Part 12 The Abstract Essence of Painting

Whether it is landscape painting since the Sui and Tang dynasties in China or landscape painting that only emerged in the 16th century in the West, their initial form is the background of narrative images. Since it is the background of the narrative image, its cultural intention is to specify the time and space in which the event unfolds, that is, to visualize the concept of "time and space". Extracting the image descriptions of time and space from narrative images and becoming independent themes is the landscape and landscape painting that is still popular among artists until contemporary times.

Since the second half of the 19th century, painting has successively been seized as a unique theme by photography, film, television, and digital imaging. It is precisely the emergence of these new media compared to painting that led to the fundamental shift in modern art over a hundred years ago. The abstract painting based on scenery is an important achievement of this turn. In the process of this turn, on the one hand, new media gradually showed great advantages in describing linear temporal forms, while painting demonstrated its irreplaceable ability in reproducing three-dimensional space; On the other hand, due to the unique abstract nature of "time and space" as a philosophical concept, it essentially defines the conceptual tendency to make visual representations of the two. In other words, concepts precede images of mountains, rivers, and landscapes. Only when the descriptive language and abstract concepts of the text have developed to a certain extent, and natural landscapes are established as descriptive objects from the perspective of language, will there be landscapes and landscapes that do not take narrative as the main subject.

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The first landscape painting presented to us in the history of world art seems to be the tomb mural "Inner Bamon Garden" from Egypt, representing the early graphical interpretation of human spatial concepts, which is a strict sense of order. However, it is precisely the sense of order presented by the natural scene depicted in the picture that makes us realize the absence of the concept of time in it. In fact, the profound contemplation of the concept and form of time by humans does not begin until the Chinese sage Confucius exclaimed in front of the river, "The passing of time is like a fleeting time, not willing to sacrifice day and night" ("The Analects of Confucius"). Shortly after, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who was slightly later than Confucius, said that "one cannot step into the same river twice", echoing Confucius from afar. The two of them coincidentally used "river" as a form of time concept, with the difference being that Confucius used river as a metaphor for time, while Hester used river as an example to infer the concept of time.

From this, it can be seen that Confucius was not interested in the issue of the "cosmology" of Western philosophy. But when he expressed his empathetic emotion along his metaphorical way of saying, "Wise people enjoy water, benevolent people enjoy mountains; wise people move, benevolent people remain calm" ("The Analects of Confucius • Yongye"), we see that more than two thousand years ago, Chinese people not only endowed abstract time and space with concrete forms, but also corresponded them to specific personalities. Therefore, this effort to visualize the concept of time and space gradually became clear as an aesthetic behavior - landscape literature and landscape painting. In Zong Bing's "Preface to Painting Mountains and Rivers" during the Southern Song Dynasty, he referred to "landscape painting" as "the joy of benevolence and wisdom", and the practice of sitting in reality was a delusional schematic requirement of "writing the form with form, and presenting the appearance with color". This includes the transformation process from text to image, and thus Chinese literature and painting have innovatively regarded "landscape" as a category, establishing an unshakable pioneer position in world literary and artistic history.

The situation in the West is not the same. Western philosophers have a much more meticulous and abstract understanding of space than time. Pythagoras' conclusion about the natural world is very abstract: 'All things are numbered'. Empedocles specifically analyzed nature into four elements: earth, fire, air, and water. The influence of the Four Elements on Western literature continued until the Renaissance. As a material element, the "water" here is not the river that Confucius sighed about. Shortly thereafter, Plato, who held an important position in the history of Western thought but was not willing to care about the natural world, provided us with a new and abstract worldpicture based on his own theory of "idea" or "form" in his peak dialogue "The Timeo. He believes that the essence of the visible world, which does not rely on time and space and cannot be grasped by the senses, is that it is established through "form and number". A cube is equivalent to soil, a tetrahedron is equivalent to fire, an octahedron is equivalent to gas, and an icosahedron is equivalent to water. He also said that the fifth type is the regular dodecahedron, which is a form close to a sphere and was used by the creator to design the universe as a whole. So, the geometry invented by the Egyptians and perfected by the Greeks was used in Plato's hands to deduce and infer an abstract world of geometric shapes, abandoning time and space. As for the issue of time, Plato categorizes it as the basic way of existence in the visible world: everything changes, and nothing is always present. Due to Plato's disregard for the visible world and hostility towards art, apart from the depiction of Plato in the mural "The Athenian School" by Raphael during the Renaissance, with his right finger pointing to the sky and his left hand holding the "Timothy", as well as the example of the elderly man who points to the earth with his right hand and holds the "Ethics" with his left hand, artists pursuing illusionism will not receive more inspiration from him. His abstract view of the universe was not exemplified until the early 20th century when Mondrian, who was passionate about geometric shapes, conducted artistic experiments.

