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77

Elegant Space

Tatehata Akira

Professor, Tama Art University

The paintings of Fang Lijun consistently convey a sense of loss. This is a fundamental
loss which cannot be described simply as loneliness or solitude. One might go so far
as to say that he expresses total resignation, a condition in which there is no point in
discussing positive values. With his skilled brush, he gives "form" to the absence of
meaning. His beautiful but disquieting paintings have been referred to as Cynical Realism . They are depictions of great paradoxes related to that which has been lost.
This unique sense of loss in Fang's work is, of course, deeply rooted in the individual
experience of an artist living in today's Chinese society. His figure groups with shaved
heads, vast skies, expanses of water, and brightly-colored flowers are expressions ofa nihilistic sensibility that keeps a critical distance from hysterical ideologies, a sober gazelooking objectively at traumatic personal memories which are slow to heal. But theseunusual motifs are not the only reason for the appeal of his paintings . It is also necessary
to recognize that they represent a high level of achievement as sound modernist paintings, solidly constructed with an assured technique.
A deep sense of space is created in these dense, stable compositions, and colors
are applied uniformly with all traces of the brush eliminated, making the forms standout from the background with boldness and precision. The artist's penetrating gaze, neversentimental, gives a stern strength and dignity to the pictorial space.
Below I would like to consider the development of Fang Lijun's painting in terms ofthese two aspects, his use of personal subject matter and his handling of the formal issues
connected with pictorial space .
The development of the work shown in this exhibition began with three small gouaches
painted in 1984 (cat. nos . 1-3) when Fang was working as an advertising designer inhis home town of Handan in Hebei Province. They are depictions of vast expanses ofland and sky and might be thought of as the painter's primal landscape. The smoothgradations of light and dark transform the external light into a light which seems to glow
from within the forms in the painting. The infusion of a strange sense of life into thesebleak landscapes can be seen as the beginning of the approach used in his subsequentwork.
The figure with the shaved head, still the most common motif in Fang's paintings,
first appeared in 1988, the year after he entered the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing(cat. nos. 4, 5). It emerged in the middle of landscapes which were an extension of theCountry Love 2 (cat. no. 3). The slumped, powerless figures and the objects like billiard
balls which fill up the landscape are both illuminated from the back. The lights and darksof the exaggerated chiaroscuro, rather than giving a sense of three-dimensional forms
revealed by external light, seem to emanate uncannily from within the painting.
The model with the shaved head represents anonymity. He directs a dark, suspicious
glance toward us with no understanding of the meaning of his own appearance. He seems
to stand for the artist himself, armed with technique but not knowing what to paint or
which way to turn.
Born in 1963, Fang was a primary school student during the stormy years of the Cultural Revolution. In the statement he prepared for this exhibition he gives a detailed accountof his bitter experiences as a child of the persecuted class. He did not, however, thinkof himself as an isolated victim.
"I thought of how people will not miss a chance of persecuting someone else even
if they know how much it hurts to be persecuted themselves." 1Fang developed a sensitive but cool awareness of the realities of life which made him
totally different from a generation older than himself who tried to restore a sense of humanity by criticizing the Culture Revolution.
The Beijing-based art critic, Li Xianting, divides Post-Cultural-Revolution artists into threegroups. In Li's classification, the first generation were the "Intellectual Youth" who had
been sent dow n to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Beginning in the late79

