Du Yongqiao, an oil painter popular among the ranks of young southwestern artists in the 1960s for his outstanding talent and style, has, after a period of silence, shocked a generation of young artists just emerging from the 85 New Wave with two amazing exhibitions and the exquisite artworks presented therein. They retraced the exhibition over and over, wondering at the miraculous art of this old painter in his sixties. The now middle aged artists who admired Du Yongqiao as youths were once again astonished by the unique style and amazing skills. Du Yongqiao`s artistic appeal has even had an impact in the Taiwan art scene, where his art is frequently discussed in the art media.
Du Yongqiao mainly works in oil landscapes and still lifes. This art form from the West is generally more focused on the appreciation and expression of the beauty of nature itself. Western painters are infatuated with constantly shifting colors and complex shapes, and their passions are often satisfied with their representation. For Du, however, painting is a means of emotional release. The most moving aspect of his art is the overflow of emotions within.
Du Yongqiao was born in the countryside. His unique spiritual orientation was informed by the beautiful and tranquil natural environment, a childhood marked by poverty and hard work, and a cultivation in classical literature from his father. He loves nature with great passion. He loves all forms of beauty in life, and drinks in every interesting detail around him. And yet, perhaps due to a childhood full of hardship, or perhaps because of the way this greatly talented artist forgets himself in art as an adult, this man is often too stubborn, and is always misunderstood by others, which has made his life quite difficult. Or perhaps it is precisely because of the difficulties and frustrations in life that he has completely immersed himself in art, and turned his painting into a carrier for virtually every aspect of his spirit. Stubborn and sincere, Du Yongqiao has had only one obsession in life—painting—and infuses it with all of his emotions. In today`s opportunistic painting scene, Du is that rare painter who sings his own tune with great sincerity. If his early works sing of the pastoral beauty of nature, as he matured and progressed, his later works came to be filled with a complex, indescribable charm. In his paintings, rather than nature presenting its infinitely dazzling beauty to mankind, Du Yongqiao is imbuing nature with the beauty of his unique personality and emotions, so that the myriad things in creation radiate with his spiritual light. The old streets, old houses, and ancient southern canal towns in his paintings always have a touch of beautiful melancholy, a nostalgic, mournful, pained, lonely and serene feel. How many of the artist`s childhood memories are awakened by that tattered wooden bridge in Going Home, that peaceful pond, that warm hearth? How much resonance will arise from the ancient structures in Old Entryway, or from the love between mother and child, that child with the wandering imagination in My Childhood Home? These powerful emotional tones penetrate virtually all of his works. Whether it is the deserted beach in After the Rain, the seascape in Moonlight, the country road in Mud, the peaceful lotus pond in Early Autumn, the girl playing the old piano in Practice, or the tranquil falling blossoms in Autumn Red, we can always find the painter`s touching sentiments. In an era of wanton opportunism, stubborn Du Yongqiao selects only those themes of life that he loves and that belong to him. He could never conform in that era of insincerity, but it was that very stubbornness that fostered his artistic success. Meanwhile, this emotional approach rooted in the depths of the self is also heavily marked by classic Chinese tones of tranquility, detachment, solitude and sadness, which brings his oil paintings closer to the spiritual essence of cathartic expression in traditional Chinese art, a purely oriental form of conceptual imagery.
Having begun in the 1950s by studying Russian and European oil painting, the skills and techniques of realism are the foundation of Du Yongqiao`s oil painting art. Du Yongqiao has formidable modeling abilities. Both his watercolors and his oils are based on rigorous scientific realism standards, while also displaying envy-inducing realist abilities (see Nude Woman). In his youth, Du Yongqiao was obsessed for a time with Western oil painting art, especially the mottled colors of the French Impressionists and Russian oil painters. He diligently researched and painted from the great masters, and learned the many schools and styles by heart. Perhaps Du Yongqiao was born with an extraordinary sensitivity to colors, or perhaps he was influenced as a child by the traditional Chinese colors and abstract forms in his grandmother`s needlework and the folk art of New Year posters, but as he studied painting in an era dominated by realism, he was never caught up by the mainstream obsession with verisimilitude. He was immensely fortunate to avoid falling prey to the vulgar, materialist tendencies of realism. Instead, rooted in a solid foundation of realist skill, he doggedly pursued the expressiveness of painterly form itself. Even in a time when “formalism” was viewed as counterrevolutionary, he still struggled and suffered for this. This has given his art extraordinary purity.
