在中国当代艺术的整体图景中，朝戈是一位有着执著信念与理想的艺术家，他以坚定的意志、独到的见解和持续的工作，确立了自己的独特风格。就我所知，许多中国当代艺术史的研究者在相关艺术史的写作中，都十分关注这位画家和他的艺术。
一、人性的关怀
艺术是走向神圣超越的途径，是向人类启示存在的真理，艺术家处在人与诸神之间，他用民族的语言表达“诗”的本质。朝戈对艺术的态度具有宗教般的信念与虔诚，他认为艺术应该对人类的精神生活有所贡献，应该是当代人生活现实中不可缺少的精神维生素，而不是生活的装饰和居室的点缀，或一种谋生的技巧。在当代世界的背景下，朝戈的艺术方位就是寻找与发掘人类曾经有过的重要的人性的价值，以独特的视觉方式呈现出一个时代和一个民族的精神发展史。
朝戈在中国画坛的声誉建立在20世纪80年代后期，这是中国美术在面向西方开放后的一个剧烈变革时期，受到西方现代艺术的影响，中国各地的青年艺术家以群体的方式，组织展览活动，对中国既有的主流展览模式和具有很强意识形态特征和宣传性质的艺术体系是一个巨大的冲击。
处在这样的时代艺术潮流中，朝戈坚守在架上绘画的领域里，开始了对真正意义上的油画本体语言的研究，他和同时代的一批学院里的画家被视为中国“新古典主义”的代表画家。按照一些学者的解释，“新古典主义”画家是以西方古典主义的油画语言作为研究对象，歌颂人性的纯真，强调语言的完美，与社会现实保持着一定的距离，以优雅的形象特别是青年女性的优美形象表达一种对于人性的浪漫想象。在一定程度上，朝戈被划入这个群体有其合理因素，因为他的一些具有研究性的人体艺术作品，如《坐在椅子上的女人体》，被视为新古典主义画家群体中最具有代表性的语言典范。但是朝戈的作品从一开始就不是中产阶级的休闲优雅的消遣品，他所关注的是人性与时代的遭遇所发生的变异，这与那些描绘舒适慵懒的室内女性的写实绘画有根本的区别。
80年代后期他创作了油画《大气》，这幅作品的浪漫和舒展，代表了那个时代中国整体的开放与人性的苏醒。朝戈在作品中表达了一种宏大的存在，希望在空气中颤动，女性人体如同德拉克罗瓦《自由引导人民》一画中的自由女神，以一种象征性的姿态展现了人性的胜利。朝戈一直把自己的艺术和他所经历的时代的某种真实的存在联系在一起，艺术的困难就在于它必须与那个时代所产生的思想感情，以及那种莫名的、难以捉摸的情绪以及一种精神本质联系在一起。朝戈的作品为这一目的做出了极大的努力，从而获得了一种沉着的历史感。千百年来人们为艺术所作的不屈不挠的努力是为了什么呢？就是为了保存某种记忆，某种自己生存经验中最为感人的价值和感情。
朝戈认为“在这个时代最深刻的人类变迁是人们正在迅速地失去人的内在价值感。当代艺术对此的反映为，把因价值危机而出现的种种畸态的艺术作为对现实的回应。其实我认为这个现实真正需要的是正面地坚持内在价值的人与具有这种崇敬感的艺术，对人类的某种宝贵精神的持守与升华。这是面对世俗大潮的最具挑战性的回应”。事实上，亘古以来世界诸文明所拥有的一些人类基本价值是共同的，当代生活中的各种人类危机，正是这种价值丢失的反映。
面对正在迅速物化的世界，我们深切地感觉到，文学艺术所关心的“人”，现在正在发生着明显的变化。人性中本身具备的重要品质在淡化和消失，或被人们轻视和嘲弄，而人性中的某些弱点，却被无限地刺激、放大与被欣赏。当代人“像处在干涸的沙漠中的生物面临荒漠和孤立”。朝戈将艺术定位于探索人们的精神生活以及它与人的日常欲望的冲突，他在作品中寻找绘画的持久存在与人性的精神，选择并实践持久精练的造型方式。他所探求的是人类有史以来具有支撑作用的那种人文精神理念，这使他在当代艺术中成为知音甚少的精神守望者。
90年代初朝戈创作了《敏感者》、《西部》、《两个人》、《靠墙的人》、《年轻的面孔》等作品。这些人物带有某种真理追求者的烙印，他们代表的是一些真正具有心灵生活的人。在这些作品中，最具有代表性的是《敏感者》，这件作品敏锐而又有力地表达了那个时期中国社会迅速的变化所带给普通人的强烈的心理失衡与文化震惊。朝戈由此开拓了中国当代绘画中具有心理研究与表现主义性质的绘画道路，他的作品影响了一些更为年轻的青年画家，如毛焰所描绘的一些知识分子的肖像性作品，而此时有关英国画家弗洛伊德的心理性表现风格才刚刚为一些青年画家所了解。与弗洛伊德不同，朝戈没有以表现主义的粗犷笔触来获得表层的视觉震撼，而是逐渐发展出一种属于自己的含蓄语言，在进行了深入的构图研究后，他在画面上以一种平面性的推延手法，将复杂微妙的色彩从局部扩展至整体画面，其中的色彩倾向与感官性很强的西方近现代油画很不相同，具有古典壁画的沉稳与内敛气质。
90年代朝戈的作品对现实生活有很强的干预性，他描写知识分子的特性，作品具有对观众心灵的冲击力，但他后来转换了思路，因为他认为人还是要有信念。当代艺术中有一种及时行乐的取向，这是对人的精神世界的极大损害。艺术毕竟是人类精神生活的高级方式，应是持久的，它使人类的精神生活延长。西方当代优秀的艺术家内心深处也是非常孤寂的，中国当代艺术也受到影响，它已经找不到来自自然、来自人类生活或是其他任何方向的精神慰藉了。
二、历史的文脉
朝戈的艺术发展有两个重要的时期，一个是90年代初期，他在国内比较早地发展出一种表现主义与心理分析的绘画，他用独特的艺术表达打开了人的内部情感世界，他的艺术语言在当时的中国油画发展过程中产生了很大的影响，在中国的美术院校中，刊载有朝戈作品的《美术研究》等专业杂志，成为青年学生重要的参考资料。著名版画家广军先生认为朝戈启发了很多人，许多青年画家从朝戈那里学到很多。而当代一些优秀的青年画家都临摹过朝戈的画，他们共同的特点是强调油画作为一种传统绘画对于画家的心、手相应的表现性要求。
虽然置身于当代艺术之中，甚至在90年代一度成为青年艺术家研究和模仿的对象，但朝戈对某些当代艺术却有尖锐的批评。他认为20世纪的一百年有许多畸形发展的东西，人们过度强调了艺术的形式可能性，不断追求新的媒介和新的表达方式，但是渐渐地遗忘了艺术在人类早期的作用，即艺术是人类心灵的最高成就。这一点在古代艺术中一直是传承不息的，在当代，这些艺术逐渐被遗忘了。90年代后期，朝戈进入了一个相对沉静的反思期，他对自己的那些具有很强表现主义色彩的创作有了新的自我评价，希望通过个体的感受方式，进入更为广阔的整体性人类精神状态的表达。为此，朝戈多次到欧洲进行考察与访学，重点在于探寻欧洲艺术的精神源头，特别是欧洲文艺复兴时期的艺术与埃及艺术的精神联系。这种考察研究确立了朝戈的信念，即西方人文主义绘画的源头可以从更为早期的埃及艺术中获得一种宗教性的基因。朝戈试图逆流而上，重新发现传统，面对时代问题，使人类早期艺术的朴素价值得到再生。应该说，在中国当代画家中这样做的人是很少的，中心的问题是：当代人强调夸大个性，使艺术更加琐碎，成为个人的日常生活断片的表达，许多人不再关心广阔的人类价值，而认为个人日常生活体验就可以代替人类的整体性反思。
