Along with many other modern Chinese artists who were influenced by the May 4th Youth Movement [the Chinese student-led nationalist movement ignited by demonstrations in 1919 in Beijing], Li Keran [1907-1989] played an important role in pioneering new approaches to traditional Chinese painting in the 20th century. A great modern master of landscape painting, Li devoted his life to the learning and practice of the art, and he developed a unique style of his own highly appreciated in Chinese art circles. Although he was in failing health in his 80th year, Li Keran was still energetic about his career and his art.
"Everyone has to face the death, it?s not that terrible. But my concern is that I still have many things to do. Once I have done what I want to do, then I will face death with no regrets at all."
The overwhelming task Li Keran set for himself in the two years before he died in 1989 was to address what he saw as the comparatively low regard for traditional Chinese painting not only abroad, but also at home. It made him very sad, he said, that some Chinese people so seriously underestimated their own arts.
"They don?t have basic confidence," he said.
Li Keran himself had no such doubts, asserting that the art form itself would never pass away and pointing to such prime expressions of artistic richness and creativity in traditional Chinese painting as the Dunhuang frescos, the scroll painting entitled, "The Festival of Pure Brightness on the River," and others. The high artistic level featured in such traditional Chinese paintings was amazing even to many western avant-garde artists, Li Keran said. He noted that landscape painting by the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) already had reached a very high level and that the beauty of expression and depth of meaning unique to traditional Chinese painting enables it to holds its own in even the most brilliant realms of world art.
"The strength of Chinese painting does not lie in its use of color, rather in its use of pen and ink to produce an unique beauty that cannot be compared to any other painting style. The kind of charm the Chinese painting expresses is vivid and poetic, containing all kinds of philosophical meaning within it," Li Keran said. He saw as part of that charm a deep association with the development of human civilization that assures that traditional Chinese paintings as an art form will never come to an end.
Li Keran argued that the works of the great ancient Chinese painters such as Fan Kuan, Xing Hao, Guo Xi, Li Tang, Bada Shanren, Shi Tao, Gong Xian and Shi Xi are of equal merit to those of the great western painters, and he deplored that works by these Chinese artists did not command the same market price as those by western artists such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet or Matisse.
That the price of traditional Chinese paintings is always much lower than the value they truly bear can be attributed in part to China?s attaching little importance to publicizing its own arts, Li Keran said.
"So naturally westerners would know little about our arts," he added.
Li Keran blamed a number of economic, social and historical reasons for the lack of proper esteem for traditional Chinese painting. Emphasizing that the state of a nation?s economics and politics also has an impact on it arts, he said that if a nation is poor or fragile, its national arts will not be highly respected by others. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty [early 20th century], Li Keran said that the arts suffered when serious government corruption and state decay caused the country to lack confidence politically and economically. The arts fell into a mire of conservatism, pessimism ? devoid of life and without creative imagination or aesthetic feeling. Such failure in the arts during that period continued to have a negative affect on traditional Chinese painting.
Commodity economy also plays a part, Li Keran said. The huge prices that certain works of art demand enticed many painters to focus on producing commercial works of no artistic value, turning away from working to improve the quality of art itself to instead cater to the tastes of consumers.
If traditional Chinese painting is to achieve the respect it deserves, Li Keran said Chinese painters must not cater to the interests of others, and especially they should not to be influenced by any western masterpieces. Rather Chinese artists should nurture national confidence and improve the quality of their own art in every aspect. He emphasized that this can not be the work of one person or several person?s but rather a commitment by all sincere artists.
"If our Chinese artists pay little attention to the spirit of nationalism and to the national characteristics, we can expect that even Chinese will disregard our own arts, let alone others. Of course, we need to learn the strong points of other art forms, but it doesn?t mean that we should underestimate our own arts," Li Keran said.
Li Keran observed that only those who have moral integrity, ambition, and only those who are willing to work hard with persistence can achieve the goals that he had in mind. At the same time, he expressed deep concern that many Chinese artists seemed to lack a sense of responsibility necessary to broaden either national feeling or the national arts.
Though beset by illness and other sufferings, Li Keran pursued his art in his later years, making down-to-earth efforts to live up to his expressed views about what it meant to be a righteous person as well as one devoted to Chinese painting. He left the impression of a man of integrity and unquestionable uprightness, persevering in his strong love of the arts.
Li Keran?s deep understanding of art and aesthetics are worth careful study, especially in regard to the national feeling that runs as a thread throughout a lifetime of devotion to Chinese arts. Though many artists have expressed their respect for the country?s artistic heritage by incorporating the national characteristics, national tastes and national spirit into their art works, no one approached Li Keran in his persistent application of his beliefs in his art practice throughout his whole life. His legacy to us in work and thought should help inspire us to develop our own arts in a way that will both contribute to society and give the world a better appreciation of Chinese traditional painting.
(光明日报 [Guangming Daily], November 15, 2001, an excerpt from Critical Analysis of Contemporary Artists and Painters by Mei Mosheng, published in 1999 by Beijing Library Press; translated for china.org.cn by Feng Shu)