Looking back at the perspective method in Western painting along this thinking path, this landscape painting tool perfected by Brunelleschi as an architect in the early Renaissance, we will definitely find its traces in theater design and architectural mural design in ancient Greece and Rome. Because it is unimaginable for painters attempting to reproduce three-dimensional space through two-dimensional planes to transform the planes provided by architectural forms into specific locations where events occur without the involvement of perspective based on both abstract mathematical calculations and the pursuit of illusionist ideals.

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In just ten years from 1500 to 1510, some painters in the lower Danube region between Regensburg and Vienna in southern Germany spontaneously developed independent observations of the scenery. It is in this region that artists began to directly depict landscapes based on visual experiences, rather than relying on traditional patterns and conventions as they did in the past. The artistic practice of the painter Altdorf, who was born in this region, represents an important transformation in this art history. His oil painting "Landscape", produced around 1526, completely abandoned narrative themed events, and there were no characters as scenic objects in the painting, let alone the traditional landscape patterns of "sharp rocks, regular mountains, and trees receding towards the horizon". Instead, he attempted to reproduce the shapes of weathered pine trees and rocks he had studied in the field, as well as the setting sun behind the mountains. In short, the work presents the audience with the author's visual experience of nature, breaking free from the constraints of the text and making the abstract concept of "scenery", which is not meant to be, a type of oil painting.

Starting from the first half of the 16th century, the "landscape" in the West gradually separated from the status of "background" or "scenery" and became an independent branch of the field of painting; The abstract concept of "scenery" is also specific to: foothills, trees, buildings, paths, fields, pastures, rivers, and the sky. If we compare these eight main elements belonging to Western landscape painting with the motif of Chinese landscape painting, we will definitely find that at least four elements are not the motif of landscape painting, and the important difference lies in the treatment of the "sky" element. Since its establishment, landscape painting has always adopted an extremely abstract technique - "leaving blank" to handle "sky" and other visual elements. And this abstract technique unique to China was not fully understood and applied in the West until it reached the father of modern art, Cezanne. For landscape painting, which emerged in the 16th century, its fully mature symbol in visual perception is precisely the expansion of the sky and its dominant role in visual effects. The infinite sky is void, dull, or non-existent for the original way of viewing. But we can see from the works of painters Yang Van Eyck and Dirk Botz in Netherland, as well as from the works of Altdorf, that they have begun to pay attention to the effects of clouds and light. In the 17th century, the sky meant too much to landscape masters such as Claude, Kup, and Resdar. The different proportions between the sky and the earth separated by the horizon in the picture, or the deliberate neglect of the sky by Seurat, have become the main techniques used by landscape painting masters to meticulously create visual effects.

Due to differences in the objects and ways of representation, mountains, rivers, and landscapes are divided into different schools based on different regions. Dong Qichang, the artistic leader of the Ming Dynasty, for the first time divided landscape painters into two schools: the North and the South, and insisted that "but his people are not the ears of the North and the South." Although this theory is not entirely consistent with the historical facts of the evolution of landscape painters, and has the intention of worshiping the South and belittling the North. However, "the sects are different, with the north and south facing each other separately. From the perspective of the corners, there is no difference. The Sichuan and Sichuan regions are unique and dangerous, the Qin and Long regions are magnificent, the Jing and Xiang regions are vast and vast, and the secluded wings are bleak." This actually points out the influence of the actual terrain on the establishment of sects in landscape painting. So, at the beginning of the independent development of landscape painting, Dong Yuan, a southerner, only painted "Jiangnan hills and soil mountains, with gentle terrain, not as strange peaks and steep ridges, mainly composed of miscellaneous trees, covered with shrubs, and mostly flat sand and shallow sandbars"; However, Jing Hao, a northerner, established the northern pattern of "rocky mountains with steep and steep terrain, many strange peaks and ridges, mainly pine trees, fewer shrubs and miscellaneous trees, and more high mountains and flowing water". Different types of oil painting landscapes were basically established by the end of the 17th century. Three types of landscapes have been developed in Italy, namely "idealized landscapes", "pastoral landscapes", and "heroic landscapes"; They are directly related to the efforts of Anibal Karachi, Claude, and Poussin. At the same time, northern Dutch painters further strengthened their unique type of 'naturalistic scenery'.