在世界艺术的历史传统中，朝戈更重视有东方特点的艺术，如埃及艺术、早期希腊艺术和文艺复兴早期的艺术。东方绘画对朝戈的启发，是更加强调造型，让造型说话。检视艺术史，我们可以看到，造型在艺术史中起着骨干作用，埃及艺术使朝戈感动的主要因素是造型——具有巨大象征力量的造型，而当代一些艺术家更为关注视觉符号的隐喻。也许有人会以此将朝戈划归为较为传统的艺术家，但是这样就误读了朝戈，朝戈的艺术不是旧的艺术，也不是一味考古、摹古，他的艺术是对时代的回应，是发自内心的具有创造性的艺术。朝戈以一种不与时尚合流的独特方式，在最为活跃的主流艺术的边缘地带，平静地完成了一种对于现实生活的激进表述。
朝戈的艺术在写生的基础上具有很强的主观表达的自由度，充分发挥了艺术的想象力，我将其称之为“东方想象”。“东方想象”不同于“想象东方”，作为一位著名的中国艺术家，朝戈的“东方想象”，表现了他强烈的回归艺术、确立自身而非“他者”的愿望。这种艺术强调个体的想象力与传统艺术文脉的血缘关系，强调一种自由的艺术创造力，它也许是在西方强势文化下的百年觉醒，是一种“东方既白”的自信与脚踏实地的艺术态度。经历了20世纪80年代以来西方艺术的涌入与洗礼，新一代中国艺术家开始用更为独立的眼光观察急速变化的现实，中国当代艺术对西方的想象又回到了自身的文化情境中。
讨论朝戈艺术中的沉思气质，不能忽视中国的人文地理因素对于他的艺术的深层次影响。有许多人把朝戈当做蒙古族出身的画家，但他实质上是一个来自中国北方的画家，确切地说，他是一位深刻地表现了中国北方地理环境所赋予艺术家的内在气质与精神的当代画家。朝戈在他的艺术中并不强调表层的地域色彩，例如在新中国绘画中具有边疆风情性质的少数民族题材的绘画，朝戈强调的是地域产生的气质，而且他也不在绘画中突出故事性的叙述，近五六年来朝戈更趋于强调普遍的人类价值和思想。无疑，朝戈艺术中那种具有宏观气质的构图与精神境界，来源于一个具有广阔地域和曾经超越民族国家的古老的蒙古民族的游牧气质与宽厚心灵，正是这种“文化游牧”的概念，在当代世界的文化交流中具有无可代替的重要价值，也是我们超越民族国家的局限，探寻人类共同精神理想的基础。
对于艺术史的这种“游牧视野”，使朝戈的目光越过千年，凝视人类古典文明的演进轨迹。对任何民族而言，古典文明都是最重要的精神遗产，因为这里所保存的文化价值具有持久意义。在某种意义上，优秀的古典艺术成为一个民族文化持续发展的文化基因，在它们的基础上，可以生发出无穷无尽的新的艺术图像。靠着不懈的研究，朝戈从中国的艺术中获得了许多东西，特别是中国传统的山水画艺术。在中国的早期艺术中，宋代与元代的山水画是打开气度、拓展格局的时期，这一时期的人对事物、自然有很好的感觉，比前人推进得更多，像文艺复兴早期的乔托那样，在许多方面开启了一代风气。这一时期的代表性艺术，如西方文艺复兴时期的几位大师作品，气势磅礴。朝戈对中国传统山水画中的撼人气势和宏大视野深有感受，产生了强烈的共鸣。他注意到中国早期视觉艺术的巨大优越性，即它不会被媒体时代的影像技术所取代。朝戈在创作中注意研究中国传统艺术的内在本质，他的风景画与中国早期的山水画具有某种关联，这些山水画具有很高的境界，大山大水，沉稳寂静，反映了中国古代画家对自然的独特态度。
自20世纪80年代起，朝戈画了大量有关草原的素描与油画，直接探求大自然给予人的心灵的丰富感受。他将广阔的风景与人类思想史所具有的深邃底蕴结合起来，表达了对大自然的崇敬这样一种“神圣感”。由此，朝戈在中国当代绘画中确立了一种风景画的新模式，将风景画上升成为一种人文主义的象征性艺术。20多年来，朝戈的风景画实践着重挖掘蒙古原野所特有的壮阔的地形地貌，以辽阔平远的构图表达了风景中的历史感，如《克鲁伦的阳光》中那壮阔宁静的原野、《鄂吉诺尔湖》中的优美诗意、《故乡之影》中的浓郁乡情等等。他用风景画表达了蒙古民族对于它所生活的自然地貌的自豪、一种对土地山川的依恋与生存的联系，从而在浪漫的诗意表达中渗透了历史画一般的凝重。
朝戈的风景画不同于西方的风景画，它并不以某一具体的地理地貌作为衡量的标准。恰恰相反，朝戈从中国古代的著名山水画作品中，获得了一个民族的文化记忆，一种对自然的超功利的欣赏态度，一种具有宏观气势的全景视野。与人物画相比，朝戈的这些风景画更加单纯，但更加气势撼人。在朝戈那里，风景和人物本质上是一样的，都是一种心灵的抒发，只是人物更加精神化、理念化。他的风景从北方的原野上看到了新的绘画结构，由北方的自然生发出新的艺术格局，在朝戈的风景画中，“时间”作为一种重要的因素得到了充分关注，这些风景画因为其高度的概括与主观化的色彩表述，在宁静中获得了一种永恒性。这使得朝戈的风景画超越了一般意义上的自然风光，具有了历史与心理的深度。
朝戈的艺术史观是十分独特的，他看到某些当代艺术形式方面的膨胀与心灵方面的空洞并存。朝戈与某些时尚的当代艺术保持着有尊严的距离，但这不等于朝戈脱离于我们的时代。其实朝戈也面临着当代的问题，作为艺术家，他敏感地感受到当代人，特别是知识分子在日常生活中普遍感到的精神的紧张与冲撞。可以这样说，朝戈的目标不是恢复过去，而是经典的再生。面对当代人的危机，他要重新在古代文化中寻找那些对当代人仍然有价值的东西，可以说，这是一门视觉的“艺术考古学”。历史上的复古大家往往是借古创新，从而在不追随时尚的过程中创造新的潮流（例如中国文学史中唐代韩愈的古文运动）。
朝戈在近期的作品中，力图恢复人类早期艺术史上质朴的、精神的、心灵的东西，这是他近期创作的重要转变。朝戈在严格的形式中表现了他对于人的内心分析与体验，其实早在90年代的《敏感者》一幅画中，他就表现了对于具有人性价值的精神生活的渴望。这种具有心理分析特性的表达，成为朝戈极具个人特点的表现方法而延续至今。以《两千年的两个人》一画为例，即使画中的两个人具有家庭的亲情，也表现了相当程度上的距离感，这正是朝戈所关注的，现代人为何在交通与通信条件十分发达的今天，反而觉得更加孤独？朝戈作品中的人物都不同程度地具有某种紧张与不安，这是我们时代的普遍精神状态的映射。朝戈的近期作品似乎回到了早期的平面性，在语言的平面化中却加强了历史的维度与精神的厚度。这看起来是矛盾的，埃及艺术虽然在平面上似乎有些刻板，但确实更具有精神性和宗教性，而立体化的希腊艺术却日益具有世俗生活的现实性与人物的肉体感。
