Author: Wang Duanting's Art Review No.8, 2005 In my translation of Abstract Painting, the author Ahlsen Pohrib wrote at the beginning: "Abstract art can indeed be called a typical artistic style in the 20th century, but no one dares to assert that it belongs to a popular artistic style. For the general public, it is still like the Himalayas-too high and too far to detect and understand. " The first sentence of Nathan cabot Hale's book Abstraction in Art and Nature is: "The greatest challenge for artists in the 20th century is to understand the abstract language of art." Indeed, abstract art is the ultimate goal of western modernist art initiated by Cezanne and the greatest achievement in the history of western modernist art. However, even for ordinary western audiences living in the same cultural soil, abstract art is not easy to understand. As Ahlsen Pohrib added, "Although the value of abstract painting cannot be underestimated, it has not yet become an integral part of popular culture". For the audience in China, modern western abstract art is even more difficult to decipher. 1. What exactly does abstract painting depict? The definition of abstraction in Modern Chinese Dictionary is: "It is a necessary means to discard individual and non-essential attributes from many things and extract the same and essential attributes to form a concept." In the art of painting, abstraction is relative to expression. These two words often appear in the form of adjectives, which are combined with the word painting respectively to form two concepts, namely abstract painting and figurative painting. Figurative painting refers to the painting that reproduces natural images such as figures, landscapes and still lives, while the images depicted in abstract painting have nothing to do with the images in the world we see. As paul klee, an abstractionist, said, "Art does not copy what is visible, but creates what is invisible". Invisible is the object of abstract painting. However, what is invisible? Abstract painting does not fall from the sky, but is the result of the gradual development and evolution of western modern art. Let's briefly review the history of modernist art before abstract painting appeared. Cezanne is the "father of modern art", and the history of modern western art was written from him. Although Cezanne's paintings are still concrete, and he has not abandoned traditional painting themes such as figures, still life and scenery, he has no intention to describe the external appearance of the object, nor does he express the spirit, thoughts and feelings of the characters. His purpose is to reveal the internal cosmic structure of objects-that is, what he calls cylinders, cones and spheres. In the post-Cezanne Fauvism and Expressionism painting, the reappearance factor was further relegated to a secondary position, and they focused on expressing the painter's strong passion, whether it was happiness or pain, through simplified images and strong colors. Cubists dismember the image of nature more unscrupulously, and their pictures are the recombination of the "parts" of the fragmented external image of nature. In this way, through the simplification, decomposition and reconstruction of natural images, there are fewer and fewer concrete factors in modernist painting. Finally, around 19 10, an abstract art completely independent of nature was born. Kandinsky is an outstanding pioneer of abstract art. He not only created a lot of abstract paintings, but also devoted himself to the study of abstract art theory for a long time, and published works and papers such as On Spirit in Art, Point, Line and Surface, On Form, On Concrete Art, etc ... Kandinsky used the empathy theory of his contemporaries and the achievements of Gestalt Psychology to put point, line, surface, color and shape. To this end, he endowed various formal elements with corresponding symbolic meanings according to psychological principles. Points are static and lines are generated by motion; The horizontal line is female and the vertical line is male; Yellow is the color of the earth, symbolizing secularity, and blue is the color of the sky, symbolizing nobility. Kandinsky freely created many abstract paintings, at the same time, he also painted a large number of abstract works composed of geometric shapes such as straight lines, circles and triangles. Kandinsky declared that "numbers are the end of all abstract expressions", so in his geometric abstract works, he carefully calculated the curvature of an arc and the value of the included angle between two straight lines with a mathematical precision and rigor, and tried to give "order" to various modeling factors and establish a measurable mathematical "harmonious structure" for configuring each element. Although Kandinsky tells us that "mathematical mathematics and artistic mathematics are completely different fields", his abstract painting theory work "Point, Line and Surface" is still an out-and-out geometry textbook. Kandinsky is called lyrical abstraction because it evolved from animalism and expressionism, emphasizing the empathy of abstract forms. Correspondingly, another geometric abstraction, represented by mondriaan, is a transition from cubism, which is more pure in mathematical research. Mondriaan wrote: "Behind the ever-changing natural form is the eternal pure truth. Therefore, people must change the form of nature into its pure and unchanging state. " He