seventies, they developed a style known as "Scar realism," rejecting the "Maoist model"
and exposing the tragedies of the Cultural Revolution. There were also anti-establishment
movements like the Stars group which turn to abstraction and proclaimed a "rebellio nagainst realism." The second generation of the latter half of the 1980s represented a"modernist phase." They carr ied out radical, Dada-like actions influenced by what they
had heard about Duchamp and what they saw at the Rauschenberg exhibition of 198 5
in Beijing. The third generation, which Li divides into the two trends of Cynical Realism
and Political Pop, is a group of younger artists who appeared at the end of the eighties.
The former makes obscure, enigmatic paintings infused with ennui and lacking any sortof spiritual relief. The latter uses techniques taken from Pop Art to make provocative
paintings in which political symbols and commercial symbols are given equal val ue.
To Fang, a representative Cynical Realist of the third generation, criticism of a hated
ideology will not heal the wounds caused by the nightmare of the Culture Revolut ion
which he experienced as a child. He has written,"It is not so terrible to propagate hate. What is terrible is that so many people readily
accept it.
This is why we are always ready to hate those who have taught us how to hate,because that makes it easier for us not to look at the hatred in ourselves. " 2
If this is the case, human qualities cannot be restored by adopting a new ideology. The
illusion of the liberated individual has been destroyed by historical reality.
Although he bases his paintings on photographs of himself, family, and friends, hepaints figures which have no proper names, keeping at a cool distance from an optimistic belief in the value of the individual. Uncommunicative figures with shaved heads, enigmatic smiles, and closed eyes appeared in a series of pencil drawings (cat. nos. 6-10)
in the same year, 1988. There is no way to read the inner feelings of these figures. In
many cases, every member of the group has the same face. Although their features are
depicted with great clarity, it is impossible to assign a name to any of them. Fang saysthat he uses photographs as a basis for his paintings and drawings in order to obtainrealistic details without having to rely on his imagination, not because he is concernedwith specific individuals.
1989 was the year of the Tian' an men incident. This was a definite turning point inFang's work, although one should be careful not to discuss its influence in too simpleminded a fashion. Since that time, Fang has worked exclusively in oil. The light in his
paintings has intensified as he turned from monochrome to greater use of color and thenature of his cynicism has also changed. Although this may be an odd way of putting
it, the enigmatic quality of his images has intensified.
A good example is the major painting, Series 2 No. 2 (1991-92, cat. no. 18), where
the man could be either yawning or screaming. In spite of the sharpness of the image,the meaning of the facial expression is left floating between various possible interpretations, and the viewer is left with only a vague impression . In Series 2 No. 3 ( 1991-92,
cat. no. 19), a group of figures with uncanny smiles seem to be saying something, but
nothing can be heard except the frigid laughter of a cool observer of the world.
Another notable feature of the paintings done during this period is the bright, empty
sky in the background. In the drawings of 1988, the background is like a heavy wal lof earth or stone, and the human figures are placed in an oppressive, enclosed space.
One might say that the artist still had the desire to stay aware of an absurd situation.
The events of 1989 made such a moral stance meaningless. Paradoxically, they might
have given the artist a feeling of liberation, a conviction that nothing could be done so
it was better to accept everything without emotion. The brightness of the sunlight andthe deep blue of the sky are mercilessly neutral toward any sort of "meaning." A world
without the possibility of narrative is rendered empty and bright.
In terms of formal concerns, however, this neutral "beautiful light" gives greater solidity
to the pictorial space. The pure values of light and shadow contribute solely to the formation of space and give an extremely stable structure to the painting. The light in the
background and the light on the group of figures in the foreground both have a sourcein the picture plane, but are grasped by different methods. The resulting discontinuity
between the erotic shaved heads which extend out from the picture plane and the deep
sky which pulls the gaze of the viewer into the depths of the picture creates a marvelous,
illusory space .
Between 1992 and 1993, Fang produced a number of paintings that might be80

