Article source: Art News 2006.6438+0.438+04

Author: Xue

Innovation is the soul or motive force of human civilization and progress, and it is also the life of human artistic development. Throughout art history, every development and progress of art history takes breakthrough and innovation as an opportunity. In the ever-changing art river, only those "eternal songs" that combine creativity, characteristics and beauty can last forever. And those so-called art or pseudo-art that follow the crowd and lack personality characteristics will also be fleeting and disappear into people's memory. Artistic innovation is different from what we generally call innovation. For thousands of years, artistic innovation, especially China's painting art innovation, has been the focus of controversy. The essence of artistic innovation is not only related to the development direction of the whole art, but also to the success or failure of everyone who is committed to artistic innovation. So, what is the essence of artistic innovation? In other words, what kind of innovation can be regarded as successful innovation? First, the special form of art, especially painting art, determines that artistic innovation is different from innovation in the general sense. Innovation, as its name implies, refers to abandoning the old and establishing the new. Generally speaking, innovation is often judged by its use value, and its timeliness, practicality and value must be taken into account. It depends on whether we can improve labor productivity and maximize the value of innovation. A great invention and innovation may bring great impetus to the progress of the whole social civilization. On the contrary, some innovations that cannot achieve the above effects may be ineffective or redundant. So we say that innovation should also be divided into effective or valuable innovation and ineffective or worthless innovation. Natural innovation is like this, so should artistic innovation. Therefore, artistic innovation also includes effective and valuable innovation and ineffective and meaningless innovation. The reason why we emphasize this point is that we are required to strive for value innovation. That is, it must conform to or have aesthetic particularity. In other words, artistic innovation has both the general concept of innovation and its own unique personality characteristics. To realize or solve the problem of artistic innovation, we must find the answer in aesthetic characteristics. (1) Aesthetic features determine the authenticity of artistic innovation, especially the artistic innovation of painting. Art, especially painting art, mainly exists and develops to meet people's different aesthetic needs. Because of this, it is decided that artistic innovation, especially painting art innovation, belongs to the category of visual art first. Innovation that is out of the scope of visual art is not the artistic innovation we are talking about here. In other words, no matter how innovative, it must be plastic arts first. That is to say, everyone uses a pen or its equivalent (such as a knife and other alternative tools that actually play the role of a pen, which can be called a pen). Materials, such as color and ink, create visible images on paper, fabric, board or wall through composition, modeling and color setting. This is a basic definition. Of course, what I'm talking about here is the art of painting. No matter how you paint and explore, you can't do without the framework of plastic arts. At this point, you may feel that many so-called arts, especially the innovation of painting art, are actually a misinterpretation. I won't go into details here. (2) It is not enough to just pursue novelty and novelty.

Innovation is inseparable from the pursuit of novelty and strangeness. People who don't seek novelty, novelty and change their ideology can't succeed in innovation. However, innovation is not random and blind. Although Kandinsky put the painting down once, which triggered the innovation of abstract painting, it does not mean that Kandinsky's innovation depends on this novel discovery or action. His later book "On Artistic Spirit" proved this point ... Only when the novel and peculiar ideology forms a unique artistic thought and eventually becomes a perfect brand-new work of art can artistic innovation be truly realized. On the contrary, in real life, if you write big characters on the big playground with a large pen, or draw with qigong, or roll with your body, it is not artistic innovation at all, or even art at all. Because we can't see that it has its unique aesthetic characteristics from the form. We can only see the action or result of juggling performance from these strange behaviors. Therefore, it does not belong to the art category, especially the innovation of painting art. Many painters, including us, have practiced several skillful techniques, such as painting face to face and holding pen meetings, which are essentially similar to acrobatic performances of pseudo-art. Surprisingly, our media often report it as art news.

(3) The "innovation" against ugliness is by no means art, let alone artistic innovation and painting artistic innovation.

I understand this question as soon as I say it here, but in real life, there are indeed some artists who are creating ugly but ugly "art" under the banner of innovation. What I need to point out here is that although the prices of some ugly "artworks" are high, they are still rising. But in the end, they can't escape the fate of being spurned by history. Art, especially painting art, like general commodities, is to meet people's spiritual needs. It also has its value attribute, and its value attribute is aesthetic characteristics. For example, a food is valuable because it meets people's dietary needs. When people are eating and digesting, the function of food disappears at any time. It changed from food to garbage. The same is true of art, especially painting art, as the basis and condition for the existence of a spiritual material, lies in its aesthetic function. I remember more than ten years ago, when I was in Shenzhen, a painter brought me a picture full of skeletons and asked me if my painting was good or not and if there was any innovation. I asked him who you painted for, whether it was for medicine or for art. He said that he was not a doctor or for art. How can a painting that you might be afraid of after seeing it be called art? Because this so-called innovative art has lost or partially lost its aesthetic function, it can only belong to the category of garbage. In the current art market, some so-called innovative works of art are ugly, grotesque and uncomfortable to look at. Some prices are still rising. These "pseudo-arts" that have lost or partially lost their aesthetic functions should arouse our vigilance.

