Zhang Yinchuan: It is known that you have put quite a lot of influences upon the art world since 1950s, but we have heard little of your news. Many people in the art world and I have felt inspired because of seeing your painting album newly published. We share an almost same opinion that you have reached at one peak on your own painting way. But I was wondering why your works have not been seen in the national important exhibitions and you yourself could not have been found in bigger activities?

　　Du Yongqiao: It relates to my early experiences. When I was a child, I lived in the countryside, with the Nature and the farming life in my spirit. And my father, as a declined intellectual, influenced me quite a lot with Chinese classical poems. All the above have shaped my living style, unsophisticated, indifferent, peaceful and alone. I love to draw and to paint, and this is completely innate, so beyond painting itself I have been taking little care about something else such as to participate in exhibition and to win. If my painting once has some influence on the art circle, the reason is due to the acceptance of my long pursuit of painting language rather than any exhibition, prize-winning or being collected. Although some of my works have been rewarded or collected in museums like the National Art Museum of China, most of them can not stand for my painting style. On the contrary, those that really can are ignored by the public. Yet, my fellow artists appreciate them in private so much that they remember those works clearly even after dozens of years. In the early 1990s, I lived like a hermit in mountains for four years. During the period of time I had painted nearly 400 works in which the new breakthrough had been made. Some of these works, in 1997, were displayed in my individual exhibition both in Chongqing and in Chengdu, and the warmhearted encouragement from my craft fellows kept me more confident.

　　Zhang: I went to that exhibition in Chengdu and took a part in the discussion. It indeed evoked a great echo. Painters are often sincerely convinced of your works, but this could not change your margined state in the oil painting circle of China. And such a state of yours is somewhat typical and representative. It forces us to have to introspect a historical question: Why have some really great artists in China like Wu Dayu (吴大羽) and Yan Wenliang (颜文梁) been getting a cold reception for a long time? They could not receive a fair evaluation or an appropriate place in China art world. I feel that the independence of art aesthetics has never been adequately admitted. Do you agree with me?

　　Du: Yes, I agree. And I think, an artist must have his own clear judgment in any social and cultural context, and he should not follow the others to blindly believe the books on art history written just a minute ago. Some certain characters, like Xu Beihongs (徐悲鸿), should be indeed given more pages in art history as art educators rather than artists. They left little of painting language for the later generations to use as reference; they are not as good as those artists you have just mentioned. The places of those characters in that generation sometimes are inverted in the art history. Chinese culture is involved too much in politics, and this could not be changed completely even in a long time. Now, the problem comes to be more complicated. In addition to politics, trade goes in it. And furthermore, some critics only tell nonsense except fantastic stories that make the art world seem to be lively, but blundering in fact. Such critics as speculators boast and flatter each other, causing the world greatly confused. In such a context, an artist, I think, deserves praise only for his own clear judgment of himself and of his time. He should treat his art in an utterly honest attitude, instead of believing in a temporary flattery from the above critics. We have too many examples to tell us that a right judgment could not be made in history until a calm thinking lasts for a long time.

　　Zhang: Well, you have touched some sensitive topics on the art circle. Since 1980s, quite a number of critics have participated in the art activities by their own various opinions and theories. But I feel most of painters are disgusted with their so-called “theoretic guiding”, and how do you think about it?

　　Du: At the present, we really have some honest critics. They dare to release their own independent viewpoints, blowing a fresh air into the circle. On the other hand, some abnormal phenomena still exist. Some people, for instance, do not understand painting at all. They can only talk nonsense besides crony influence; they draw a faction to raise themselves up, attempting in vain to be theoretic guides of painters. The louder their voice is, the more confused is caused, so that the common people come to be unable to tell which is right and which is wrong. At the same time, some art theoreticians who know painting quite well would not like to criticize the disgusted, immerging themselves in academic learning. I think, in such a case, we need indeed connoisseurs to undertake art criticism and authoritative publications to communicate precisely.

　　Zhang: I have another sensitive question to ask: How is your art related to the post-modern art currents in China today?