In his commentaries on art, Wang Guowei (translator`s note: a late Qing dynasty scholar, also known as the founder of China`s modern aesthetics) wrote of form and realism, “in painting, composition and layout are the first order of form... The application of brush and ink are the second order of form.” He had a high level of praise for this “second order of form.” As he said, “all of those artists whose works I admire are accomplished in the second order of form... All of the objects of appreciation in sculpture, calligraphy and painting, such as spirit, atmosphere, feel and flavor, mostly belong to the second order of form, rather than the first.” (Sequel to Collected Writings from the Silent Cottage) Wang Guowei emphasized the extremely definitive role of artistic form in aesthetic value. He was not alone in this view. Not long after Wang Guowei, Clive Bell, an English art critic, posited his famous theory of “significant form” in the book Art. He believes that if art were nothing more than narration and representation of reality, the awakening of everyday emotions and the conveying of information, then they would never “move us aesthetically.” Instead, “lines and colors combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions.” These he called “significant forms.” A history of art is a history of the contradictions and movements between emotion and form, a history of the evolution of form under the influence of aesthetic emotions. The independent expression of form serves as the definitive element in aesthetic value. Indeed, the expression of self through the art of painting must be carried out in ways that cannot be achieved in any other form.
Du Yongqiao may never have studied these particular theories, but as a painter, he possesses a intuitive genius for art, and an almost perverse sensitivity towards form. In an era when realism was en vogue, Du Yongqiao was not satisfied with simple realism. He also yearned to express his complex perceptions of colors, and pursued unique sensations as he moved the brush. In the 1950s, when a young Du Yongqiao, who had not been studying painting for long, first encountered the work of Konstantin Maksimov, he was drawn in by the Soviet painter`s high level of generalization and formal refinement of objective appearances. Thus began Du Yongqiao`s unique research into the art of oil painting. This intuitive artistic pursuit reveals Du Yongqiao`s singular artistic vision. Though most of his works are directly rooted in reality, and belong to the category of realism, Du Yongqiao feels that realist oil painting may be able to convey certain emotional content through its chosen subject matter, but in terms of the art of painting, the way something is painted, namely, the forms and expressions of the painting, encompasses the artist`s cultivation, aesthetic tastes and individual pursuits. The essence of Du Yongqiao`s art lies in his unique expressive forms, which in turn is reflected through his brushwork and handling of colors.
Du Yongqiao is fond of employing strong, forceful brushstrokes. The thickness of the oil paint adds to the brushstroke`s sense of mass. The force of the brushstrokes, clarity of shapes, vigorous knife scrapes, and bold brushwork set the overall formal tone for his oil paintings. Having been fond of Chinese traditional art since childhood, Du Yongqiao was always enamored of Chinese painting and calligraphy. He is obsessed with its infinitely changing brushing, and vivid, subtly lyrical aura, which left him dissatisfied with the relatively orderly and uniform square brushstrokes of the Western oil painting tradition. Thus, from his earliest studies of painting, he began to infuse his oil painting explorations with the complex “stylings” of Chinese painting. The richly dynamic brush stylings of Chinese painting formed a strong individual feel in his oil painting brushwork, through which he established his signature style.
In his paintings, we can see the shifts in the size, breadth, uniformity (particularly with the palette knife color fields) and smoothness of his brushstrokes. Du Yongqiao also incorporated such brush applications from Chinese painting as pacing, pauses, changes in moisture, brush inclination, lifting and pressing, and various stylistic flourishes in a masterly transformation to oil painting. The most striking characteristic of his oil painting is his ability to bring together complex combinations of brushwork and emotions, and to reconcile contradictions, as seen in the intersection of smooth, vibrant and flowing brushwork with astringent, abrasive and heavy brushwork (as seen in Intersection and Old Door), combinations of heft and lightness, of sweeping fields and fleeting points and lines, mesmerizing arrays of broken lines, lifted brushes, chapped brushstrokes and other complex formations against forceful and orderly square brushstrokes, even palette knife scrapes that cut right through the mottled color fields to the canvas beneath, or the unity between reserved and overt emotional expression. Du Yongqiao`s paintings are exquisitely rendered, rich in detail, and stand up to long observation. When viewing his paintings, one must see the originals. You can find this great artist`s outstanding craftsmanship in every minute detail. Look at the trees and branches in Mud, the countless lines in every scenic element, the waving strokes, the continuity of intention across broken lines, the Eastern calligraphy sensibility in the pauses, breaks and lifts in the brush. Look at the symphonies of complex brushing, points, lines and constructs of fullness and emptiness in Rapture, Rain in the Water Lands, and Old Street at the South of Town. His smaller paintings, such as Impression, Sound of the Waves, Beach and Moonlight, are pure choruses of the brush. Throughout his life, Huang Binhong drew from a penetrating word of advice he received when he was studying painting as a child: to paint “as if learning to write, distinguishing between each stroke.” Du Yongqiao, who always admired Huang`s paintings, also works the brush in the same manner, “everything in its proper place, each stroke flowing through,” with no room for confusion. Du Yongqiao`s painting begins with realism, but he always forms shapes with his brush, rather than submitting his brush to shapes, and seeks balance between the formation of shapes through the brush and the appearance of the brushwork itself, a trait that is given powerful expression through Du Yongqiao`s strong realist abilities (as seen in such works as American Girl, American Teacher and Kneeling Nude). It seems, however, that brushwork—the materialized trajectory of the painter`s subjective emotions—has always been more important to him. No matter how many layers of brushstrokes he applies, each single stroke remains a tangible, visible presence. His pioneering use of traditional Chinese views on brush and ink to enhance the expressiveness of Western oil painting results in oil paintings with the reserved character of Eastern art.
