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For most of the time since mid-October, oil painter Jiang
Guofang has locked himself at home, sweating away at new pieces in
a secluded courtyard in the small county town of Yanjiao, on the
east border between Beijing and Hebei
Province.
In his spacious studio, visitors may find some of the artist's
favorite paintings depicting pretty women and young men in ancient
costumes against the backdrop of the Forbidden City.
Next to the studio, his house appears to be a small art gallery,
filled with numerous books, catalogues, oil paintings, vintage
photos of old China particularly those about life in the Qing Court
as well as Chinese and foreign artifacts.
"Many of my previous works are not with me anymore, so I have to
churn out more for the next exhibition," said Jiang, with the
slight resignation of a mother speaking of her beloved children far
away from her.
For years, the 54-year-old artist has been hailed by critics and
collectors as "the painter of the Forbidden City" for his
distinctive oil painting series depicting the former imperial
palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) of ancient
China.
The upcoming exhibition is different from the one he held last
September in the Forbidden City, and the latest one at the Palazzo
Venezia in Rome, Italy between July and early October.
Starting next May, Jiang will launch his five-year worldwide
exhibition tour that is expected to kick off at Palermo Museum and
then move to Taormina Museum, both in Sicily, Italy, before going
on to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France, the Museo Diocesano in
Barcelona, Spain, and to many more art museums in Europe and North
America.
"It is my turn to divert the world's attention to the
ever-lasting grandeur and glory of the Forbidden City," said the
ambitious artist.
"With my paintings, I intend to make the world heritage better
understood and appreciated not only by Chinese today but also by
people from all over the world."
Early experiences
However, it has taken Jiang decades of hard work to capture
ancient Chinese royal court life by applying the Western fine art
techniques.
"Jiang's success is a rare example," Manfred Schoeni, owner of
Hong Kong-based Schoeni Gallery and a big fan of Jiang's oil works,
had once said. "It was only after unremitting efforts and countless
setbacks that he managed to step foot on the road to success."
In 1951, Jiang was born in a carpenter's family in Huoshan
Village, Jinxian County, in south China's Jiangxi
Province. He is the fourth child among eight siblings. When he
was three, his family moved to provincial capital Nanchang, where
Jiang developed a keen interest in art at an early age.
"My family members have never expected me to become an artist,"
recalled Jiang, who grew up in a family which had no ties
whatsoever with art, yet made a name for himself in painting while
still young.
Jiang received incomplete and basic training in art from his
neighbors and middle school teachers during the "cultural
revolution" (1966-76).
At 16, Jiang, a junior high dropout, was enlisted in the army
and spent four years in South China's Fujian Province before
working for a local motor manufacturing factory in Nanchang.
During that period, Jiang continued to learn about painting.
In 1974, he was enrolled in the Central Academy of Fine Arts
where he was exposed to different genres of both Chinese and
Western art. But Jiang's favorite was the art of oil painting.
In 1988, Jiang graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts
and started teaching there before he was transferred to the Central
Academy of Drama to be a professor, embarking on his road of
professional painting.
Obsession with imperial palace
The reason Jiang was preoccupied in creating works on the
Forbidden City might be attributed to the year 1974, when he came
to Beijing and saw with his own eyes the Forbidden City for the
first time in his life.
Once he stepped inside the Forbidden City, he was spellbound by
its magnificent view and couldn't help wondering what kind of
people once lived there.
This is the prime driving force that pushed him to study the
imperial culture and life, Jiang said.
"My love of the traditional culture naturally breeds an artistic
urge to pursue the oil painting art of the Forbidden City," Jiang
said. "The Forbidden City often haunts me in my dreams," Jiang
said.
"The Forbidden City is an epitome of brilliant Chinese
civilization. As a country with more than 2,000 years of feudal
history, the imperial culture spearheaded the development of the
Chinese civilization."
In 1405, Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital of
the feudal Chinese empire from East China's Nanjing to Beijing; two
years later, between 1407 and 1420, began the building of this
monumental palace that ended up becoming a small city, consisting
of 9,000-odd halls, and covering an area of at least 5 square
kilometers.
