Extract from: Beyond the Stage of Time, Volume I Realised Realms. The Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat

42 43 exactly what I mean by the importance of context, whether we’re talking about matu- rity in art or anything else. I have a lot more to say about all this in my next book. G I look forward to it! Meanwhile, let me play devil’s advocate for a bit here, then. You say that Chinese art has been more mature than Western art for a very long time, yet it’s clear that many Chinese artists and scholars were very attracted to the ideas of the western revolution. It seems that this idea of maturity is not necessarily shared in China itself! M Well, that’s an interesting point. You have to view this against the background of the political upheaval in China over the last century or so. A ft er the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911 , the country was in turmoil for four decades. Th e leaders of the new Republic squabbled amongst themselves, formed their own armies and controlled areas of China as warlords. One of them, Yuan Shikai ( 1859 – 1916 ) even amassed su ffi - cient power to set himself up as the fi rst emperor of a new dynasty, an e ff ort foiled by his death only a few months later, so clearly not blessed by the all-important Mandate of Heaven. During the late Qing and into the Republic period, the overwhelming might of the West started to really make itself felt in China. Th at led to various reform movements, one of which had a major impact on the tradition of Chinese art. Many leading twentieth-century teachers at art academies were Chinese artists trained in or impressed by western art to some extent. One could hardly teach at a Chinese acade- my without a beret and a bow tie in these years. As reformers looked to the West for political direction and technological inspiration, artists saw the revolution happening in the West and took it to be the most globally advanced art—thus also misunder- standing its role. So they adopted western teaching methods, and many of them took up oil paint- ing too. Even those still favouring traditional materials and methods felt a need to ‘modernise’ their own tradition of art. Had they fully recognised the nature of the revolution that produced this exciting art, and realised that their own tradition had gone through a similar shi ft to ‘modernity’ centuries earlier, they might have realised that all China needed was a broadening of the perceptual and expressive horizons o ff ered by rapidly expanding globalisation, and a fresh wave of creativity revitalising the mainstream tradition. But what many of them attempted instead was to replace that tradition with ideas based on western modernism—down which path inevitable confusion awaited. Still, that was a relatively minor hiccup. Many Chinese artists continued within their tradition and kept it decidedly alive and fl ourishing. But what really changed things was communism. Mao took a millennially mature and emancipated tradition of art, with in fi nitely broad horizons of perception and expression re fi ned over centu- ries, and tried to stu ff it uncomfortably beneath a political ideology. Art, he declared, must fi rst and foremost serve the revolution. So, under Mao the equivalent of the millennia-long western servitude to reli- gion was introduced as servitude to political expediency. One might as well have tried to pour the waters of Lake Tai into a pint pot, but the attempt was made and it lasted thirty years, from the mid-century to around 1980 . We’re all familiar with the resulting political propaganda as subject matter—smiling peasants enjoying life in communes and serving the revolution, sometimes heroically. Just as in the West, this kind of authoritarianism failed to quash the creativity of the artists, even if it constrained it. Much of the art of that period is very powerful and moving. Victor Lo of the M. K. Lau Collection recently exhibited an extraordi- nary group of these works, demonstrating the ongoing strength of Chinese tradition under enormous political constraint. During the Cultural Revolution of the decade from 1966 to 1976 , these constraints on artists became far more serious and o ft en life- threatening. Great artists were treated very badly if they were considered tradition- alists, or aspired to elite literatus status. Some died; others were beaten and made to live in dreadful conditions for such perceived crimes as painting with too much black ink, for instance, interpreted as clinging to the past and its elitist ideals. Many were sent to communes in the countryside to work alongside peasants, a ‘re-education’ process that o ft en lasted many years. Deng Xiaoping ( 1904 – 1997 ) put an end to the worst of the repressions of the Cul- tural Revolution. He allowed that certain aspects of capitalism could serve the com- munist cause rather than hinder it, and li ft ed many of the restrictions on artists— giving them not only much greater freedom, but much greater access to the phenom- ena occurring elsewhere in the world. So this is where we come back to your point. By this time, not only had the West settled into a period of major confusion for artists and audience alike because of the misunderstanding of ‘modernism’, but a great many Chinese artists and teachers now believed in the supremacy of western art too. Th ey quickly identi fi ed with the idea of a modern western revolution, thanks to their own very recent political upheavals. State control of artistic content remained widespread, but there was suddenly a great deal more freedom of means of expression. Th at and the suddenly greater access to the global art community encouraged many Chinese artists to seek their own mod- ernising revolution in the arts, in an attempt to match that of the West. Th e result of all this was a large group of artists adopting western materials, tech- niques and teaching methods that had been all but abandoned in western art colleges during the twentieth century. Th ey produced vast numbers of paintings and other works, many of them of the highest quality and with great depth and integrity. Many others were predominantly commercial, opportunistic and banal, of course. But it was a notable body of work. Whether or not it was Chinese is another matter. G Th at’s an excellent question in its own right. Against this complex background, what is ‘Chineseness’? Is there some inherent property of Chinese art that is depend- ent on ethnicity? And related to that, do you regard yourself as a Chinese artist? M It is a good question, and one that has been much on my mind. I was recently told by one leading auction house that they couldn’t include any of my paintings in their Contemporary Chinese Ink auctions because I wasn’t Chinese! I didn’t fi nd this rather blatant racism o ff ensive, as clearly no malice was intended. But I’ve written an article outlining my position on this which I’ve sent to the head of the department in question, to which I still have not received a reply.