His deeply rooted Eastern artistic spirit, and his aesthetic emphasis on subjective emotion result in resonant colors as well. If Du Yongqiao absorbs the subjective expressive spirit of Eastern “stylings” to give the brushwork in his oil paintings a unique feel, then he draws from the purity, complexity and surreal expression of ink to enrich his brilliant colors in an unconventional way. Du Yongqiao is obsessed with colors to such an extent that the joy he derives from conveying them is difficult for others to understand. He is one of the few innocent artists I have met who always faces this world with great interest and curiosity, and always lives in an artistic environment. Not only is he obsessed with the colors of this kaleidoscopic world, he is also devoted to creating a chromatic world of his own—a free land of art. Thus, as a free aesthetic spirit, he has never been willing to passively submit himself to or imitate nature like so many of his peers. Instead, he has drawn inspiration from the colors of nature, and then used this inspiration to elevate and fantasize his own ideals, tastes and subjective perceptions. No wonder Du Yongqiao`s artworks are filled with poetic illusion and allure between “semblance” and “non-semblance.”
The overall chromatic layout of Du Yongqiao`s works is quite exacting. Though the chromatic relationships are rooted in reality, he makes richly subjective exaggerations and refinements to them. This is particularly the case in the details, where his great talents in color expression are put on vivid display. While maintaining harmony between the larger color fields, he makes countless adjustments within each field based on his rich, subjective chromatic experience, using variations in solidity, temperature, saturation, brightness and thickness to create subtle shifts and conflicts that add great richness and depth to the overall painting. The colors in the dark areas of his paintings not only appear highly transparent, but are filled with fascinating subtle transitions in temperature and brushwork, and we find careful use of blankness and emptiness akin to the splashes and smudges of ink in Chinese ink splash painting (as seen in My Childhood Home and Ripe Melons). When conveying light colors and whites, Du Yongqiao still displays a rich and exacting sense of color, to the point that even his light colors appear saturated. Du Yongqiao`s melancholy emotional demeanor pushes him towards soft gray tones, and the cold, elegant beauty of his imagery is often heightened by the way he conveys these gray tones. These gray color fields, however, actually comprise a wide array of colors tending together towards gray in a powerful or reserved display of the role of supplementary colors. For example, a cold gray tone may be filled with points of bright, warm color (see Roar of the Waves and Fixing to Rain in Water Village), or perhaps a warm gray tone will be marked by cool blotches of green and blue (as in Market Day and Autumn Moon). These complex and intricate chromatic shifts are particularly refined at the detail level. Du Yongqiao is steeped in the profundities of chromatic relationships, not only because he has come to firmly grasp them through experience and theoretical study over a forty year artistic career, but also because he has elevated that experience and knowledge to a chromatic intuition, a rare feat that allows him to drive colors like a sorcerer. The colors of each stroke are worthy of pondering, a single stroke containing brilliant mixtures of color and shifts in temperature, perfectly capturing the appearance of the object, while also conveying a unique chromatic allure all its own. This extremely rich chromatic expression far surpasses the aesthetic tastes of the truthful representation of reality.
It is also worth noting that Du Yongqiao`s combinations of colors and brushwork create a unique flavor of abstraction within the details of his paintings. One catches fleeting glimpses of indescribable magic within them. These small details alone are brimming with their own unique aesthetic value. It is no wonder that viewers are known to take a magnifying glass to his paintings. They are drawn in not only by the colors, but also by the rich brush stylings akin to the fascinating brushwork in Qi Baishi`s ink paintings of shrimp. The thing that is most precious about this, however, is that this masterly rendering has no trace of conscious intent. It is entirely a natural outcome of his free and fluent use of the brush.
Ming dynasty painter Dong Qichang once said, “When it comes to pathways in nature, the painting falls short of the landscape; when it comes to the wonders of brush and ink, the landscape falls far short of the painting.” When facing nature, Chinese artists are always filled with faith in man. When art surpasses nature, is it not because of the abundance of human emotion, aspirations, ideals and tastes within the art? Du Yongqiao, an outstanding painter who began his career with Western realist oil painting, seems to have had the Eastern intuition from the beginning that the object in reality lacks the language of self, or any other "flavor,” and that without the infusion of “flavor” into the object, art would be lost. That is because there is nothing more important than “flavor.” Indeed, it is precisely in this crux of Eastern aesthetics—though of course there are some commonalities in Western modern aesthetics—that Du Yongqiao has brought his oil painting into the spiritual system of Eastern art. If “reshaping with the soul” is the spiritual essence of Eastern art, then Du Yongqiao`s oil painting, rooted in individuality and subjectivity, can be unhesitatingly declared to be Eastern oil painting. The only difference from other painters who have tried their hand at “nationalizing” oil painting is that he has done so in a more reserved, meaningful, as well as, of course, more outstanding way.
August 1997