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The emergence of new materials has led to the diverse development of technology, which has an undeniable impact on the expression techniques of landscape and landscape painting, and even on the emergence of abstract painting.

Before the Tang Dynasty, Xuan paper had not yet replaced silk as the base material for painting, but was only used as transparent paper for copying. The painting "The Five Ox Painting" by Tang Dynasty painter Han Huang, although it is an existing paper work that has been passed down for a long time, is clearly a simulation of the screen effect of a silk version using paper. However, the situation of calligraphy is not consistent with that of painting. From the calligraphy of the "Sanxi Hall", it can be seen that the surviving Buddhist scriptures of the "Forbidden Stele Shang Tie" in the Eastern Jin Dynasty are known to be paper copies. The use of paper as a base material for painting probably began with the use of paper in the "ink drama" created by Mi Fu in the Song Dynasty. The "Mi Family Landscape" created by his sons Mi Youren and Nai Weng should to a considerable extent benefit from the use of ink and wash on raw paper.

The painting style of the Mi family's landscape is not like traditional ink and wash landscapes, which depict trees, stones, and mountains through the use of ticks. Instead, the brush is dipped in ink and water, and the surface is horizontally dropped onto the paper, using the mutual penetration of water and ink to create a misty and misty effect. During the Yuan Dynasty, the use of paper as the base material for painting began to prevail; It was also from this period that Zhao Mengfu, who was a knowledgeable and talented figure, strongly advocated for "incorporating calligraphy into painting", which not only established the abstract brushstroke of calligraphy as a certain type of reproducible motif, but also ultimately unified the calligraphy and painting on the same base material paper.

The watercolor painting "A Grassland" by Albrecht Duller, the pioneer of watercolor art, is a pure landscape painting. However, for a considerable period of time, people did not consider 'scenery' as a picture based on its literal meaning. But in the three hundred years after Doule, watercolor was mainly used for coloring prints, tracing and coloring plants and architectural lines. In the 18th century, due to the prevalence of study tours to Italy in Europe, watercolor painting was favored by travel sketching artists due to its fast drying and lightweight tools. The development of watercolor paper production technology in the late 18th century England directly promoted the popularization of watercolor painting among local artists. Watercolor works have a strong market among the nobility and middle class, and learning to paint watercolors has also become a part of gentleman education. In this development process, Robert Kozens pioneered the use of abstract ink dots to handle landscape shapes, thereby endowing traditional watercolor paintings with poetic qualities. During the same period, Chinese landscape painting reached an astonishing peak in the use of point shapes, perhaps this is just a coincidence in history. Because Cozens had never been to China, the only connection was that he served as a watercolor teacher for the novelist and collector Beckford, who also studied architecture with another central figure of the 18th century European Chinese craze, William Chambers. Chambers, who had come to Guangzhou, China, published a monograph titled "Chinese Architectural Design" in 1757 to design a Chinese style tower.

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In 1909, Kandinsky returned from a sketching trip and discovered an indescribable and beautiful painting in his own home, a painting full of inner radiance, which had nothing but form and color. This strange incident made him understand that the theme event is harmful to painting. His passage is often seen as the beginning of abstract painting. In fact, his early abstract painting titles were dated from 1910 to 1911; And his "On the Spirit in Art" published in 1912 was also completed in 1991; So far, it happens to be a hundred and four years.