三、当代的精神
90年代后期，朝戈的作品描写了时代的紧张，进入到当代社会的精神深处。虽然在早期，朝戈希望自己的艺术能够成为时代的图像记录，他相信自己有能力表达正在发生的思想情感和形态，但是进入新的千年，朝戈转向了对永恒的思考，因为这个时代逐渐失去了对永恒的信念。这个时代的人为自己短暂的生命而活，如同我们为今天而活，这样的价值观带来了紧张和贪婪。现代社会富裕的物质生活、发达的医疗保障也许能延长人的生理生命，但对物质财富与名利的贪婪追求却缩短了人的精神生命。当代有不少人对于历史、艺术和学术失去了沉潜求索的信心，但却以艺术与科学的名义在阿谀奉承、玩弄权术中攫取眼前的名利。朝戈对此避而远之，他多次谢绝担任油画系的领导，以便专注于自己的学术研究与艺术创作。他的近期作品如《橙色的人物》、《六月》、《谭》、《远方》不再是传统意义上的肖像画，不再强调瞬间的辉煌和经验的断片，而是试图恢复人类历史上某些永恒的价值。当代人过于强调现存的价值，缩短了精神价值，有些艺术家将片断的经验当做全部，这样做也许会出现大量的新鲜的可能性，但不是永远的激励人心的生活。朝戈的作品追求永恒感，强调精神生活的升华，有很强的当代性。
进入新世纪，中国当代艺术中一个值得注意的倾向是流行艺术渐成主流，有相当一批学院毕业的青年人，以杂志图片、影像图像为资源，以广告艺术的方式生产平面化的、艳丽的青春图像，成为快餐式的流行艺术，而朝戈以其敏锐深邃的艺术眼光转向人类的视觉文化史，走向了另一个精神维度。经历了欧洲的十国之行，朝戈的艺术观念有了很大的变化，他重新比较当代艺术与古代艺术，更加重视当代艺术的精神性。他的艺术似乎又回到了80年代早期，那时他对文艺复兴有很大兴趣。特别是文艺复兴早期的艺术，使他感悟到人类有两种艺术—视觉的艺术和视网膜的艺术。在朝戈那里，“视觉的艺术”是一种与人的心灵相联系的艺术，而不是只有视网膜刺激的艺术。绘画不仅仅是对自然的模仿，我们可以观察到的绘画有几千年的历史，但它基本上是表达人类信仰的东西，依赖于人类的信仰。西方艺术在进入盛期以后，失去了它曾经有过的重要价值。朝戈不再运用油画成熟期的语汇，而是回到早期绘画的质朴，反省人类对待艺术的态度。朝戈试图使绘画回到纯净、回到人的精华思想感情。这一点和当代的一些艺术家不一样，他们过于骄纵，太强调自我，对自然与生命没有敬畏之心，逐渐失去了艺术原有的令人肃然起敬的东西。朝戈热爱历史，他和历史的共鸣是因为他身上有相似的东西，历史对他有一种感应力。但朝戈不是单纯的学院书生式的爱好，他不想成为一个青年人眼中的“古董”，他努力避免大学教授考古式的泛文化的偏爱，深入发掘历史与传统，以现代人的眼光加以新的阐释和解读。朝戈的艺术是具有现代性的、简练的、属于我们这个时代的中国当代艺术，它反映了“现代性”带给中国知识分子的困惑以及与传统价值的冲突，但是理解朝戈需要一些智力上的努力和对于人文主义传统的了解。
讨论朝戈的艺术，不能回避他的作品与整个世界艺术的关系。当代世界日益趋向于动感，而朝戈的艺术则力图回到静态，这是一个巨大的反差。朝戈是主动的、有针对性的，他的艺术有很强的主体意识，他在无意中以个人的坚定信念与强大的时尚相颉顽，逆当代的流行艺术而行，试图重新发现人类早期艺术的价值，超越民族文化而进入普世思想。在语言上，朝戈不满足于近代油画的反光的视觉特性，他采用了具有壁画特性的语言，更加肃穆，具有视觉的收敛感，在视觉的吸收中对话，有一种呼吸的感觉，而当代的许多油画则显得过于宫廷化，如同华丽的脸谱，我们从中看不到画家的内在真诚与对现实的直觉感受。
当下中国市场上流行的古典写实绘画受到缺乏艺术史修养的购买者的追捧和投机者的炒作，而朝戈的艺术与已经样式化甚至肉欲化的写实绘画不一样，像《敏感者》就具有一种与时代的紧张关系。19世纪以来的学院派主要是自然主义，它不能进入到当代人的精神生活中去。这些艺术表达的大多是事物的外表，关心的是技巧和古典主义的样式，虽然画了少数民族、美女，但人物的整体力量很薄弱，与中国社会的发展没有关系。而朝戈的绘画则超越了学院主义，与俄罗斯艺术有相通之处，即具有悲剧性的因素和现代人的内在紧张和痛苦。他采用了一些坦培拉的技法，将画面的三度空间加以压缩，使绘画在平面性的结构方面获得了构图的严谨与力度。
有人认为，在当代多元化的艺术场景中，朝戈把自己的一元定在这个场景之外的历史深处了，他的工作的意义已被从前的艺术所覆盖。但是朝戈不这样看，他认为现在的艺术有许多强调新奇，我们可以看到嚣张，但骨子里却没有底气，而远古的艺术底气十足，具有力度。他反对人的生活普遍的世俗化，贪婪与追求享受，为肉体和官能而活。朝戈的艺术不追求官能性而强调内在的含蓄与朴素的表达。在2004年举办的“精神的维度”展览上，有些观众看了朝戈的作品非常激动，受到了很大的冲击。总的说来，朝戈在艺术中强调直觉，不喜欢道德的说教。艺术就是艺术，当代艺术家应该具有独立判断的能力，这样才可能进入到人类思考的前沿地带。我们时代的艺术在表达危机、表达激烈的情绪方面很突出，它的典型特点是表现主义，但我们的时代是精神分裂、多样复杂的时代，一个画家仅仅有能力表达这一点是不够的。朝戈近期的绘画是对自我的新的挑战，他试图使非常远古的东西经过他的视觉经验得到复活，这是一个新的审美范畴，即朴素、庄严、肃穆。以教堂与超市为例，人类生活有不同的需要，超市满足人们的日常生活需要，但人类还是有对精神生活的需要，有对信仰的需要。这个时代仍然需要一些艺术家，从事人类精神生活的高端创造，而朝戈的艺术，就是那些喜爱他的绘画、与他心有共鸣的观众的精神家园，他不仅为我们这个时代工作，也是为当代人的心灵史而工作。
2006年1月15日
殷双喜艺术史博士、中央美术学院《美术研究》副主编，吴作人国际美术基金会学术部主任，中国当代著名的艺术评论家与策展人。自1989年以来，先后参与策划了中国现代艺术大展（1989，北京）、广州首届中国艺术双年展（1992，广州）、中国美术批评家提名展（油画）（1994，北京）、世纪之门：中国当代艺术回顾展（2000，成都）、东方既白：20世纪中国绘画展（2003，巴黎）、想象中国：中国当代雕塑邀请展（2004，巴黎）、世纪与天堂：第3届成都双年展（2005，成都）、无尽江山：南北油画邀请展（2006，北京）等。写作发表了大量有关中国当代艺术的论文与评论，现居北京。
