ChinaDaily[980218-8]

[Chinese News]

China Daily

98 / 02 / 18 /

***************************************************************************
1. Artist sees beauty in harsh Tibet
2. Notes (Page 9, Date: 02/18/98)
3. What's on (Page 10, Date: 02/18/98)
***************************************************************************

Artist sees beauty in harsh Tibet
A RTIST Ai Xuan's oils are actually monologues that reveal his
inner world.
His subjects are simple -- often Tibetan women or men in the
wilderness with the horizon looming in the background, no more.
His is not a beautiful world if beauty is gauged by bright
colours, fine textures and jubilant moods.
Yet, his paintings are somehow beautiful with the Tibetan girls
wearing coarse and greasy sheep-skin gowns. Alone in the snowy
prairie and ice-bound land, they stare directly at the viewer with
their melancholy eyes, their hair stirred by the icy wind. The
rugged textures of their garments contrasts sharply with the
delicate expressions on their faces.
"In every piece, we seem to see the artist himself, quietly
pondering on something in this lonely world created by himself,"
says Shao Dazhen, one of the most prestigious art critics of the
country. "A kind of unspeakable loneliness permeates the whole
picture."
More than this, Ai Xuan deftly fuses this feeling of loneliness
with a sense of mystery. "To begin with, loneliness itself is
mysterious in nature. The feeling of loneliness set in the vast
tracts of barren land is all the more mysterious," Shao says.
Ai Xuan was born in 1947 in Hebei Province but his father Ai Qing,
a renowned poet, was born in southern Zhejiang Province.
He entered the Preparatory School of the Central Academy of Fine
Arts in 1963. In 1973, he joined the People's Liberation Army as a
soldier artist and was assigned to the Chengdu Military Command in
the Southwest China.
There, he had access to the Tibetan-inhabited areas -- Ganzi and
Aba Tibetan autonomous prefectures of Sichuan Province -- and
later to the Tibet Autonomous Region itself.
"I was struck by the beauty of the grassland carpeted in green and
jeweled with flowers, the snow-capped mountains, the exotic
costumes of the Tibetans, their sun-tanned faces and so on. It was
really a relief for my eyes which had got used to the foggy and
crowded city of Chengdu. A strong desire to draw all this welled
up in me. And I started painting the Tibetans and everything
related to them. Once got started, I simply couldn't stop. More
than 20 years have passed and still, I haven't had enough of pa
inting the Tibetans, their coarse sheep-skin garments, the
weather-beaten features and so on," says Ai.
In 1987, Ai went to the United States as a visiting scholar at
Oklahoma University. Taking advantage of this, he visited many
American museums including the Metropolitan Museum and the
Guggenheim Museum in New York. Later he had the opportunity of
visiting the prestigious European museums such as the Louvre in
Paris and others in Germany and the Netherlands. All this helped
widen his artistic vision.
Gradually, somehow, he felt something was going wrong -- the once
keen feel of life and art was getting rusty and the inspirations
were drying up -- in spite of all the prestigious museums and
thick artistic atmosphere and in spite of the fact that his
one-man show in New York turned out a success, covered by the New
York Times, the Art News, the Wall Street Journal and the
Christian Science Monitor, and that his works were much
appreciated by Andrew Wyeth, one of the most famous contemporary
American paint
ers.
"I realized that I was being severed from my artistic roots -- my
country and my people. So I decided to come back to China and to
Tibet Autonomous Region in particular," he said. He did, in 1988.
Other artists had the same feeling and went back, too. Among them
were Wang Huanqing, He Duolin and Wang Yidong who are now
considered top-notch oil painters in the country.
"Few Chinese painters have accomplished anything in the United
States, so far as I know. It is not because they are artistically
dumb but because they don't belong to that place artistically, in
my personal opinion," he said.
He found himself again and grew increasingly mature in style,
ideas and understanding of art. Paintings based on Tibetan
subjects kept coming out.
What is worth special mention, among other things, is that his
expression is terse and yet exquisitely and meticulously honed,
according to critic Shao Dazhen.
"He tries to make the raw life on which most of his oils are based
'graceful and refined,' elaborately making compositional
arrangements and carefully weighing various pictorial elements. He
is obsessed with general effects of the outlines and in turn the
dissection of the space within the outlines and various subtle
relationships within the outlines such as textures, shades of
tones and so on. While doing all this, he tries to avoid leaving
any traces of 'manufacturing.' In this way, he preserves the fres
h feel of life and at the same time gives his work the order of
reason," said the critic.
In 1988, Ai's oil painting "Lonely Marshland" was sold at the
Sotheby's auctions, which marked the beginning of his works'
successful record at the Sotheby's and Christie's auctions.
Ai admires Andrew Wyeth very much and was once influenced by
Wyeth's style, tone and palette of predominantly subtle shades of
brown and grey.
"Gradually I found myself somehow distanced from Wyeth in terms of
techniques," Ai said. "I like to use dark bluish colours to depict
the contrast between the power of nature and the fragility of
humankind."
Asked why he clings exclusively to Tibetan subjects and to a style
that is marked by lonely tones, Ai answered that the artist must
develop his or her "unique look," which takes time, perhaps a
whole life time.
"We often see some talented young painters, driven by the ambition
to become famous overnight, busy experimenting with this and
experimenting with that. Their 'looks' keep changing but none is
impressive enough. This reminds us of the eager well digger who
digs shallow pits here, there and everywhere and moves on to
another site before the pit is deep enough for the water to well
up," he said. "They can get nowhere this way."
As a matter of fact, many, if not all, world and Chinese masters
have their life-long hallmarks. For example, Van Gogh is instantly
recognized at the first glance with his angry and burning yellow
colours, the rugged and powerful strokes, according to Ai.
"Once the new trails are opened and unique styles are formed, the
masters just trek down the roads, never wavering. What they do now
is to explore and perfect the depth of their styles," he said.
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 02/18/98_
_Author: Hua Jia_
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