described as his bright color series (cat. nos. 24-26). There is still a separation between
the background and the figure groups in the foreground, and flowers are added to the
picture as if by a collage technique . These elegant images remain empty, representing
nothing beyond their difference from real life. This is not the work of a colorist. Thereis no trace of the feeling that would ordinarily be expressed by such beautiful colors .
In the following period, Fang eliminated color entirely and began concentrating on paintings that were virtually monochromatic. Most of them show human figures swimmingin a pool. Those in which men and women appear in a variety of poses under water( 1993 No. 15, cat. no. 31) have an especially quirky atmosphere. The gravity-free senseof space is congenial to the intensification of enigmatic qualities in the images noted
above. However, the slack, unsupported limbs of the figures and the languid underwater
light are only pulled into a convincing composition by Fang's exceptional draftsmanship.
Fang has said of himself, "I am not handicapped in drawing skill." Although he does
not go out of his way to brag about his technical ability, he declares, "If one lacks confidence in a minor area (technique), it is impossible to express oneself in major areas."
One of the finest works of the swimmer series is 1993 No. 11 (cat. no. 28). It depicts
a man swimming on his back with eyes closed and gentle waves rippling around him.
It is a quiet, meditative pciinting dominated by a solemn light the color of lead. The extreme
elegance of this painting could only have been achieved by a deep understanding of themedium of oil paint, in particular the capacity of the medium to diffuse light internallyand make it seem to radiate from within. Taking in only a small visual range of the wate r' s
surface, there is a reverential quality in the space that fills the viewer with awe.
What is the significance of water in these paintings? Water is the most uncertain andenigmatic of symbols. It refers to death as well as life. It can either seduce or frighten
with its gentle capacity for absorbing everything. The undulating appearance of waves
and light in Fang's monochrome world dissolves this ambiguity of water and sublimates
its enigmatic qualities to create beautiful scene "beyond conflict."
It is obvious that the surface of the water and the swimming man both radiate thesame light. The figure here is not separated from the background as are the figures onland in previous series. The arms under the water are partially unified with the gentle
texture of the waves and float weakly. Water can be identified with a dream of maternalcare, and it may represent a quiet, safe place to which a person might return after renouncing a conflict-filled reality. That is, it is a place for immersion in memories of a sea ofamniotic fluid, a haven somehow resembling death.
The next year, Fang painted a series of swimmers in blue (cat. nos. 33-37). They
float on their backs or faces, rising and falling with the gentle waves, dreamily abandoning themselves to the water. Or are they pretending to have drowned? In any case, thewater surface glows with a tranquil light fused with the white of the sensual, naked bodies.
In spite of the melting light, there is no slackness in the pictorial space. The distance
between the figure and ground is not shown as clearly as in previous works where sharpedged, cut-out figures are placed against the background, but a different spatial structure is employed.
Clearly, the forms are not necessarily located in front of the background (the surfaceof the water) and in fact may be buried "behind" it. With the use of water, the artist
has elected to show the overlapping forms as semi-transparent substances. This may
be natural in depicting a swimming pool realistically, but it is not a simple matter to extract
the pure spatial "riches" of painting from such forms. The kind of spatial depth evokedhere could only have been created with this artist's unique understanding of layered structure and skilled draftsmanship.
Another problem which the artist faces in using photographs is that in a photographthe swimmer and water surface are, naturally, seen from the same angle. But, in thepaintings he shows the swimmers obliquely from above and treats the water as a single
color area with uniform texture, so that the picture plane is perceived as standing up_
vertically. This semi-conscious twisting of the visual angle, a residual contradiction in
the structure of the image, works to invigorate the pictorial space and give us an experience
which can only be had from painting.
The same thing can be said for the series, begun last year and continued into this,in which all-over surfaces of ocean waves or sky are combined with human figures andfaces to create a kind of double exposure (cat. nos. 38-42). The semi-transparent, ghost-81

like figures are shown against the background of the sea but their existence seems
unrelated to that of the sea. It is unclear whether they are located in the depths of thesea or floating abo ve it. Also, the figures and the water are clearly painted from different
angles so that one's view of the same picture is oddly doubled.
I must mention the two large works, 7996 No.9 (cat. no. 43) and 7996 No. 70 (cat.
no. 44), which were painted in parallel with this series. The largest paintings yet produced
by Fang, they both show groups of children overlapped with the sea and sky. The children, surrounded by flowers, appear to be singing in a chorus. Their faces can be seen
as either brightly smiling or screaming in pain. As the artist comments, "When children
laugh, they are aware of the possibility of becoming miserable in the future." These paintings present a view of a false paradise, but the artist does not expose the nightma re
which might be lurking in the background. He simply observes the horror and the beauty
with open eyes. Ever since Fang' s early drawings, he has frequently used children asa subject, perhaps because of the irredeemable trauma of his own childhood. He always
paints children in bright colors, but the deep blue behind is a common sign of melancholy feeling. They have an innocence which endears them to their parents who earnestly hope for their happiness, but the future is uncertain and anything might happen
to them. Seeds of evil may have already been planted behind their delightful faces.
A woodblock print in a scroll format, close to five meters in length, is also includedin this exhibition {cat. no. 45). In this black and white image, a bald man with a large
face has a contorted expression as if he were being sucked under the water. One might
suppose he is drowning in the dark waters of the age. Strangely enough, however, thedark water around him rocks gently in beautiful shades of black and gray . Any conclusions that we draw too rapidly are undermined, and all that remains is the impress ionof an enigmatic and solemn space.
The imagery of Fang's paintings suggests some sort of narrative but it is never possible to gain access to it. It invites multiple interpretations, none of which can be the ultimate one. One might say that, fundamentally, he is creating a false story devoid of meaning in order to show that it is no longer possible to tell a story But how beautiful th isemptiness is! A person inclined to sentimentality could never achieve this kind of elegance.
With a severely critical spirit and a cynical viewpoint opposed to any kind of sentimental
escape from historical realities, Fang is able to create a pictorial space of great dignity.
!Translated by Stanley N. Anderso n)