The Call of Remote Mountains: A Brief Comment of Chao Ge’s Art
Yin Shuangxi
In the whole picture of Chinese contemporary art, Chao Ge is an artist with a firm belief and ideals. Through his firm will, his own understanding and continuous efforts-making, he has established his unique style. As far as I know, many researchers on Chinese contemporary art history have given Chao Ge and his art enough attention in their writings.
I. Humanistic care
Art is a pathway to a holy and transcending state of spirit, and enlightens human beings the existence of truth. An artist usually lives between human beings and gods. He uses his national language to express the essence of “Poem”. Chao Ge’s attitude to art is as faithful and honest as a religion follower. He thinks that art should engage in human being’s spiritual life，should be as spiritual vitamin to people’s daily lives, but should not be an ornament or a decorative object in one’s house, or a skill of living. In the background of today’s world, Chao Ge intends to discover important values of humanity ever existed in history, and to display a period’s or one nation’s metaphysical development by using a unique visual form.
Chao Ge established his own reputation in drawing and painting in the late 1980s, when the Chinese visual art was experiencing a period of radical changes in terms of opening its door to the west. Influenced by various movements of western modern art, many young artists all over China attended group shows, which was a great shake to the mainland’s mainstream art and the mode of exhibition as well as the art system related to the dominant ideology and propaganda.
Facing an art trend of a period as such, Chao Ge insists on using oil media as his expression, and began to conduct research on the original meaning of oil media. He and a group of artists also teaching at art schools were regarded as masters of“Neo-classicalism”of China. As some scholars have termed with, the “Neo-classicalism”artists are characterized as using an expression of western classicalism on oil media to depict the subject matter, to praise humanistic purity, stress on perfection of an expression, and keep a distance from a social reality. Its subject matter very often is a pretty young woman in an elegant image expressing a sense of human’s romantic imagination. Chao Ge has been included in this group to some extent with a good reason. Due to some of his experimental work on nude such as“The Sitting Nude”, the work is regarded as the most representational expression among neo-impressionists in China. However, his work was never intended to act as a leisure product with relaxation and elegance for the middle class to consume at origin. What he has focused is the changes and difference encountered by humanism and time. This has got a distinction from its root to those depicting comfortable and laze women indoors in a realistic style.