The complex, constructed and reconstructed by the feudal
dynasties only a few hundreds years ago, is a perfect embodiment of
millennia-old ancient Chinese civilization and Chinese culture,
Jiang said.
New approach to history
With Jiang's artistic strokes, he painted many court ladies in
the settings of the Forbidden City, from the empresses and
princesses to concubines and courtesans.
They are women of aristocracy and antiquity, with an elegance
that is slightly affected and almost alienating, and are also the
object of Jiang's admiration.
"These women I paint represent a kind of classical aesthetic.
There's nostalgia about them, one that is not instantly
overwhelming but that will come back and haunt you," Jiang said.
When 33 of his works on the Forbidden City were shown as a
Sino-Italian cultural exchange event in Rome months ago, Jiang was
highly praised by the local visitors and critics alike.
His style appears to have drawn fully from the artistic
tradition of the 17th Century Flemish Renaissance maestros such as
Jan van Eyck (1385-1441).
And he has portrayed "the spirit of imperial Chinese tradition,"
observed Italian art critic Roberto Del Signore, after viewing
Jiang's solo exhibition in Rome.
His works "can initially create, in the heart of the viewers, an
alienating effect linked to the attempt to define a language in
which the Eastern and Western cultures can merge harmoniously,"
Signore added.
Many Italians said that they know about the Forbidden City in
Beijing only through director Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 movie
The Last Emperor, which portrays the ill-fated monarch
Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi of a declining Qing Dynasty.
"The viewers asked me a lot of interesting questions, such as
who those people in my paintings are, whether they are my family
members, and whether some of these figures are still alive and can
be seen if they travel to see the Forbidden City in Beijing," Jiang
recalled with a smile.
"Most of my portrayed figures are fictional," Jiang
admitted.
He created these images and their settings based partly on
historical documents, old photos, and partly based on his
imagination and on-site observations of the royal palace.
Sometimes, Jiang even employs his family members and friends as
models for the figures in his paintings.
"This approach gives me much freedom in artistic creation. It
also allows me to realize my own aesthetic pursuit," he said. And
that may explain why some Chinese art critics have labeled Jiang's
works as "New Historical Paintings."
"The painter has never chosen historical events or figures in
the real sense as his topics, but Jiang did more than merely
'illustrating' history," commented Zhao Li, vice-dean of the Art
History Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts.
"Through the lofty spatial structures and exquisite details, as
well as painstaking portrayal of main figures, he created scenes of
'historical dramas' with the painter himself acting as the
director, producing tense situations and acute spiritual
confrontations," Zhao said.
In still more of Jiang's paintings, women, the central focus,
were rendered as confident, beautiful, kind and healthy, with all
qualities and features of modern Chinese ladies, a sharp contrast
to the classic insipidness of sickly and weak women often featured
in ancient Chinese literature, wrote Zhao in a catalogue of Jiang's
paintings.
"This unique treatment more clearly reflects Jiang's historical
view, as well as his definition of historical paintings: A painter
must not be bound by history when depicting history. The painter
must be able to stand aloof from historical situations so as to
observe and present eternal themes of humanity," concluded
Zhao.
Striving for perfection
For years, Jiang has painted similar scenes in different oil
works, as he is always trying to enhance their strength by
adjusting the compositions, adding some details, or applying some
new techniques to certain parts of the images.
To achieve desired effects, Jiang often takes a craftsman's
approach to his paintings.
"For instance, over a decade, I have painted several works of
similar themes, such as 'Palace Gate' and 'Son of Heaven.' But none
of them resembles each other. Because each time I did my job, I
would apply some new ideas and new techniques to it.
"The traditional Chinese painting aesthetics play a great role
in my own creations. And partly because of that, I believe no
Western oil painters can do the same as I have been doing in
depicting the Forbidden City," Jiang said.
"My painting is aimed at a 'finished' finish, near perfection.
It's deliberate and repeatedly worked on, rather than
improvised."
When asked about whether he will continue to dwell on the
subject matter of the Forbidden City for his future artistic
creations, Jiang said "Yes, of course," with great confidence.
"I do not remember how many times I have paid homage to the
Forbidden City over the years. But every time I go, the
centuries-old palace can always give me inspiration," he said.
(China Daily December 9, 2005)
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