**10,000 Fans Incentive Plan
Cao Jun, "Water and Sky Clear", 200cmx400cm
The introduction of Western realistic painting to improve Chinese painting was the most important proposition for the reform of Chinese painting in the 20th century. This proposition is obviously the logical starting point for the reform of Chinese painting by suspending Western painting outside Chinese painting, and using reproduction of realism as the opposite concept of ink and wash freehand. Between the "Chinese" and "Western" in painting, "freehand" and "realism" have always been distinguished as the type concepts of different artistic expressions of heterogeneous cultures, so as to identify the subjectivity of Chinese painting and the objectivity of Western painting, and regard artistic creation and expression methods as two extreme art forms. However, if you change the cultural field, the concept of art will also change. With the widespread phenomenon of Chinese painters in Europe and the United States since the first decade of the 20th century, it is an indisputable fact that the suspension of Western painting that they feel has gradually weakened or even disappeared, and the acceptance of reproduction of realism has become a kind of "here and now" in their daily life, and the original freehand of Chinese painting has become another kind of intimate suspension.
Cao Jun, Harbor, 207cmx90cm
Cao Jun, "Dancing with Drums and Wings", 108cmx78cm
Cao Jun's artistic image in the American cultural circle is obviously not simply a Chinese color and ink painter. In the American cultural circle, immigrant cultures with different national and ethnic backgrounds together constitute a diverse and rich American cultural ecology, where cultural roots are diluted, while the originality and freshness of art are sought after and highlighted. The reason for the popularity of Cao Jun's "Cosmic Series" is not simply the medium transformation of Chinese ink splashes, but the fact that these splashes of color have the characteristics of a variant of American Abstract Expressionism, but this abstract expression has never departed from the shadow of the cosmic spirit of Chinese landscape painting. These splashes of green and green, which seem to have some characteristics of the parent body of Chinese landscape painting, are closer to the mystery that people feel when observing celestial bodies through astronomical telescopes than pure abstract expressionism. This impulse of color conveyed by the sense of the desolation of the universe also profoundly reveals the phenomenological proposition of the universe's "here and now" contained in the subconscious of those pigments colliding. These works are colorful, and the contrasting primary colors continue to flow, wander and melt amorphously on the canvas, as if revealing the process of the universe. An invisible "dark matter" is driving the cosmic phenomenon of convergence and **, and what color represents is the mysterious competition between "being" and "nothing" in the universe. Obviously, the "appearance" conveyed by the picture is not a physical object, which also highlights the intuition that can reach the essence of things in oriental culture, which is not objectively analyzed and empirically verified.
Cao Jun, "The Ring of the Sea and the Sky", 78cmx108cm
Cao Jun, Harmony, 90cmx138cm
The significance of phenomenology lies in the reconstruction of the subjective and objective separation relationship in traditional Western philosophy, and the spiritual implication in perceptual phenomena is also closer to the philosophical proposition of the unity of subject and object in the East. Phenomena are no longer regarded as an objective existence that is detached from human subjectivity, but phenomena are essences, and phenomena contain the reality of human intuition. Cao Jun's oil paintings "Universe Series" express the phenomenological expression of people's "here-and-now" feelings, which convey a non-visual mystical consciousness through the visual tension of color squeezing and conflicting, and after impacting the human retina. For the audience of the American elite, this is exactly what they appreciate as philosophical contemporary art.
Cao Jun, Golden River, 144cmx312cm
Cao Jun, "Pure Land", 45cmx68cm
In the author's opinion, Cao Jun's recognition in the American cultural circle also comes from the visual response of his work to phenomenology, which embodies modern philosophical concepts. In his "New Song Series", what people appreciate is not simply the reproduction of the so-called "Song-style realism", nor the so-called "Chinese painting and Western paintings", but a kind of philosophical meaning that constantly diffuses in the works. "My Heart is Bright" cuts into the scene of flowing springs and clear pools with a low-pitched gaze, which is similar to Ma Yuan's "Plum Stone Creek" in terms of writing scenes, but compared with the two works, it is not difficult to find that Cao Jun's work is a modern visual feature of mechanical lens framing, while Ma Yuan is an image space; Modern people are familiar with Cao Jun's pictorial experience, which is undoubtedly one of the characteristics of the reproducibility of his paintings in the West. However, the reproducibility of this work is not the reproduction of oil painting, and the wonder of the medium of ink is that it does not reduce the expression of its sense of realm due to the use of perspective space. The paintings are painted in ink, as if there is nothing in them; The light cast on the rocks of the stream is not warm, and the light dawn and pale green are unified in the pale ink. This method of having a sense of light but weakening the light and shadow shows the power of Chinese painting to the greatest extent. The "light" of "The Light of My Heart" is not an objective scene of the twilight covering the stream, but the projection of the "light" of my heart on the object, so that the remote stream and pool also have a bright dawn. This realistic landscape painting exudes the Zen of Chinese landscape painting.
