By Yi Ying
One feature of
the paintings by artist Wang Wensheng is the slight elegance of some kind, free
of intense color contrast, or strong white-black contrast. Different color
layers and shades are painted very closely, somewhat like “Grey Harmony”, the painting title of James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903). The colors are tinted thin, but not gloomy, for he uses the
complementary colors in the light colors, such light colors are quite striking,
as if the ordinary settings are showered in the sunlight, under which
everything looks bright and light, even the projection reflects the daylight.
The bright area against the complementary colors forms beautiful color fields.
Wang Wensheng
has his own understanding of the color world. He pursues the agreement of color
and inner world, not painstakingly trying to show some color formula.
Conversely, he paints with ease, almost free of any plastic creation, leaving a
few white spots between brushworks, as if leaping on the pictorial surfaces.
This makes us think that he seldom redoes or retraces what he does, but enjoys
finishing at a time, reserving that direct and simple state.
It is not easy
for a mature painter. To some degree, we are all academically trained to think
that the brushwork serves plastic creation. The more skillful the brushwork is,
the more it influences plastic work. Therefore, the brushwork loses its
liberty. Maybe Wang Wensheng has never completely lived up to the academic
expectations and therefore fortunately retains some independence. The thing
being a shortcoming has thus turned out to be merit. Whenever the brushwork
does not serve images, it is always the artist’s individuality and feelings
that are kept on the brushwork. This is what we call the sense of hand, which
does not have any rules, wholly depending on the sensations of the artist.
The way Wang
Wensheng uses his paintbrush, just as he does his colors, is simple and
forthright, with his skill and inner mind achieving an ideal agreement.
With his unique
style, Wang Wensheng will not be concerned about any subject matter or theme.
Like an Impressionist painter, he will in his own way depict his perceptions of
this world, that is to say, the objects depicted are the media of his
perception. A meaningful subject matter and an ordinary thing are all the same
to him. What he needs is sunshine, color, and the way to depict his perception
via these mediums.
The subject
matter is actually in his subconscious, while in his realistic experiences, he paints
whatever he sees, like the sand beach and people there; when he sees the light
reflected on the waves, he paints people swimming. Likewise, he paints in
elegant color the warmth inside the house when it is bathed in the warm
sunlight. Indeed they are quite common things, a visual record of quite
ordinary lives.
In fact, it is
of great importance to art. The individual in life brings his life experiences
into art; and art expression is based on the individual experiences. The artist
thus allows us to perceive the real existence of life. Coming into the world of
his paintings is just as if one comes into his or her own life.
In late
nineteenth century, Nabis artists in France created a spiritual harbor in an
environment of anxiety near the end of the century. That is a pastoral that no
longer exists, while the shadow of industrialization is looming up. Wang
Wensheng’s paintings are a return to human nature and primitivism in times of
materialism and imagination.
He may not
yearn for that era at all times, instead, he just exists very naturally. This existence
as the echo of the pastoral has called us to return to nature, a nature which
is no longer nature in its real sense, but a spiritual nature.
The paintings
themselves by Wang Wensheng are indeed a kind of spiritual nature. It does not
refer to how profound our thinking is, but to our natural instinct, soul and
feelings, which are shown in his paintings. Yet it is also what we lose day by day today.
December 1, 2006
Yi Ying is
Professor of Art History in Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and
Chief-in-editor of World Art Journal.