Second, artistic innovation, especially the essence of painting art innovation, is equal to the creation of beauty.

In the vast art world, only the most beautiful works of art can be truly sought after by people and be immortal. Works of art that can be passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years and constantly create price miracles. First of all, they all come from the creators of artistic miracles. A perfect work only embodies all the life and wisdom of the creator. In order to gain eternal vitality. Artistic innovation and painting artistic innovation must have two preconditions and conditions in essence.

(1) Beauty is the premise.

As mentioned above, why can't a frightening or disgusting work be called a work of art? Because it has lost the essential premise of art-beauty. Therefore, I lost my artistic characteristics. Due to the limited space, I can't discuss aesthetic issues here. "Beauty is the overall harmony and unity that causes human spiritual interests" (see Xue's Art Theory 108 for details). Artistic innovation, especially painting innovation, must be based on beauty. This is because plastic arts exist as visual arts. It exists as an aesthetic object, that is to say, it should first have the characteristics that can make people feel beautiful. In other words, aesthetics coexists through the relationship between aesthetic object and aesthetic subject. Only when the aesthetic subject can produce aesthetic feeling can the aesthetic object have value-beauty. If our aesthetic subject can't produce aesthetic feeling or enjoyment of beauty from the aesthetic object. Then the aesthetic process is not completed, the object does not exist as an aesthetic object and constitutes an aesthetic form, then the object loses its aesthetic characteristics. Such innovation is a failure and has no aesthetic value. Without beauty, any art form and content will have no aesthetic value. If the object is not only unattractive to the subject, it will even make people feel unpleasant. Then, the object equals ugliness and fear. It's like seeing a beautiful tiger in the forest and hearing gunshots while walking. Just as we see pictures drawn by some people, it reminds people of death. The sense of beauty is gone. What about artistic innovation? It can be seen that any innovation that makes people feel unattractive is not an innovation in the aesthetic sense. It is not a real art, especially not an innovation in painting. The art of beauty must be able to cause the harmony and unity of the overall interests of human life subjects. As we usually say, people can be pleasing to the eye, edify sentiment and intoxicate.

(2) Creation is the basis of artistic innovation, especially painting art innovation.

Any artistic innovation without aesthetic feeling has no aesthetic value. Then, beauty alone is not enough. Without the beauty of creation, there is no aesthetic value of art, just like a copy of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, which we often see in the market, is almost as cheap as ordinary commodities. This is because of the loss of creativity. It also lost the value of artistic innovation and became a general handicraft, not a pure work of art. Art, especially painting, cannot be repeated. We say that tools can be repeated, but truly pure works of art cannot be repeated. If we build houses like the ancients, we can live in them. But painting a painting like Leonardo da Vinci is of little value. The content is so, especially the form. We talk about artistic innovation, especially the innovation in painting art, mainly the creation of form. For example, when we watched the second TV series The Legend of the Condor Heroes and the second The Journey to the West, few people insisted on watching it, saying that it was not as good as the first one. In fact, it is not the original poor acting skills, but the aesthetic characteristics. Any repeated beauty loses its sense of beauty because it loses its innovation. People are bored because they can't produce aesthetic feeling. Similarly, when you look at a person's painting, the style and techniques are the same as those of a master, you naturally don't like it and feel worthless. Therefore, artistic innovation, especially painting innovation, must be a kind of creation, and it is best to create a brand-new beauty. In essence, this kind of innovation is beyond the ancients, a change of tradition and an inheritance in development. He must be an unprecedented transcender. Even if it is immature. This shows how futile and ridiculous the authors of some ancient models and modelers are. How valuable can its artwork be?

(3) Art innovation, especially painting art innovation, is bound to be the creation of beauty. The two complement each other, are dialectical and unified, and are indispensable.

All truly great artists are creators of beauty. Throughout the ages, any master of art is the leader of the times and the creator of art history. Their works are the crystallization of masters' lives and the perfect combination of beauty and innovation. Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Picasso, Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, Wu Changshuo, Huang, Lin Fengmian, Fu Baoshi and so on. Are almost perfect innovations. Left us with precious wealth. The innovation of art, especially the innovation of painting art, must be the perfect combination of beauty and creation. The more highly the innovator unifies the two, the higher the aesthetic value of his artistic works. To sum up, the history of human artistic beauty is the history of the creators of beauty constantly exploring and innovating. When innovation becomes the natural law of our civilization and progress, we must not ignore the premise of beauty. Any artistic innovation without the premise of beauty is meaningless. At the same time, it also loses the beauty of creation and the aesthetic characteristics of art. The innovation of art, especially painting art, lies in the beauty of creation in essence.

Article source: Art News 2006.6438+0.438+04

reference data

Source: Art Newspaper 2006. 1.6438+04 Xue Art Network.