II.Lacquer paintings on shelf（Lacquer language / Context language）

Lacquer painting is a form of lacquer art on shelf.As a form on shelf,Chinese oil painting is a kind of painting which follows the value standard of many western schools,and it is the first to put forward nationalization of oil painting and search for its own value.Imagery oil painting and enjoyable oil painting are results of the above efforts.Should lacquer painting be nationalized? Or,conversely,has lacquer painting been westernized? At least,lacquer painting has been westernized in terms of visual habit.Modern lacquer painting is named with the symbol of western language context.Lacquer painting is the ancient language of Chinese vision,which is evolved from the lacquer-painted decoration of ancient lacquer wares and becomes an important carrier of juvenile period of Chinese painting.From Warring States Period to Ming and Qing Dynasties and the period of republic of China,the cultural context of lacquer painting had never been interrupted.However,due to our lack of organization and studies on the lacquer painting,we cut off the history of China's art of statue,which is shaped after thousands of years,with the influence of accepting Japanese and European fine art education for nearly one hundred years.People always hope that history can be written from themselves,so they accept the lacquer painting in the western language context and define it as modern lacquer painting.However,we pay more attention to what changes and creations have taken place to the language of China's lacquer painting under the influence of thoughts agitation for a century.We do not refuse the enlightenment of western paintings to the oriental ones for one hundred years,but we are more concerned about the extension and growth of Chinese cultural context in lacquer painting.

Looking back at the end of 20th century,under the influence of 85'Artistic New Trend,traditional Chinese painting,oil painting,print and sculpture drew on the artistic forms of Western Modernism in recent 100 years with great eagerness: walking out of the besieged city of all factors of traditional painting forms and walking towards single factor of experiment deconstruction.By this time,lacquer painting was marching into the besieged city of traditional painting forms and trying to obtain the ability of all factors painting and the status of painting species.“Besieged City Circumstance” formed by historical stage of the development of painting species unavoidably led to an uneven development trend: on the one hand,a young discipline has various probabilities; on the other hand,lacquer painting is the oldest medium and the youngest discipline.As a marginal form of contemporary art,lacquer paintings on shelf may also become the Chinese style which is different from cosmopolitanism: at this critical history junction,the Mesozoic of Chinese lacquer circles almost devoted their most active creative power to lacquer paintings on shelf and experienced and gathered many academic focuses of contemporary art.

When the systemic inheritance of Chinese lacquer art and the construction of modernism discipline haven't been put on the agenda,post-modern critics and artists came to deconstruction one after another and sought for the contemporary form of lacquer art …desynchrony of development stage within and outside the lacquer art circles,loss of inheritance,accumulation of topics and particularity of culture make the lacquer art circles incurred far more complicated distinction of material,argument of form,worry of discipline and reflection of significance compared with other traditional mediums.

The modernity process of traditional medium is a process that is continuously blending with,differentiating and analyzing,sorting out and constructing various trends of thought.Lacquer Language came into being when lacquer art converted technology language into painting language at the end of 20th century.Decorative and all factors are the first two directions carried out by the lacquer art circles at the end of 20th century.Decorative not necessarily moves towards aestheticism and all factor also not necessarily stops at realism.

Schema language,material language,writing,imagination,shifting images and concept expression became new dimensions of lacquer language.As shelf forms,these dimensions gradually reached outstanding height through author's participation in,competition with and elimination of other mediums.In this sense,the dimension of lacquer art may not be too “new”.Only the irreplaceable lacquer language can maintain its unique expressing way and cultural ethos in the shelf form and be able to become a new shelf dimension with thousands of years of mother tongue accumulation.Therefore,the irreplaceability of lacquer language becomes an important sign of the modernity of lacquer language form.

Looking over relevant comments of lacquer painting activities in the latter half of 20th century,it obtained argument by ways of painting for the most part.The so-called painting recognition has two scheme sources: first is to learn from the practice and reaction in the lacquer painting through the scheme of various schools of western art history; second is to apply Chinese traditional scheme to the lacquer painting to inherit and develop.Such creation and discourse that wander between eastern and western schemes almost run through the entire lacquer painting exploration.Shen Fuwen,pioneer of Chinese lacquer painting in the first half of 20th century,sometimes pursued three-dimensional effect of lifelike goldfish and sometimes looked back to national culture,which enables the lacquer painting to encounter Dunhuang frescoes.Unintentionally,he opened the modernity of Chinese-Western lacquer painting blending.The practice of this lacquer painting by this forerunner in his early years seems to imply the historical fatalism that the future lacquer painting activities are difficult to get rid of the clash of oriental and occidental cultures.

