Li Jin - Simple Pleasures

Li Jin, Simple Pleasures at the Ashmolean, Oxford.

Li Jin, a prominent ink artist active from the 1980s, is best known for his playful and witty depictions of the sensory pleasure of the ordinaries, in contrast to the ideal and elegant life presented in traditional Chinese literati painting. The time he spent in Tibet after graduating from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts has left a lasting mark in his art, relaying the artist's contemplation of the pleasures and desires in life in relation to its impermanence.

Man and Dog, 1992, (ink and colour on paper)

This painting was made in Tibet. Li Jin's sojourn in Tibet profoundly impacted his art, transforming both his pictorial vocabulary and his ideas about self-existence and the material world, which have continued to inform his works.

Picture of a Beauty, 2001, (ink and colour on paper)

This looks like a traditional Chinese painting of a gentlewoman, consisting of an inscription and seals. Even the red lines and circles marking the inscription and the title resemble the traditional annotations used in Chinese classics. However, the inscription compares the figure's face with a flower in the rain and her waist with a willow in the wind.  This is an expression of sexuality and seduction, an element that Li Jin and his fellow 'New Literati' artists do not shy away from in their paintings.

Painting the Flower from its Reflection, 2002, (ink and colour on paper)

The most established imagery of geese in Chinese culture is associated with the calligraphy master Wang Xizhi (303-361), whose wrist movements were said to have been inspired by the graceful goose neck. However, a delicate female body in water is depicted here instead of a literati figure that represents Wang, dissolving a traditional literati imagery closely associated with geese.

Man Swimming in Lily Pond, 2021, (ink and colour on paper)

Water is an important element in Li Jin's works. He once claimed to have 'a special sensitivity towards wetness and moisture'.  Here the water is murky and overwhelming, only gradually becoming clearer towards the lilies, seemingly echoing the pure and noble quality of the flower in Buddhism and Chinese literature.

Nude Figure Diving, 2001, (ink and colour on paper)

Bath, 2001, (ink and colour on paper)

Instead of the western style bathtub as in this painting, what appears more often in Li Jin's works is the Chinese wooden bath barrel placed in a lush garden scene. For many in China, bathing and splashing in the courtyard in the summer is probably one of their fondest childhood memories.

Relieving his Bowels, 2001, (ink and colour on paper)

Sweet, 2001, (ink and colour on paper)

Mundane activities, such as bathing, eating or sleeping, are not typical subjects in Chinese ink painting but a signature theme of Li Jin, who renders the under-appreciated pleasures in these activities in life in an extraordinary way. Both the title and the warm tones here evoke the cosiness of being lost in a dream world, leaving one to wonder what the open book is about.

Beauties, 2002, (ink and colour on paper)

Both men and women in Li Jin's paintings are imperfect. Men are usually pot-bellied, and women come in all shapes and sizes. Their expressions do not clearly display any stereotypical masculinity or femiminity either and there is a characteristic absence of theatrical stances. Whether nude or clothes they often look as if they are solitary and no one is looking at them, or they simply do not care.

Monk (from the back), 2001, (ink and colour on paper)

Despite the inscription 'Enjoying the changing colours of the autumn mountains', there are no mountains at all in this painting, and the depicted figure is only showing his back. However, through the pose of the figure, whose hands clasp behind him, the artist has expressed an open and  calm attitude towards the passage of time implied in the inscription.

Figures Against a Background of Buddhist Text, 2000, (ink and colour on paper)

In stark contrast to the secular man (probably the artist himself) and man in the painting, the inscription that fills up the space is taken from Buddhist scriptures, a common element in Li Jin's work. The lasting concern for and interest in Buddhist throught in his works demonstrates the significant impact of his sojourns in Tibet in his art, while alighing with his chosen approach and subjects, which emphasise the significance of 'being present' even in the most 'insignificant' day practices.

Figures and cat, 1995, (ink and colour on paper)

 

Fang Lijun, Portrait of Li Jin, 1963, (ink on paper)

Fang Lijun - Portraits and Porcelain

Fang Lijun - Portraits and Porcelain at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

This exhibition highlights works by Fang Lijun created over the last five years. Most are ink portrait drawings and porcelain pieces, the media of Lijun's early artistic training. Yet for some thirty years he enjoyed international fame for his bold colourful oil paintings and woodblock prints in a movement that art critics termed 'Cynical Realism' and he was the leading artist of 1990s China.

The motif that runs through all his work, from student sketches to complex, delicate porcelains, is that of the human head. While Fang's bald, expressionless faces in the 1990s symbolised the universal ennui of a politically controlled society, his recent works are personal portraits of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances from throughout his life. In porcelain he challenges not the society around him but rather the precariousness of the material itself.

Paintings and woodcut:

Two Figures, (series 1, no. 5), 1991, (oil on canvas)

These figures are uncharacteristically expressive among Fang Lijun's paintings of this period, when most of his works depicted faces with exaggerated smiles or deadpan looks that emphasised disengagement rather than communication. Nonetheless, both figures here have questioning expressions. Lijun has painted this in oils, though the colours and tonal range rige it an appearance similar to ink and wash, or pencil.

Swimmer, 1998, (woodcut print on paper)    (apologies for the reflections on the head)

A lone swimmer is a subject Lijun chose frequently throughout the 1990s, and one of his best-known works of the period shows a single figure standing in an intensely blue pool. Many of his swimmers, inclucing the work shown here, appear to be self-portraits. Lijun suffered a fear of water as a child, only learning to swim after he had moved to Beijing as a student. 

Untitled, 1998, (oil on canvas)

From the mid-1990s for around a decade, Lijun's depictions of people became more colourful, with subjects that often turned towards nature rather than away from society. The combination here of a head, baby-like figures and small flowers, all in strong colours, is typical of this period.