Cao Jun, April Day in the World, 78cmx108cm
Cao Jun, Thinking Out of the Universe, 108cmx78cm
Similar to "My Heart is Bright", "The Four Directions Are Together in the Water Sky", "In the River Continent", "The Weather of the Rivers and Mountains", "The Heart is Charming" and "Autumn Water" are all the same. These paintings highlight the low-sight, semi-overlooking focus, especially the subtle depictions of the stones flowing down the transparent water at the junction of water and rocks on the river beach, and the slopes and weeds on the river bank. The painter does not form a composition of the picture through the river bank, but strives to make things subtle, and uses vivid and vivid "here-and-now" grass and stone to change the transcendent concept of traditional landscape painting. It is an indisputable fact that he achieves the concreteness of the depiction of objects with a certain kind of realism, but the strange thing is that these figurative depictions of his have never hindered the transcendence of the objects in the picture, so as to complete the capture of the "here" from the phenomenon to the spirit. These paintings are difficult to classify as traditional landscape paintings, because the painter does not use brush and ink as symbols; But it is not the same as Western painting landscapes, because it seems to be realistic but it is virtual, and it is a kind of virtual and quiet place. This may be the wonder of Cao Jun's paintings, he does not paint subtlely, but uses the depth of the object with his heart, and injects the spiritual "I am" into the intuitive capture of the object. In terms of brushwork, he does not copy the traditional method, but integrates "writing" into the depiction of objects. Its work is prudent, and there must be spontaneous actions; And the unbridled pen must also be responded with prudence. He tries his best to suppress the heaviness of the ink throughout his work, which not only blurs the seemingly real objects, but also infuses distant thoughts into those unfathomable shallownesses.
Cao Jun, "Heavenly Purple Realm", 108cmx78cm
Cao Jun, "My Heart is Bright", 100cmx200cm
These images are either entirely dominated by streams or dwelling on lone birds; Some are near and far from the real, and some are the same as the near real and far from the virtual. On the banks of the streams, there are trees and weeds, but they are full of life, and the presence or absence of waterfowl is not a sign of life. The reason for this is that the painter ignites nature through the brushstrokes of life, just as God's finger touches the soil and gives Adam and Eve holy life. Cao Jun also has works called the "Landscape Series", and the difference between these paintings and the "New Song Series" is that they embody more of the artistic characteristics of traditional Chinese landscape painting, and the picture does not come from a specific perspective of landscape reproduction, but a symbolic combination of landscape ideas. This is a kind of non-representational landscape painting, or in other words, the image of the landscape does not come from the spatio-temporal logic of natural vision, but comes from the needs of picture composition and embodies the artist's subjective imagination of the ideological landscape. For example, "Heaven and Earth Righteousness" forms a complete painting through the combination of three screens that are not in the same time and space, and even each screen is ideologically constructed with near, medium and distant brushstrokes, mountains and stones. This kind of ideological landscape symbol is not based on reality, but reflects the flickering nature of the idea and the sense of non-logical leapfrogging, such as "If there is heaven", "April day on earth", "The soul of the sea and sky" and "Solemn Realm", etc., all create a realm of fantasy, remoteness and mystery. In particular, the connection between the delicate rocks and the traditional brush and ink more profoundly reveals the transparency, elegance and quietness of the traditional literati brush and ink in the present.
Cao Jun, Morning of Hope, 210cmx300cm
Cao Jun, "Solemn Realm", 78cmx108cm
In essence, Chinese landscape painting is the objectification of conscious experience on natural objects, rather than the objective world representation of visual senses. Therefore, landscape painting is not an imitation of the objective world, but a proof of the conscious experience of the "here" of the mind. Cao Jun's empirical and scientific rational thinking is better than local landscape painters in capturing the essential characteristics of Chinese culture, which is exactly the artistic path he has opened up over the years by exploring the gap between Eastern and Western cultures. His work "My Heart is Bright" may also contain another kind of subjective consciousness that transcends East and West, which allows people to connect Wang Yangming's "bright mind" psychology with European and American phenomenological theories, and "here" is the philosophical meaning of the conscious experience he seeks between Eastern and Western art.
Cao Jun, "Witness", 115cmx290cm
Cao Jun, Heaven and Earth, 108cmx78cm
Cao Jun
He currently lives in New York, where he serves as the Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Nassau County Museum of Art in New York and the President of the New York Society of Chinese Painting. He has won the gold medal of the Louvre International Art Salon in Paris, and the title of outstanding artist in New York and Los Angeles. His works participated in the 13th National Art Exhibition and the Art Exhibition in Beijing. He has held more than ten solo exhibitions at the National Art Museum of China and the College Art Museum in Boston. His representative works were included in the compilation of "Rong Bao Zhai Painting".