After the awakening of individuals,or after artistic freedom,the biggest confusion of modernity is the entanglement which is difficult to choose because of information surplus.In the art forest where the cosmopolitanism strives against orientalism and various schools compete with each other,the representation of modernity is westernization of education of non-western countries.Looked to the West for inspiration,realism and modernism have become the principal axis of shelf education at colleges.Hence,when lacquer painting is introduced into colleges,it is painted realistically and decorated,and then is deconstructed.When realistic painting is becoming gaudy,pope and cynic,or gradually towards decomposition,performance and abstract,will its form and color reach the other side of idea? Modernism is an important way of language training.When painting and modernism are over interpreted,will the ancient lacquer painting occupy a tiny space in the western value system? It is unpredictable.

The selection of lacquer painting in this biennale is carried out under such grand and complicated cultural situation.

Emphasis on the inheritance and development of cultural context of China's lacquer painting can reflect the theme of this exhibition which is to establish terminology bank and value chain of Chinese lacquer art.From Shen Fuwen who was born in 1906 to those new artists who were born in 1980s,this exhibition selected 33 representative lacquer painters to show persistent lacquer painters of different language directions at various stages for nearly a century.

As mentioned earlier,the style of Shen Fuwen is between ethnic style and realism.The earliest two language pursuit of China's modern lacquer painting are fully reflected in the painting of Wang Heju and Qiao Shiguang who were born in 1930s and that of Zhan Shu'an and Chen Lide who were born in 1940s.Wang Heju absorbs inspiration from rock paintings,paper cutting and patterns of ancient paintings,and Qiao Shiguang inherits the decoration style of the beauty of Chinese craft which makes lacquer painting present same style with Chinese quintessence in terms of materials,techniques and patterns.Zhan Shu'an and Chen Lide let the oriental lacquer-painted decoration with a history for thousands of years encounter western shadow technique of centurial history,which realizes subtle painting expressed with three dimensions.

The lacquer texture integrated with Modernism by Li Xiqi is the extension of modernism of Chinese ink painting and printmaking to lacquer. The writing and constituent elements introduced to the lacquer painting undoubtedly give impetus to the process of modernization of lacquer painting scheme. However, if we ignore the significance and contribution of other writers in the lacquer painting for this reason, it is the confusion and misunderstanding of meta language and object language of Chinese lacquer painting.

Carnap is the first to put forward the language stratification theory,he thinks: “There are two involved languages: one is the language we are studying,we call it object language; and the other is the language we are using for discussing the form of object language,we call it form language（namely metal language）.”The metal language of vision is the metal theory for critics to conclude and explain the object language.It is also the methodology applied for the creation of object language by artists consciously or unconsciously,and it is an advanced form of logic.

Writing,material language and public image language…those resources can be applied for creation of vision in certain forms and rules by any person,which can be regarded as available metal language of vision for everyone.Such problem does not exist that if anyone uses those resources,other people will not have the right to use them.Writing is a normal application in many kinds of paintings,so writing of lacquer expands infinite space after Li Xiqi.The writing he has borrowed is the metal language of vision that has accumulated over thousands of years in China,but what he wants to express only belongs to his object language.

The order to apply metal language does not represent the level of work achievement and value,and the practice of others presents their unique cultural background and comprehensive qualities.There is an old saying goes: “Even drinking the same water from the same river,the spring and autumn are still different in the eyes of different people.”

Compared with other mass art media material,the research and application of writing of lacquer metal language is just a beginning.The writing is an important direction to develop the metal language of lacquer painting,and has deep relationship with China's cultural context of line shaping.A peak of Chinese line art is in Han Dynasty where the tall,dense,smooth and slender lines are used to draw and write in the decoration of lacquer wares.The fight between sticky elasticity of lacquer and gravity of earth provides infinite possibilities for the writing of lacquer on the practice of object language.

Similar to the problem of writing,public images or same themes have become a controversial topic.In fact,as a creation motif of object language,Huian women,created from Wu Chuan,Chen Jinhua and Tang Zhiyi to Zheng Yuntao and Zhou Jian,all reflect skill height,popular patterns and aesthetic tastes of their own age.The awareness of occupying ranks in the field of language possibilities is performance of decline in creativity.Lacquer painting is a form that has not been fully developed,and each creator can only carry out limited study work in the direction towards his advantages for a lifetime.The possibilities of language of vision are infinite,and the mystery of metal language and object language can never be completely touched by individuals.

Most artists who take traditional medium as creation object have much ado about these three key words: material,skill and pattern in all their lives,and believe they can create unique pattern if they grasp the material language and modeling skills.Many stylized works are the fruits of great effect.

It is noticeable that lacquer painters who stick to Chinese cultural context of lacquer painting,starting from three key words of modernism——material,technique and pattern,pay more attention to think about any concept that can activate their artistic thoughts,such as defamiliarization,deconstruction,reorganization,suspension,blocking,ambiguity,parody,irony,etc.They continuously observe those artistic methods and languages in the application of lacquer painting,and the lacquer painting on shelf which is full of oriental flavor and wisdom should have a broader prospect.