Mr Li, 1998, (oil on canvas)

This painting is after an image or occasion from some years prior to its production. It depicts the art critic Li Xianting, a longtime friend of Fang Lijun who gave the name 'Cynical Realism' to the rebellious art movement of the 1990s in which Lijun became the leading figure. The painting stands apart from many of his depictions of swimmers in its use of monochrome oils, and the vivid actions of both the swimmer and the water.

Heads, 2016, (oil on canvas)

This image of multiple heads, shaven and viewed from the back, brings together elements common to much of Lihum's work from the 1990s onwards. The strong colours and golden look suggest some of the optimism of other works he produced during the late 1990s that included figures and flowers against strongly coloured skies, or the gold and orange swimmer paintings of the same period.

Porcelain:

Lijum's first artistic training was in ceramics. He went on to specialise in printmaking alongside painting and drawing, and has recently returned to making ceramics.

Porcelain, 2023

Lijun is interested in exploring the limits of the porcelain, and in this work he has created an exceptionally thin, delicate piece constructed around a matrix that burnt away in the kiln. 

In the centre is embedded a modelled head, the subject that has featured in his works on paper throughout his life.

Porcelain, 2023

This structure is the result of several thousand experiments in small pieces, shown below.  Part of its stability relative to other works comes from the use of a slightly thicker porcelain layer. The head embedded in the centre continues the use of the image that runs through his work from the 1980s onwards.

Porcelain is fragile, and Lijun is interested in discovering how thinly it can be made. He is interested in the fact that although succerssful production depends on the preparation of materials and control of the kiln, it is also the case that, in his own words, 'the final outcome depends on the interactive relationship between clay, glaze, water, temperature, weight and air'. It is this unpredictability that he uses as a creative starting point, testing the properties of the material in different constructions and various conditions.

The objects displayed here were all produced to test materials and techniques for making viable sculptural pieces. The materials include wire and paper, both of which were used for constructing an internal matrix to support the porcelain.

This piece shows the risks of pieces slumping in the kiln that frequently affects even much sturdier, commercial porcelains.

Portrait Drawings, 2018-2023, (ink and colour on paper):

The subjects of these drawings are all people the artist knows. 

 

Art in China

Art in China, 1949-1999, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Chairman Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and until his death in 1976, art was subject to strict political controls. Oil painting replaced the centuries-old tradition of ink landscape painting, and the Socialist Realist style adopted from the Soviet Union remained influential until the late 1970s. Pictorial woodblock printing developed from a folk craft to an increasingly creative medium used for both propaganda purposes and more subtle landscapes.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) political images and messages were also produced in the historic media of woven or embroidered silks and papercuts. From 1978, the Reform Era ushered in new possibilities as China re-engaged with the world, and artists encountered ideas and cultural practices from elsewhere. Brush and ink however, had never ceased to be used, and the scrolls and albums in this exhibition include works by some of modern China's most distinguished painters.

Zeng Shanqing, Black Horse, Yellow Horse, around 1990 (ink and colour on paper)

Xu Bing, Lost Letters, 1997, (relief print, printed with oil-based ink)

Bing's work often questions the idea of communiating meaning through language. Lost Letters reflects his interest in the marks and traces of the past, relating not only to historical memory but also to his own personal memories and experiences.

Song Yuanwen, The Sleepless Land, 1979, (woodcut, printed on paper with oil-based ink)

Yuanmen taught at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and was also at one time Chairman of the Chinese Printmakers' Association. His social role and academic position represent an official stand and have influenced the direction of modern Chinese printmaking. His woodcuts are predominantly monochrome, poetical depictions of the vast northern land.

Wang Qi, Spring Outing, 1979 (woodcut, printed on paper with oil-based ink)

Qi is one of the first generation of modern Chinese printmakers. After the Cultural Revolution, artists regained the freedom to depict daily scenes without any political content. The period after 1977 has been described as the 'spring of arts and literature'.  With mostly monochrome and finely cut images, Qi's highly realistic prints vividly reflect the transformation of modern China since the late 1930s.

Chao Mei, The First Track of Footprints, 1960, (multi-block woodcut printed on paper with oil-based ink)

This work records an event during the late 1950s when ten million soldiers were sent to the Great Northern Wilderness (Beidahuang) in northeast China to become agricultural workers. Chao Mei was one of them. The print presents the soldiers' first experience of the wasteland in extremely harsh conditions. 

Li Qun, Spring Night, 1962,  (multi-block woodcut printed on paper with oil-based ink)

This print depicts an early spring night in a commune village of the northwest region, with bicycles and seeders outside the village office.

Zhao Xiaomo, Golden Sea, 1972,  (multi-block woodcut printed on paper with oil-based ink)

This print records how during the Cultural Revolution school graduates followed Mao's call to 'receive re-education from poor and lower-middle peasants', and settled in the countryside to become state farmers. Formulaic smiling is a typical symbol of that period. The artist was among the 'intellectual youths' sent from the city to the remoted Great Northern Wilderness state farm, where she began to create woodcuts together with a group of other intellectual youths from different parts of China. Since the 1980s the style of her work has increasingly used elements from folk art.

Zhao's early woodcuts reflect the strong influence of Soviet socialist realist style, whilst since the early 1980s her interest has changed to folk style Chinese ink painting.

Zhu Xiuli, Contentment, 1989, (ink and colour on paper)

Xie Zhiguang, Peony, 1974-75, (ink and colour on paper)

Peonies have a long history in both art and literature in China; in Zhiguang's home region of Zheijiang peony festivals were held in temples during the Song dynasty (960-1279), with hundreds of varieties displayed.

Tao Yiqing, River Landscape, 1965, (ink and slight colour on paper)