In the late 1980s, he created the work titled“Great Qi”on oil media. The romantics and vastness embedded in the work signifies the extent of openness and humanistic revival of the period in China. Chao Ge has attempted to express an existence of greatness through his work, and a hope like moving air. The female nude like the Statue of Liberty in Eugene Delacroix’s work titled“Liberty Leading the People”signifies a victory of humanism by its symbolic pose. Chao Ge has always related his own art making to a certain reality of his living period. The difficulty in art making lies in a good relation made between the thoughts and feelings of the time, an untouchable and non-measurable emotion and a spiritual essence, for which he has tried his great efforts, and his work obtained a sense of historical heaviness. For hundreds of thousands of years, why have people made continuous and hard efforts in creating art work? It is just to keep a certain memory, some values and feelings one has gained through a living experience.
Chao Ge regards that“the deepest change of humans at this age is the sense of values which people are losing rapidly. Its reflection on contemporary art is that all kinds of abnormal art forms are responded to a reality due to a value system crisis. In fact, I think what is needed in this reality is people kept with a value system, the kind of art to be respected, and some sort of human’s invaluable spirit to be insisted. This is the most challenging response facing the secular trend”. In fact, some basic values of human beings from her earliest period up to date in terms of different world civilizations are in common. All kinds of crisis within our contemporary life are just the responses to such values being lost.
Facing a rapidly materialized world, we deeply felt that the“people”depicted in literature and art are nowadays taking an obvious change. Some important elements in human nature are deteriorating and losing or being despised and teased, while some weaknesses in our human nature are immeasurably stimulated, enlarged and appreciated. Modern people are just like those isolated plants in desert. Chao Ge focuses his art style on the survey of human’s mental life and their conflicts and desires in our daily life. In his works, Chao Ge tries to search for its continuing existence and humanity, and he selects and practises the style of continuing existence. What he hunts after is that kind of sustainable humanity concept; this makes him become a spiritual watcher who has few bosom friends in the field of contemporary art.