Notes
1. See Fang Lijun. "Remembrances," p.90 2. Visions of Happiness - Ten Asian Comemporary Artists, exhibition catalogue !The Japan Foundation ASEAN
Culture Center, Tokyo, 19951, p.75.

82

Fang Lijun and Cynical Realism

Li Xian t ing

Art Critic

Fang Lijun is the most impo rtant representat ive of Post '89 New Wave Art in China, andof the unique mode of disco urse co llective ly created by the artists who const it ute thiswave - Cynical Realism, a psyc holo gical t erm for the philosophical mix of emotional
ennui and rogue humor t hat pervaded Chinese society in the first half of the 1990s.
Post '89 is the conce pt ual mi lieu t hat gave rise to Fang Lijun's art and his Cynical
Realism. Post '89 is th e result of t he Tian'anmen Incident - the defeat of a rationale
behind a mass move ment to introd uce Wes t ern democracy, a defeat which resulted ina widespread sense of loss and need fo r introspection , and which dredged up st rata ofcultural bewilderment and helplessness. Post '89 is also the universa l susp icion of any
idealistic attempt to co nst ruct a new Chinese culture using Western modern art andmodern ideologies. Niet zsche, Sartre, and all of t he thinkers produced by Western modernism will never again prov ide psyc holog ical or artistic support for the younger generation of Chinese artists. This can clearly be seen in the changes three generations of postCultural Revolution artists have undergo ne and in the background against whic h the Cynical Realists grew up .
The Cynical Realists we re all born in t he 1960s and graduated from art col leges in
the 1980s. They are the Thir d Generati on of post-Cultural Revolut ion artists. The First
Generation we re those art ists who had been sent down to the cou ntryside as " Intellectual Youth" when the Cultura l Revolution terminated. Maturing at t he conc lusion of t he
Cultural Revolution , this generation defined truth and virtue as the key conce pt s at th ecore of their artistic output. The hallmark of the work of this gene ration was t he resurgence of social critique and investigation into human nature. The Weste rn t heories ofmodern art now flooding into China nurtured the Second Generation of post-Cult ural Revolution artists , who emerged in the mid-1980s. '85 New Wave, typ if ied by a strong senseof cultural critique and a meta-perspective on existential states. The Cynical Realists we reonly beginning primary school in the 1970s, and they found themse lves fl ung into a society
in which concepts were continually changing. For them, the Cult ural Revol ut ion is onlya childhood memory. They grew up with the opening of Chinese society to t he outs ide
world. They were let loose on society in 1989, at a time when th e exhib itio n of Chinese
Modern Art ("China/Avant-Garde"
exhibition) in Beijing presented th e ac hievemen t s ofa decade of realist thought and when various Western philosop hies served as ideo logical models. Yet, no sooner had they clamored to assume cente r stage t han t hey fo undthemselves up against repression from those in positions of aut hori ty. The Tian'anmen
Incident occurred soon after. The discovery that the ideal of resc uing Chinese culture- both society and art, was utterly void left this generation of artists wi t h only t he chancedebris of a hasty encounter. Rejecting the idealism and bravu ra of t he art ist s preceding
them, the new generation brought the Olympian perspective of t heir predecesso rs down
to eye-level as they focused their sights on the mundane reality surro unding them andfrom a roguish perspective painted themselves and slices of life that were fami liar, depressing, adventitious, and absurd. The majority consequently refused to emu late the var ious
modes of discourse derived from the West in the mid-1980s and sought instead to find
new possibilities within realism, introduced from the West in the early twentieth century
and dominant in Chinese artistic circles ever since.
Fang Lijun has the classic pedigree of this new generation, and in his work we can see
the significant formative influences of his social background. Born in 1963, his childhood and early teens took place during the Cultural Revolution. He remembers gang fights
as one of his major childhood pastimes. This undoubtedly reflects the impact on children of a social background ideologically dominated by class struggle and filled with theclash of mass factions in the Cultural Revolution. Yet Fang Lijun remained timid and vulnerable, and the frequent humiliations he suffered because of his family background form
the greatest influence on his childhood. The Communist state ideology maintained thatthose unfortunate enough to have been born into families that were wealthy prior to 194983