also believes that the structure of everything in the universe is established according to mathematical principles. After long-term exploration, mondriaan finally found a very accurate painting formula, which consists of eight basic elements: horizontal line, vertical line, three colors (red, yellow and blue) and three achromatic colors (black, white and gray) * * *, that is, lattice structure. Through the change of structural proportion and color matching, he produced countless harmonious variants of this painting formula. Through these works, mondriaan only intends to express one thing, that is, the eternal pure truth of the universe. In his creation, when mondriaan carefully examines his colored squares and their layout, he is calculating a series of mathematical equations. Malevik, a Russian, was also a pioneer of abstraction. He combined the geometric structure of cubism, the feeling of futurism and Russian religious concept, and created an extremely simplified geometric abstract style. He called himself "supremacism". Marxism–Leninism wrote: "The environment to adapt to this culture (supremacism) is created by the latest achievements of technology, especially aviation technology, so people can also call supremacism' supremacism in aviation'." He also told us that the foundation of supremacist works is "gravity, speed and direction of motion" first. Malevich tried to "express the feeling of flying, the feeling of metallic sound and the feeling of wireless telegraph" through such works. Western art historians point out: "This is an era of science and machines, and abstract art is the artistic expression of this era." There is no doubt that abstract art and western modern industrial civilization are mutually causal and complementary, and abstract art fully embodies the unique spirit of the industrial civilization era. The development of modern physics (especially quantum mechanics) and molecular biology has not only brought earth-shaking changes to the material world and human life, but also brought a vast new world to art. In addition to the mathematical and geometric structures of natural objects mentioned above, many abstract artists claim that they describe the macroscopic and microscopic worlds of the universe invisible to the naked eye. We can't see the interstellar structure of the universe with naked eyes, and we can't see the forms of bacteria, viruses, cells, molecules, electrons and atoms. However, these unheard of, unseen and even unimaginable things before industrial civilization have been proved by modern science and technology to be objective and real. It is these new scientific discoveries that provide abstract art with more and more rich forms of expression. Because they are unfamiliar to our eyes, they are also excluded from the concrete world. For westerners, rationalism is a genetic gene that can never be changed in the blood, and exploring the unknown is an instinctive "internal need". Materialists believe that the universe is infinite. With the development of science, the macro and micro world of the universe will present more and more rich scenes, and abstract painting will also create new achievements. Two. ? Aristotle said, "Man is a rational animal." Rationality is the essential feature that distinguishes all human beings from animals, but the strength of rational thinking ability is different among all nationalities in the world. As we know, humanistic world outlook and rational way of thinking are the traditional genes of western culture established by ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks gradually realized the laws of nature in the process of conquering nature, and saw the appearance of the cosmic order in the chaotic natural phenomenon. Pythagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher, attributed all natural phenomena to mathematical laws, thus establishing a complete rationalist ideological system and laying the foundation for the development of western culture. The ancient Greeks not only created the developed natural science, but also applied the knowledge of mathematical science to various fields of culture. Mathematical science was highlighted in art, intuitive naturalism prevailing in primitive art became rational realism in ancient Greek art, and ancient Greek artists endowed artistic works with factors such as proportion, size, structure and rhythm according to mathematical laws. In other words, they create all works of art through these elements, whether abstract temples or concrete portraits. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, there is a certain proportional relationship between the parts of a whole, and "beauty" comes from the harmony of proportions. This geometric standard has become the cornerstone of western formalism aesthetics. The rationalist artistic concept established by the ancient Greeks was embodied in the study and application of scientific principles and realistic techniques such as perspective and human anatomy by artists in the Renaissance. Therefore, after hundreds of years of continuous exploration by countless artists, westerners have established a complete realistic painting system. This kind of painting can reproduce the three-dimensional image in the three-dimensional space on the two-dimensional plane, creating an "illusion" that forces Xiao to be objective and natural. Looking at this kind of painting is like facing the real scene. Everything in the