In the early 1990s, Chao Ge created some paintings, such as “Sensitive man”,“The west”,“Two people”,“People beside the wall”,“Young face”. Branded as some truth seekers, all those figures in the pictures represented some true men with true souls. Among them, the most representative one is “Sensitive Man”, which expressed ordinary people’s psychological unbalance and cultural shock caused by the quick and unprecedented changes of China’s society at that time. From then on, Chao Ge blazed a drawing and painting trail in the methods of psychological study and expressionism of China’s modern painting. His works influenced some of the younger painters’ style, such as some portraits of scholars in Mao Yan’s work. At that time, they had just got to know the psychologically-representing style of Freud, an English painter. Unlike Freud, Chao Ge didn’t use the rugged brushwork to acquire a kind of visual shock. Instead, he developed his unique connotative expressing way. Through careful composition of a picture, using a kind of pushing and extending way, he spread the complicated and delicate color effect from one detail to the whole picture. The tendency of colors is different from that of modern western oil painting which is pleasing our eyes. It has a sense of calm and convergence of classical fresco painting.
In the 1990s, Chao Ge’s pictures had a very strong interference to the social life. Some special features in his works had a strong shock to people’s mind. But later, he changed his usual way of expressing, for he thought a man should have a belief. In modern art, there is a kind of tendency of carpe diem, which is a great hurt to people’s mental life. Art, after all, is an advanced manner of mankind’s mental life, and it should be continuous or sustainable. Furthermore, it can prolong our mental life. Those western excellent artists often feel very lonely in their souls, so there is no doubt that China’s modern art is influenced, and it cannot find any warm comfort from nature, people’s life or any other place.
II. The cultural unity and coherence of history
There are two important periods in Chao Ge’s art career. One is in the early 1990s, when he developed a kind of painting combining expressionism and psychological analysis. He opened the inner world of people in a unique way of art expression. His art language played an important role in the development of China’s oil painting at that time.“Art Research”, an art magazine, in which Chao Ge’s works were published, became an important reference for the young students at art colleges. Mr. Guang Jun, who is a famous print-making artist, thinks that Chao Ge has inspired a lot of young artists who learned a lot from his works. Many excellent contemporary young artists even ever took Chao Ge’s art works as models to copy. Their common point is emphasizing that oil painting is a kind of traditional painting, and that artists should paint according to their souls.
Although under the background of modern art, and even being the idol of young painters in the 90’s , he criticized some modern art incisively. He thought, during the 20th century, there were many incompletely developed things. People emphasized the possibility of art style and pursued new media and new expressing style continuously, but they gradually forgot art’s function in human being’s early life-art is the highest achievement in mankind’s souls. This point had ever been passed down all along in the ancient art. However, these arts have been gradually abandoned nowadays. In the early 1990s, Chao Ge entered a relatively pondering time. He gained new self-evaluation about those inventions with strong expressionism and hoped that he could enter a wider expression of complete mental state of human beings through the feelings of individuals. Therefore, he traveled to Europe many times in order to explore the spiritual sources of European art, especially to explore the spiritual relations between Egyptian art and the Renaissance art. Through a series of investigations and studies, he established his own faith that the source of western humanist art could acquire a kind of religious factor from Egyptian art. He tried to rediscover the traditional values and face problems of times so as to give those simple values of early art a second birth. In China,very few contemporary artists would like to do that. One of the central problems is that people of the time emphasize the exaggeration of individuality, and art is shattered greatly, which has become a kind of expression of daily life. Many people no longer care for mankind’s wide range of values; instead, they think personal experiences of daily lives can replace the whole reflection of human beings.
As for history and tradition of the world art, he focuses more on the arts with oriental features, for instance, Egyptian art, early Greek art and early Renaissance art. Inspired by oriental art, he attaches more importance to sculpture. On inspection of art history, we may find that sculpture plays a major role in art history. The only reason for him to be moved by Egyptian art is sculpture the great symbolic power, but some contemporary artists prefer to the metaphor of some visual symbols. Perhaps some people would classify him as one of those traditional artists. However, his art is not old or a blind copy from the old arts. His art is a response to the time and a kind of creative art rooted from his soul. Using a kind of unique way against the time, at the edge of most active mainstream art, he completed a kind of radical expression unconsciously.
On the basis of sketching his art has very strong subjective expression, which exerts the art imaginations. I call it“Oriental Imagination”.“Oriental Imagination”is different from imagining the oriental. As a very known artist in China, his“Oriental Imagination”shows a strong wish to return to art, which emphasizes the blood relationship between individual imagination and traditional art and emphasizes a kind of free art creativity as well. It might be a kind of awakening under the control of western culture in the past century. It is also a kind of self-confidence and solid art attitude. Experiencing an impact of western culture in the 80’s , China’s young artists began to inspect the rapidly changing reality more independently. The imagination of contemporary Chinese art came back to its own cultural background from the West.
When discussing the pondering sense of his art, the deep influence of China’s geographical environment on his art cannot be ignored. Many people regard him as a Mongolian artist, but he should be regarded as a contemporary artist from northern China deeply endowed with inner spirit and personality caused in different regions. He did not emphasize any narrative stories. In the past five or six years, he tended to emphasize the universal value and thought. There is no doubt that the grand composition of a picture and mental state originates from a large and generous spirit, nomadic temperament of ancient Mongolian people who enjoyed great distances. It is this kind of romantic culture concept that plays a very important role in today’s world cultural communication. It cannot be substituted, and it is the foundation for us to ascend above the peoples and countries and to discover the mental world of human beings.