- and Fang Lijun's grandfather was once a rich man - were the designated class enemies of the broad revolutionary masses. This was the fundamental ethical criterion taught
to Fang Lijun and all other children, and indeed to all adults, at that time. Although classstruggle and factional warfare led children into gang fights, one basic option remained
free to them - play.
Once ideological terminology was transformed through play, the ideology could nolonger harm children. When, as a young child, Fang Lijun witnessed the grandfather heso dearly loved become the selected target of class struggle at a mass criticism meeting, the ethical criteria utterly transformed by ideology created a deep-felt emotional trauma
in him, although at that time he had no way of expressing it. Such trauma, whether
induced by the gang fights of children under the influence of class struggle, or by theprivate humiliation induced by his grandfather's public torture, could only result in thesense that human nature was evil. Yet the evil of those people was portrayed by theideology of that time as goodness and truth. This was something which a child, andeven the majority of adults, at that time could not see through. Trauma was the mental
torment delivered on the younger generation by this contradiction and doubt.
"I now think of my whole life before China opened up to the outside world as hatredand struggle from beginning to end,"
Fang Lijun remembers.
"Because I was born into the wrong class, I had to learn at a very early age how
to put up, shut up, and fake it. In 1976 when Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong died insuccession and we went to pay our respects, my father gave me a look, and I knew
I was supposed to cry, but I couldn't. But then I cried uncontrollably and people cameup to pacify me. My teachers praised me. I then realized that if I behaved in a particular way, I'd be commended. And so this was one of the results of my childhood education. My schooling had taught me the exact opposite of what was intended, but
probably at that time I had already become two-faced. You have no choice in thematter. Your childhood environment is just too oppressive for that."
These experiences Fang Lijun can never forget, and they form the point of inception of
his art - the attitude of a cynic and rogue confronting a highly repressive system of values.
In 1980 when Fang Lijun commenced his studies in a secondary school specializing
in fine arts, China had embarked on its policy of opening up to the outside world. In
society and the art world emerged an intellectual trend of questioning and criticizing the
Cultural Revolution and the arts it had produced. This enabled Fang Lijun to see works
of art quite different from those he had encountered earlier. He was fond of the artistsof the "Intellectual Youth" generation who were using their own forms of expression,and so realized that art could be created without following formulas that had simply been
handed down from the authorities. But as a student at a art school, he became increasingly keen to study the techniques of realism.
When Fang Lijun entered the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985, the craze forcultural critique was getting into full stride and modern Western philosophical theories
were flooding into China. In the fine arts the '85 New Wave Art that made the total reliance on Western modern art its criterion was in full flourish, and like many New Wave
artists Fang Lijun took to reading quite difficult philosophical texts, although he was little
influenced by them. Only the emphasis on humanism in Western philosophy and theaffirmation of the value of the existence of the individual made an impact in China, yet
the philosophy of day-to-day living was described in the language of that time as, "Playat life, play with the future, play." At that time Fang Lijun was over twenty and, beyond
his personal quest to better master the techniques of realism, he increasingly sought
to enjoy a life of freedom. Perhaps a libertarian philosophy lay behind the ideal at "playing at life," and this provides a fundamental connection with the Tian'anmen democratic
movement. Fang naturally took part in this movement and saw for himself its tragic consequences. This new inversion of good and evil, right and wrong, and of truth itself madea fresh psychological impact on Fang Lijun. When Fang Lijun completed his first batchof oil paintings he commented.
"We would rather be described as painters of loss, ennui, and crisis, or as rogues,or as the bewildered, but we will never again be deceived. Never again attempt toeducate us using the old methods, because any precept you might teach us will only
attract a hundred questions, and we will finally reject it and toss it on the trash heap."
Of course, in reality, Fang Lijun had never flung any state ideology onto any trash heap.