Notes (Page 9, Date: 02/18/98)
Ancient porcelain
A number of precious porcelain wares of the Five Dynasties (AD
907-960), which were fired by the famous Dingyao Official Kiln,
have been newly unearthed in Quyang of Hebei Province.
The porcelain was found to the west of Jianci Village only 1
kilometre from the site of the Dingyao Official Kiln.
There are 37 pieces in all. Among them are two tri-coloured vases
in the shape of the pagoda, eagle-head white-glazed vases, and
square dishes.
Art by touch
THE Blue Rider Multimedia Exhibition sponsored by the Munich-based
Lenbachhaus Gallery is being shown at the Beijing Branch of the
Goethe Institute.
By touching the screen of a main computer, the viewer can see
paintings by world masters, find out about different art schools,
read art comments and learn how famous artists applied colours.
Through the medium of the computer, the visitor can also ask
Kandinsky, Chagall and other world masters about the theories of
colour application.
(CD News)
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 02/18/98_
_Author: _
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

What's on (Page 10, Date: 02/18/98)
CONCERTS
East-West concert -- The Steinar group from Norway will give a
concert with "Qingmei Jingyue", an all-female string quartet of
traditional Chinese music.
The two groups will play the traditional music of Norway and China
respectively. And at the end of the concert, the Steinar group,
formed by flute player Steinar Ofsdal, guitarist Olav Torget and
drummer Helge Norbakken and the "Qingmei Jingyue"group, which
features pipa soloist Yang Jing, erhu player Yu Hongmei, yangqin
player Liu Yuening and zheng player Zhang Xiaohong, will
co-operate in several works such as "Bawu" and "Spring Night on a
Moonlit River".
Time: 7:30pm, February 20
Place: Beijing Theatre (on the opposite of the Continental Hotel,
Asian Games Village) Building 10, Area 3, Anhuili, Chaoyang
District.
Tel:64910516
Children's songs -- The Children's Chorus of the Qiu Li Art School
and Jinfan Art Chorus will present a concert of children's songs
including "We Are Successors of Communism," "Let's Pull on the
Oars," "The Mountain Songs," "How Happy We Are," "Song of the
Great Wall," "On the Taihang Mountain" and "Golden Clouds."
Qiu Li will conduct.
Time: 7:30 pm, February 18
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Chinese songs -- Famous Chinese singers will perform a concert of
Chinese songs, including "China, Today Is Your Birthday," "I Love
the Plums of Meiyuan Garden," "I Love You," "At the Place Afar,"
"The Sun Rises on the Grassland," "Toast," "I Love the Blue Sea"
and "Land of China."
Time: 7:30 pm, February 20-22
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Haydn's works -- The Festival Orchestra of the Beijing Concert
Hall will present a concert of Franz Joseph Haydn's symphonies.
Zheng Jian will conduct.
Time: 7:30 pm, February 21
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Film songs concert -- The Chorus of China National Symphony
Orchestra will present a concert of world-famous film theme songs.
Wu Lingfen will conduct.
Time: 2:00 pm, February 22
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Piano concert -- The Beijing Conservatory of Music will present a
concert of Chinese and famous overseas piano pieces.
Zhou Huangren will conduct.
Time: 2:00 pm, March 1
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Italian songs -- The Opera Troupe of the Central Opera and Ballet
Theatre will present a concert of classical Italian songs.
Time: 2:00 pm, March 8
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Art songs -- The Chorus of the China National Symphony Orchestra
will present a concert of Chinese and foreign art songs.
Wu Lingfen will conduct.
Time: 7:30 pm, March 13
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Choral concert -- The Boys' and Girls' Chorus Attached to the
China National Symphony Orchestra will present a concert which
includes several world-famous songs.
Yang Hongnian will conduct.
Tang Chongqing will play the piano.
Time: 2:00 pm, March 14
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
Voice of the Volga -- The Chorus of the China National Symphony
Orchestra will present a concert of famous Russian songs.
Wu Lingfen will conduct.
Time: 2:00 pm, March 21
Location: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie, Xicheng District
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 02/18/98_
_Author: _
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************