With this kind of “nomadic vision”of art history, he has a spacious view so that he can gaze at the classical civilization progression. To any people, classical civilization is the most important spiritual heritage, for its preserved cultural value has enduring significance. To some degree, excellent classical arts become the cultural factor of any people’s culture which can continue to grow. On its basis, many endless art pictures are created.
Depending on his unique persisting pursue to art, Chao Ge has acquired a lot of valuable things from China’s art, especially China’s landscape painting. In China’s early art, landscape painting in Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty set up a foundation; people nowadays surely have a very good sense to things, the nature, which propelled more than their predecessors. For instance, Geortor has already inaugurated a new era in many aspects. The period’s representative art paintings, such as the works of some Renaissance masters, are great. Chao Ge is very sensible of convulsive vigor and grand view, and he is plugged into this kind of art scene. He noticed the superiority of China’s early visual art, for the work will not be replaced by the photography of media age. In his creation, he focuses on the inner essence of China’s traditional art. His landscape paintings have a certain relationship with China’s early works, these ones usually possess advanced mood and state; those mountains and rivers, calmness and quietness, revealed from his paintings, reflect a kind of China’s ancient painter’s unique attitude towards the nature.
From the 1980s, he painted a lot of drawings and oil paintings on huge grassland, and he directly sought for the inspiration from nature. He combined that broad prospect of landscape with the deepest thought of human beings. In this way, he showed a kind of awesome to the nature. So he established a kind of unique new landscape mode in China’s modern paintings, and landscape painting was exalted to the position of a symbolic art of humanism. During the past 20 years, his landscape paintings have always been emphasizing the vast topographic features particular to the inner grassland, such as the quiet plain of“The Sunshine in Kelunnu”, the poetry of“The Ejinuoer Lake”, the homesick feeling of“The image of hometown”. He used this kind of landscape painting to express Mongolian people’s pride towards their habitation, a kind of love for mountains and rivers; so under the cover of the poetic expressions, his paintings also filtered with historical changes.
Different from western landscape paintings, his ones do not focus on a concrete geography and land feature.On the contrary, inspired by China’s ancient landscape paintings, he obtained a nation’s cultural memory, a kind of appreciative attitude towards nature without any materialistic intentions, a kind of grand visual field on the whole. In comparison with figure paintings, his landscapes are simpler but more shocked. In his eyes, landscape and people are the same in nature, both of which are a kind of expression of people’s souls. In this way, figures are more spiritualized and idealized. In his landscape paintings, time is a very important factor. These landscapes can acquire a kind of immutability for its highly concert and objective colorful expressions. With all these features above, his landscape is far beyond natural sceneries. It is a historical and psychological representation.
His outlook on art is very special so that he can see the coexistence between some contemporary art’s dilation in form and the hollow in soul. He keeps some distance to some contemporary art, but this does not mean that he and his art style are deviated from the mainstream of the time. In fact, he also faces some existing problems. As an artist, he sensitively feels that people nowadays, especially scholars, are widely stressful. We may say so that his goal is not to recover the past things, but to revive some classical things. Facing contemporary people’s crisis, he will restart to search for those valuable things to our people nowadays. So it can be called who could revive old valuable things usually adopt old things to create new things, so as to create a kind of new trend without following a fashion.
In his latest work, he tries to renew some simple and spiritual things that dominate the human being’s valuable things in the early history of art; this is a great change in his latest creations. He shows his taste and psychological analysis on mankind’s mental world. In fact, from one of his masterpiece, the“Sensitive man” in the 90’s , he expressed a kind of desire for mental life of humanity. This kind of expression with psychological analysis has become a kind of his unique expressive feature until now. Let’s take“Two people in 2000”, for example, even the two people in the picture have a family tie, but they still keep some distance from each other. Things expressed in this kind of work are what he really attaches a great importance to. Why do today’s people feel lonelier while they have got better conditions of communication and transportation? Characters in his works are stressful and intentional to some degree. All these things are the reflection of universal mental state of today’s people. His works seem to come back to the planarity in the early days, but it is this planarity that makes his works with wider historical dimension and longer time duration. This seems to be a little contradictory. Egyptian art seems to be a little simple and plain, but it is more about spirit and religion, in comparison with this kind of art, the three-dimensional art has a sense of physical feeling or sensation and the reality of world life.
III. Modern spirit
In the late 90’s, Chao Ge’s works described the tension of the era and went deep into the society. Though in the early days, he hoped to make his works the image record of the age and he believed his ability to express the occurent thinking, feeling and ideology. When it comes to the new century, Chao Ge turned to think about foreverness. Nowadays, people gradually give up their belief in foreverness. They live for their ephemeral lives. This value view triggers tension and greed. Moreover, the rich material life and advanced medical care system may prolong our physical life, but the pursuit of fortune and fame shortens our mental life. Many people lost their confidence in studying history, art and science; yet they pursue temporary fame and gain through greasiness and playing politics in name of art and science. Chao Ge is not such a person, though. He refuses to be leader of the Department of Oil Painting in order to devote himself to learning and art creation. His latest works, such as“Orange Character”,“June”,“Tan”and“Distance”, are not traditional portraits emphasizing on momentary brilliance and experiential episode. Instead, these works try to renew eternal values in human history. Modern people put weight on existent value and shorten mental value. And some artists regard experiential episode as the whole. In this way, fresh things will possibly come forth, but they can not be inspiring forever. Chao Ge’s works pursue a sense of foreverness and sublimation of mental life, and have modern characteristics.