84

The approach of Fang Lijun and of the previous two generations of artists was utterly
different. His predecessors did not believe in expending any effort to use forms of opposition to construct new concepts of value. They believed that ultimately one can only
save oneself. Yet if through rogue humor they expressed their sense of ennui, this would
surely be the best way both to save, and at the same time parody, themselves.
I have used the term rogue hum or (popi youmo ;i& @J~) to describe the characteristicfeature of cynical realism, but "rogue" is a term which encompasses a Chinese culturalconcept of cynicism. It simultaneously embraces the notions of joking, roisterousness,
untrammelled behavior, lack of restraint, indifference, and the ability to see through everything. In 1924 the writer Zhou Zuoren touched on many similar ideas in his essay Pojiaogu~~~ : '' Pojiaogu is what in Mandarin is called wulai fflU:!ior guanggun ftf~; in ancientin the Nanking
Chinese, popi ;ff& or po!uohu ;i~P ; in the Shanghai dialect, liumang ;ml'.:5;;." Zhou
rogue
Englishinandgorotsuki
Japanese,in,~&dialect, liuhu ;mp or qingpi
picaro)de(nave/asnovel
picaresque
Spanishtheofcontext
theZuoren uses the term in,;~{i .
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Margin
Water
The
novel
the
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Secondand refers to the popi character Niu thefanglanthe
rogue
the
of
conceptthepraisedLin Yutang even more enthusiasticallyi - writing that "Today when liberal freedoms andghan /&5.llUIor the liulanghan ;mi~;individual freedoms are threatened, perhaps only the rogue or the spirit of the rogue canliberate us, so that we do not all end up as disciplined, obedient, and regimented soldiers in the same uniform and with the same rank and number in the one big army." Therogue is the last and staunchest enemy of authoritarianism. The noted sino logist John
Minford has written in a similar vein, chronicling how a new liumang culture sprang up
on the barren wasteland of post-Maoist China, describing liumang as a term difficult totranslate but falling somewhere between the concepts of "loafer, hoodlum, hobo, bum
and punk."
How does Fang Lijun use the vocabulary of his paintings to signify his grasp of thesense of rogue humor or cynicism? In his earliest works, Penc,J Drawing No. 1- 3 (cat.
nos. 6 - 8), we see one of his earliest lexical signifiers that he has continued to employ
throughout his career - the clean-sha ved head . Fang Lijun has a shaved head, and inmodern-day life the shaved head is both a striking statement and a sign of individuality,
yet it is often also associated with the lout, the rogue, or some negative character. Yet
the earliest skinheads tended to cluster in non-individual packs, indicating that the shaved
head also conveyed a sense of ideological education and regulation, and simultaneously
indicating a form of withdrawal and roguish rebelliousness. After 1989, Fang Lijun's cleanshaved head underwent major changes as a lexical signifier of classic rogue humor. The
shaved head could be grinning or dumbly staring, or the head could be viewed frombehind in innocent phrenological relief . Yawns were used to convey a sense of acuteboredom, removing all significance from the features of the face. A rogue's shaved headwith a meaningless expression enabled a form of non-meaning to dissolve a system of
meaning associated with rebellion and satire . Yet Fang Lijun used himself and his friends
as the models for the image of the man with the shaved head, thus translating this rebelliousness mockery into self-mockery and deriving an image of personal escape from asystem of meaning. Another major lexical stock of images in Fang Lijun's paintings are
the empty and expansive images of blue skies, white clouds, and vast oceans, which
form the first confines and emplacements for his figures. As images, the skies and oceans
express a sense of self-liberation from internalized repression. The Chinese expression"taking one step back into the expanse of ocean and the vastness of the sky" relates
to the image of roguish satire and ennui. Not obeying, yet not opposing, an ideology,
is the stance of those "not concerned by things," and those who feel themselves to"not be part of the scene." The mindscape of such a personality thereby acquires asense of the expanse of ocean and the vastness of the sky." At the same time, the imageof the ocean-sky serves as a contrastive metaphor, strengthening the images of the rogue
and of meaninglessness and throwing them into high relief. The technique of using aminimum of deta iled brush strokes to emphasise non-expression ensures that the painting maintains a non- emotional neutrality, expressing tranquillity and indifference, breaking
though the atmosphere of "being on the spot." Throughout his career, Fang Lijun has
tended to use pure, bright, and clear colors that preserve the pleasure gained from inner
liberation and purification. However, since 1993 he has moved in the direction of semitones, using a more severe plainness to heighten the lexicon of satire and self-parody.