　　Du: I have never been interested in any art current, and the post-modern arts even have nothing to do with me. Although I enjoy the works of some modern and/or contemporary painters and I also accept innovators, I always insist on one point that a painting must be a painting. Admittedly, the rebellion and revolution in the current arts have their own connotations in the society and in the culture. But if they have swept up the painting language, they could not be regarded as paintings at all, nor as arts either. I always believe that a painter’s mission is at studying and contribution to the painting language itself. The meaning of impressionism and Vincent van Gogh is brought out from their complete breakthrough of painting language rather than from that the painters painted ponds, lawns, dancers, or a pair of stinking shoes. In the present circle, there really is a general problem that many painters are not worth mentioning because they talk too much and do too little, as Balthus (Count Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) once pointed out.

　　Zhang: As an art critic, I personally think that the art criterion at the end of 20th century is no longer whether it is revolutionary or not, nor whether it is innovative or conservative. Once an artist has developed his own characteristic language into so fineness and perfection that his hard art form could not be replaced, and once his intervention is able to communicate and to be communicated with among the plural patterns, his art is worth existing. Many people say that your painting is perfect and they even think that you are beyond reach in this way. How do you think about it?

　　Du: Such opinion I have heard much of, especially in the recent years. As a painter, I feel it is the recognition from my colleagues rather than that from the critics that encourages me. For years, wherever to go, the North or the South, I always come across some never-met colleagues who, having been collecting my pressed paintings, think my art has put a great influence upon them. What I feel satisfied with is that I never lack of art friends although I have always been on the margin of the painting world no matter what political background and what cultural context are. However, I never think my art is perfect because in my most lifetime almost none of my painting works has left no defect in my eyes. I, therefore, feel I have a way to go.

　　Zhang: I have found, comparing your albums recently published and the ones published in 80s in Taiwan, your art has developed a lot—your freehand brush touches get more expressive and your painting appearances more lively and easer. Compared to Western painting, your work is characterized with great free strokes in Chinese painting. And until now, have you got a certain approach?

　　Du: I hadn’t before. When I began to set foot in oil painting, I was only yearning to take its language forms in my hand. I was especially fascinated by the original representation of light and colour in the Impressionist Art. From the Peredvizhniki, I grasped its representation in which light and colour were harmonious in precise formations. During that period of time, I was deeply engrossed in colour research, and as about the way of brush I had just got some vague ideas. And later, I clung madly more and more to the Chinese great freehand painting, especially to Wu Changshuo (吴昌硕), Huang Binghong (黄宾虹), Chi Baishi (齐白石), Chen Zizhuang (陈子庄) and the like, so that the Chinese freestyle of brush came naturally into my oil painting. I laid stress on the rhythm and spirit in my brushwork, replacing the dull touches of Western painting by more free strokes. Until 90s, I had pushed this kind of style to its extremity, trying my best to let such brush strokes present an independent aesthetic taste like the spirit of brush and ink in Chinese painting. In addition, I have also laid stress on abstract elements in realistic precise formation. No matter how precise the whole structure is, the colouring and strokes in part are interwoven into abstract taste. In this aspect, Huang Binghong gives me the deepest influence. Now to sum up, there is always a precondition that I have been maintaining the language characteristics of oil painting itself, that is, the taste of oil painting everyone knows.

　　Zhang: At present, there in the oil painting world of China arises a fashionable wave chasing the Chinese style and nationalization of oil painting. It seemingly happens to have the same view with your art opinion, doesn’t it?

　　Du: I haven’t taken notice of such works, nor known their specific opinions or practice. I don’t stress that oil painting must be of Chinese style or nationalization. It is not necessary to do so mechanically, as all the arts are at last belong to mankind. And as I know, this type of opinion appeared as early as in the 20s and 30s, but the practice has failed again and again. I think, the interweaving of the two languages between Western and Chinese painting is not at all a simple conception, nor can be realized by superficial and crude graft; instead, it must be an integrated representation naturally formed under the condition of a thorough grasp of the two paintings and under a long research and practice.

(Note: Du’s talk is rearranged by Zhao Qing)

　　Originally published in Art Observation (2000/1) and Rongbaozhai (2000/1)

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