When it comes to the new century, one noticeable trend of Chinese modern art is that pop art becomes the mainstream. Lots of young people who have graduated from academies created fancy planar image in the way of ad art from resources of magazine pictures and videos. Meanwhile Chao Ge focused on human history of visual art with a profound insight so as to broaden mental dimensionality. After travelling in European countries, Chao Ge changed his art view a lot. He began to compare modern and ancient art and thought much about spirituality of modern art. From then on, his style went back to the period of early 80’s when he was interested in Renaissance especially the works in early age of Renaissance, which made him feel that there were two kinds of human art-visual art and retinal art. According to Chao Ge, visual art is what connects to our soul, not only retinal stimulant. Painting with a history of thousands of years is not merely imitation of nature, but expression of what human believe in. Therefore, it depends on human belief. The western art lost its significant value that ever existed when it came to prosperous periods. Chao Ge reflects on attitude towards art and uses simple methods instead of mature oil painting skills trying to make painting pure, full of abstract of human thinking and feeling. He is different from those arrogant, self-centered modern artists who do not respect nature and life. Their works lack respectable things that should exist in art. Chao Ge loves history which appeals to him for it has something in common. But his passion for history will not be old fashioned because he is not a bookish person. His work explores, comprehends and explains history and tradition in the viewpoint of modern people. So his art is simple and modern, reflecting the confused attitude that Chinese intellectuals towards modernity. It needs intelligence and knowledge of humanism to understand Chao Ge’s art.
We have to mention the relationship between Chao Ge’s work and the world art as long as we talk about his art. The world trends change, on the contrary, Chao Ge’s art is peaceful. Chao Ge is active, purposeful with strong subjectivity. He insists on his thought against pop art. He tries to find out the value of early human art. His art is beyond national border and has universal value. As to the expressive ways, he dislikes the contemporary oil painting’s characteristic of light reflection. So he uses expressive ways in fresco style which are serious, has a sense of “breathing” and convergence. By comparison, contemporary oil painting is in royal style like colorful face from which we cannot realize the painter’s trueness and intuition.
Many collectors lack cultural learning go after and speculate popular classical true-life painting in Chinese market nowadays. Chao Ge’s art is different from formatted and sensual painting. Taking“Sensitive man”for example, this work expressed the tension of the age. From the 19th century, the academism was naturalism which cannot connect to contemporary mental life. Naturalism focuses on skills, manners and the appearance of matters. Its characters including minority people and beauty have nothing to do with Chinese society hence it lacks power. Chao Ge’s painting is beyond academism. His art has the same qualities as Russian art in aspects of Thespian element, tension and suffering of today’s people. He adopts tempera to form a 3D to compose a picture of preciseness and force.
Some people may think, Chao Ge orients his field towards history instead of the diversiform art scenes, so the former art deprive values of his work. Chao Ge does not agree. He thinks many contemporary work emphasizing novelty is aggressive but not powerful, while the ancient art is full of profundity.He opposes worldly matters, greed, pursuit of material and living for sexual enjoyment. Chao Ge’s art focuses on implicative and simple expression. In the exhibition “Dimensionality of Spirit” in 2004, some visitors were shocked by Chao Ge’s work. In a word, Chao Ge prefers intuition to sermon. Art is art, contemporary artists should have the ability to judge independently in order to enter the foreland of human thought. Contemporary art is outstanding in terms of expression crisis and fierce emotion, which has characteristic of expressionism. Nevertheless, expression is not enough for a painter in our crazy and complicated time. Chao Ge tries to make ancient matters revival through his latest paintings and go into a new aesthetic category that is simple, solemn and serious. Obviously it is a new challenge for him. Let’s take church and super market for instance. People have different demands, super market is used for daily life, and people have needs for mental life and belief. We need artist in this era who create for people’s mental life. Chao Ge’s art is spiritual homeland for people who like his paintings. Chao Ge does not only work for our age, but also for our soul history.
January 15, 2006
Yin Shuangxi, PhD. in Art History, is vice-editor-in-chief of Fine Art Research of China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Director of the Academic Department of Wu Zuoren International Fine Art Fund. He is also a contemporary art critic and exhibition curator. Since 1989, he has participated in the organization and preparation of the following exhibitions: China Contemporary Art Exhibition (1989, Beijing); the First China Art Biennale (1992, Guangzhou); China Fine Art Critics Nomination Exhibition (oil painting, 1994, Beijing); Gate of the Century: Chinese Contemporary Art Reviewing Exhibition (2000, Chengdu); East Dawning: Chinese Paintings of the 20th Century (2003, Paris); Imagine China: Chinese Contemporary Sculptures Invitation Exhibition (2004, Paris); the Century and the Paradise: the Third China Art Biennale (2005, Chengdu); the Beautiful Landscapes: North and South Oil Painting Invitation Exhibition (2006, Beijing), etc. He has written and published a large amount of essays and commentaries related to China’s contemporary art. He lives in Beijing now.