We can see from his works titled 'Composition No. 4' that Kandinsky seems to want to establish a relationship between his painting and his passion for music. He attempted to liberate painting from the depiction of objective objects and dependence on text, just like music, becoming a self-sufficient art. From his series of experiments, he clearly understood that pure painting is different from pure music. Like concerts that imitate natural sounds, which are considered impoverished "art", an abstract painting that is completely detached from objective objects and has no textual purpose is also easily seen as an "empty" art by people. Therefore, until 1920, he did not at least abandon the theme of scenery; For certain other concrete motifs, he only applies schema or weakening processing. In 1921, Kandinsky had established a hard edged style of geometric form, which shifted from early impulsive abstractions to geometric abstractions.

The representative figure of geometric abstraction is Mondrian. His early artistic training was a Dutch naturalistic tradition, but he was soon attracted by modern trends such as symbolism and neoImpressionism. During the three years from 1911 to 1914, Mondrian, who stayed in Paris, was once again obsessed with the theory and practice of the Cubists, but criticizing the Cubists for not achieving complete abstraction was a logical mistake. He attempted to extract "structure" or "order" from traditional landscape elements such as trees and the "natural phenomena" of the sea, following the logic of Cubism, but ultimately made his pure artistic experiments benefit the development of design since the 20th century.

The two abstract modes of the first half of the 20th century, namely the impulsive and geometric modes, respectively represent two different pure artistic experimental methods. Kandinsky attempted to find the symbolic meaning of form and color in abstract painting, that is, to replace the traditional "natural objects" in painting with "symbolic meaning". However, the meaning that Kandinsky endows these forms with cannot evoke universal recognition of this meaning due to being constrained by specific textual intentions. Although Mondrian found an abstract way to establish a universal "order" from "natural phenomena," this result does not seem to fully meet the audience's visual needs for pure art. Even if Western audiences view this' order 'as art, it is based on their education in art history. In other words, from the theme to the abstract painting experiment where the schema deviates from the textual direction, they all guide the field of visual design at the practical level.

Therefore, the interest in abstract expressionism in the United States after World War II is not so much a development of abstract painting as a rebellion against early abstraction. In terms of form, most of its images have a certain hint; In terms of aesthetic psychology, it introduces the concept of "process". This contrasts with traditional painting that emphasizes "results". Thus, abstract expressionism responded to Kandinsky's search for the relationship between painting and music, focusing on "time". This means that whether people are creating or appreciating such paintings, they will always consciously or unconsciously experience their emotional changes in different time states through the media.

At the same time as abstract expressionism, the artistic trend of "informal abstraction" has emerged in Europe. This trend is also an irrational and spontaneous response to the structuralist abstraction led by Mondrian. The namer of 'informal', Tapies, discussed the issue of 'intangible meaning' in new paintings in 1950. In fact, "informal" painting originated from the surrealist concept of spiritual automatism; It discards any suspicious concrete traces on the motif, introduces non-traditional media in technology, or blends pigments with non artistic materials such as sand to create a new visual impression, while requiring the audience to adopt a new way of viewing "informal" painting. The concept of 'time' is expressed through the transmission of occasional and rapid trajectories through the screen.

Kiefer is one of the important artists who use images to express personal views on the issues of "time and space", "events and background", and "abstraction and representativeness". Liu Youju, the founder of illusionist painting, used a combination of Chinese and Western painting materials in his illusionary painting series, emphasizing personal meaning and simplicity. He used highly pure colors to create a strong visual effect. Like Tapieus, his paintings have almost no connection with natural forms, but he intentionally connects them with specific landscapes through painting titles - this seems like Kiefer's approach, but Kiefer's paintings must have concrete symbols. Liu Youju used Klein like blue to occupy the sky of the painting, which is of course a traditional approach to oil painting landscapes. However, he excluded many elements from the sky in oil painting landscapes, which is of course a return to the abstract cognition of Chinese landscape painting through oil painting.

If this article is like an incomplete history of landscape and landscape painting, it can be attributed to the relationship between the form of the painting and the natural form in contemporary times. Regarding this issue, Dong Qichang actually gave a brilliant insight more than three hundred years ago: "When it comes to the strangeness of the environment, painting is not as good as mountains and rivers; when it comes to the subtlety of the brush and ink, mountains and rivers are never as good as paintings." It means that although form has its unique qualities, it can naturally create new ideas from time to time. The creation of art will eventually lead to the emergence of talented individuals from different generations.