85In 1993 his artistic vocabulary also made the shift from rogue images to paintings ofimages of underwater swimming. The surfaces of his canvases have submerged to more
tranquil depths and the neutrality of the images has intensified. His internal image, underwater swimming, expresses a latent premonition or omen within a daily context. Yet
this deep tranquillity harbors a certain menace. Most recently he has begun to combine
the two styles, so that from the submarine tranquillity of his paintings a roguish, dumb
grin now gazes out at us, a heightened element of counter-satire.
Cynicism and rogue humor are forms of spiritual self-liberation, and are not merely
signs of the Post '89 period. They can even be regarded as one traditional modus operandi of Chinese intellectuals, of which many examples can be found from Chinese history, especially from times of political oppression. The literati of the Wei-Jin period posedwith all of the self-mockery of crazed scholars, and their untrammelled personal lives
served as a counterweight to the heavy political pressure brought to bear on them andas a path for achieving their goals of self-liberation. The famous Wei-Jin masterpiece

New Anecdotes and Worldly Tales t!!~ilifi~g contains countless examples. In the sectionof that work titled "Untrammelled Craziness" (Rendan pian), we read: "Liu Ling would
invariably drink too much and lose control. Once at a gathering in his house he ripped
off all his clothes, and became the object of mockery. Liu Ling shouted: 'Heaven andearth is my home, and the walls of this room are my clothes, so what are you lot doing
down my pants?' " The Wei-Jin scholar Ruan Ji proclaimed, "What do the Confucian
rites have to offer to our generation?" If we peruse the dramatic lyrics (sanqu) of theYuan dynasty, we find many poems filled with the spirit of roguish self-mockery. The
dramatist Guan Hanqing wrote: "I am the leader of the lunatics. For most of my life I've
done willows and buds, slept with the willows and moved with the plants. " Zhou Zhongbin wrote: "You ask why I call a deer a horse and a phoenix a chicken? Well, I'm as
confused as everyone else about just what is the truth.'' Liu Shizhong wrote: ''The floating
life is a meaningless rave, achievement's absurd, as is fame." The Ming-dynasty writer
Shen Kua in his Mengxi bitan (Notes from Dream Stream) described the compositionsof these Yuan lyricists as "satirical , roguish works," and the Ming writer Sun Daya in
his Preface to the Anthology of the Pipes of Heaven described the Yuan lyricist Bai Pu
as "a cynical lout."
These few examples serve to illustrate that the freewheeling rogue spirit expressiveof ennui and nihilism is a stance adopted throughout ancient history by Chinese intellectuals seeking to escape from political darkness. It is no accident that a similar stanceshould resurface in the modern period in the scholarly writings of Lin Yutang and in theartistic philosophy of rogue humor of the 1990s.
July 30, 1996

86

Fang Lijun and His Art

Per Hovdenakk

Director, Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter87