National Spirit Shaping and Visual Epic Writing (Picture China · Modernity of Thematic Art Creation ⑨)

The contemporary nature of art is the most discussed topic in the domestic art circle in recent years. Influenced by the contemporary art theories of some developed countries in Europe and the United States, the domestic academic circles once inclined to these contemporary art concepts, believing that easel art is totally out of the contemporary art field of vision. Contemporary art is a new global art coupled with new media and conceptual art. The modernity of art lies in how to intervene in the society with the concept of art How to present individual cultural identity and life experience through pan media. Of course, this theory is a kind of new idea and new exploration of art reform put forward by human society when it enters the information age, but it does not mean that human beings create the end of artistic images through paintings and sculptures with creative mind hand integration, and the so-called "contemporary art" of the pan media of this concept form is not the whole of contemporary art, It is not the paradigm of art globalization. If we only take the innovation of art media as the only sign of artistic modernity, it is obviously a mechanical materialistic view of artistic development; If art is involved in society as the value of contemporary art, it obviously exaggerates the function of art and makes it a tool of some idea.

The contemporaneity of art is the artistic creation and aesthetic concentration of the national spirit in a certain era. There is no abstract artistic "contemporary consciousness" that transcends the national spirit and national consciousness. As we all know, the rise of western modernist art deconstructs not only the representational art, but also the individual aesthetic creation liberated from the religious and historical theme expression behind it; European and American contemporary art - the emergence of post-modernism art characterized by pan media and ideology is fundamentally a popular way of art production and consumption reflected by the capitalist democratic system. But it is hard to imagine using this art of liberating individual aesthetic creation and chasing public aesthetic consumption to represent the national spirit of a rising country. On the contrary, realism, abandoned by western modernism, is just another "contemporary" presentation of China's introduction of western oil painting and its localization and reconstruction in the 20th century; The realistic turn of Chinese traditional literati paintings in the second half of the 20th century, which pursues the survival of individual spirit, has just become the core aesthetic proposition of the modern spirit of Chinese paintings. Obviously, the contemporaneity of the art in the other place may not be the contemporaneity of the art in this place, but the contemporaneity of art is related to the contemporary aesthetic exploration and artistic creation of art in synchronization with the national history and national spirit.

It should be said that the theme art creation, which has flourished again in recent years, is precisely the reconstruction of the contemporary art of cultural self-confidence and cultural consciousness in the new era. From the national major historical theme art creation project to the Chinese civilization history theme art creation project; From the large-scale art creation to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Long March, the theme art creation to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, to the organization and implementation of the large-scale art creation project to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, it is not difficult to see that through the historical and realistic theme art creation, the visual shaping of the Chinese civilization history and national rejuvenation spirit, these solidified visual epics, It also plays an irreplaceable role in aesthetic education in condensing national spirit and stimulating national fighting spirit. The writing of this visual epic undoubtedly does not belong to the artistic "contemporaneity" category of modernism and post-modernism. The key problem is how to recognize or reconstruct the plastic arts of writing visual epic - the artistic noumenon value of thematic art creation after experiencing the pursuit of modernism for the value of art noumenon and the expansion of new media for the concept of art. Here, it involves not only sorting out and re understanding the Chinese and foreign thematic art creation tradition, but also a major theoretical topic of how to reconstruct and develop the "contemporaneity" of thematic art creation in the contemporary rich visual culture.

The generation and development of modernism and post-modernism art, to a large extent, deviate from the reproducible track of plastic arts due to the mass production and dissemination of mechanical or electronic images. Therefore, the reconstruction of thematic art creation involves two most important basic theories: one is the recognition of the value of the uniqueness of plastic arts in the image age, and the other is the theoretical recognition of the unique narrative characteristics of plastic arts. The popularity and consumerism of images in the image age not only make many painters directly move photographic images into the picture and confuse the boundaries between photographic images and plastic arts images, but also the formation of image experience has greatly changed the way people perceive the world. It can be said that the plastic arts in the image age are experiencing an unprecedented dilemma and anxiety in the art history. The reappearance significance of painting is not to compare with the reality of the scene image, but to consider the depth of its theme refining and meaning implication. Narrativity is not the natural enemy of painting art. Narrativity or reproducibility does not mean that it is far away from the essence of painting art. It should be said that the most unique narrative language of painting is the shaping language of plastic arts images; Without the unique way of painting to shape the image, it also negates the existence of painting.

The image of plastic arts is essentially different from the theoretical analysis of photographic images, which has been strongly confirmed by some excellent thematic art creation practices in recent years. For example, the theme painting to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth not only refers to photographic images, but also recreates plastic arts on the basis of reference. Obviously, the camera was invented in the era when Marx lived, and left extremely precious photographic images for years to come. However, the visual restoration of Marx's life with the help of these limited images also depends on the contemporary visual aesthetic reconstruction of his painting modeling image. In fact, excellent historical and realistic thematic paintings at all times and in all over the world show the aesthetic characteristics that painting narrative cannot be replaced by literature, drama, film and television. The plastic art creation of painting for visual images, the solidification of dramatic character relationships by converting time into flat space, the psychological revelation of portrait style personality, and the combination of painting characters and virtual scenes all show that the visual narrative of painting is not a mechanical representation, let alone "using art to cover up art", Instead, it integrates the characteristics of the plastic arts of painting into the artistic representation or performance of visual images. While completing the image narrative, these paintings are also carrying out those artistic creations that conform to the planar characteristics of painting. Therefore, the "planarization" feature of modernism emphasized by Greenberg is also the most distinctive artistic feature of visual image narration in painting.

It must be emphasized that the historical and realistic thematic paintings will not express the humanistic feelings or value judgments of the society in terms of narrative category and narrative angle, just like modernist or post-modernism works, by means of individual experience or personalized narrative. Historic and realistic thematic art creation, fundamentally, does not belong to individual narrative, but is about an idea or an ideal aesthetic expression that a nation or a country presents and needs in a certain historical period, which is the reinjection of the spirit of the times and ideological emotions into history. From this perspective, this kind of historical and realistic thematic art creation is undoubtedly a visual epic writing of the national spirit and national struggle of an era.

(The author is the deputy director of the Fine Arts Theory Committee of the China Artists Association and the editor in chief of Fine Arts magazine)