Chinese art, therefore I regard this trend as a new development of the term “qi-yun”. Chinese contemporary art is going thorough a certain degradation, which is caused by a compromise and connivance of pop culture and popular ideology. The fashioned and popularized “avant-garde” will not only make it gradually loosing its elite status and its introspective stand for liberalism, but also easily be reduced to dependency on various political authorities and powers of media and capital. To certain extent, those abstract artists who are on the border of the main stream are burdened with the mission to recover the revolutionary character of the avant-garde art.
 Huang Zhuan, Independent Curator, Associate Professor at the Art History Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
Translated by Hu Zhu 
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