painting is lifelike. As Zou Yigui, a painter of Qing Dynasty in China, said after seeing western realistic paintings, "Painting the palace on the wall makes people want to walk in". Some people regard western modern abstract art as the opposite of traditional realistic art, and think that abstract art is a betrayal of realistic art. Although abstract art and realistic art are so different, they are in the same strain. Western realistic art and abstract art are essentially products of rationalism, and the difference between them is only the difference between Newton's classical physics and Einstein's modern physics. Abstract art represents the new achievements of westerners in exploring the universe and its mysteries by means of modern scientific means in the era of industrial civilization. Strictly speaking, abstract art, like realistic art, is not an artist's subjective imagination, but a true presentation of the objective world. Language is a tool of thinking. Whether in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, German or English, Westerners have always used abstract pinyin language, which allows speakers to clearly distinguish the relationship between things through the differences of voice, tense, gender and subject and object. The use of this language endows Westerners with unusual abstract thinking ability, so West Renye Fang is especially good at scientific exploration and invention. China people use hieroglyphics, and related to this, China people's way of thinking is characterized by sensibility. 100 years, China has introduced all the achievements of western natural science. From the basic theories of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and geography to science and technology in industry, agriculture, medicine, military, aviation and information engineering, we all learn from them. However, for these scientific and technological achievements, we "know what they are, but we don't know why", so it is not easy to use them correctly. To truly realize independent innovation in science and technology, we need to look to the future. Many people in China regard China's calligraphy as abstract art, and this view itself comes from the perceptual way of thinking. No matter how similar the external appearances of China's calligraphy and western modern abstract painting are, we should see that there are essential differences between them in world outlook and way of thinking. Just as Chinese characters have nothing to do with Latin characters, so do China's calligraphy and abstract paintings. Although many contemporary China painters are also keen on the experiment and creation of abstract painting, and even some famous abstract painters have appeared, such as Zhao Wuji, Zhu Dequn and Wu Guanzhong, China has never produced pure geometric abstract art ... The lyrical abstraction and abstract expressionism that China painters love are still not the essence of abstract painting with rationality and science as the theme in the West. In other words, China painters have not really understood the scientific essence of abstract painting. Due to the incompatibility between western rationalism and China's sensibility, many artists in China are still stubbornly resisting science. It is extremely difficult for China painters to abandon the artistic function view of "enlightening and persuading, focusing on rising and sinking" and "enlightening and helping the economy". Asking them to give up their lyricism is tantamount to asking them to give up their lives. Therefore, in the abstract paintings created by China painters, we can not only see the landscape painting-style picture structure, but also experience the emotions, verve and artistic conception closely related to China's traditional paintings and Laozi and Zhuangzi's thoughts. Pointing out this point is not to belittle the value of China's abstract paintings, but to state the fact that China's abstract paintings and western abstract paintings have always been strange strange bedfellows, and their appearance and spirit are harmonious. For a long time, "the integration of Chinese and Western" has been the pursuit direction of many China painters. In my opinion, "the combination of Chinese and western" is not so much a subjective pursuit as an objective necessity. Because of the different innate qualities, it is impossible for our artists to "completely westernize". As a matter of fact, today, any western cultural achievement entering China will be greatly reduced in its rationalism quality after being filtered by China people's inherent "golden mean" and perceptual way of thinking. Whether it is accepted or rejected, whether it is good or bad, "China characteristics" is almost the unchangeable fate of China people and China culture. Rationalism and abstract thinking are innate talents for westerners and acquired knowledge for China people. Understanding of abstract painting is only a matter of strength for westerners, but it is inevitable for China people. For China people, the fundamental reason why they can't understand abstract painting lies in the huge gap between world outlook and way of thinking. To be sure, as long as China people can't understand abstract painting, it will be difficult for China to make a difference in the field of science; When we can truly understand and create purely rational abstract paintings, we are not too far away from a society with developed science and sound legal system.