1959.12 共产党领导下的艺术

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Art Under the Communists
DECEMBER 1959 ISSUE
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THE art created under and approved by the Communist regime in China resembles the traditional art of the country about as much as a tractor resembles an early bronze, but it would be unjust to attribute the contrast entirely to socialist realism and the doctrine that art must appeal to the masses. Chinese art was, at the time of the Communist accession to power, in a curiously unsettled condition.

The indeterminate character of Chinese art in the twentieth century resulted from the breakdown of a very old tradition. The strong, elegantly monumental work of the Han period (218 B.C. to 206 A.D.), with its predilection for human and animal figures, had been succeeded by a linear style with much emphasis on landscape. This style was supported to some extent by Chinese aesthetic theory, which held painting and calligraphy to be equal arts deriving from the same source and devoted to the same end: the expression of meaning through pictures. It was quite natural that painting, viewed as a more realistic form of picture writing, should retain the elements of calligraphic technique. Structure was created by brushwork in ink, and color was confined to washes. Once established, this style of painting proved capable of such great variety and expressiveness that it remained dominant for fifteen hundred years.


An early Chinese painting was intended to be an elaborate calligraphic symbol conveying an intellectual, philosophical, or religious meaning. Painters were members of the intellectual elite and enjoyed the respect and freedom granted that class. Their work was done for an audience of their own kind.

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As early as the fifth century, one Hsieh Ho formulated six principles of painting which became the foundation of all subsequent aesthetic discussion and practice. His writings are translated in various terms by scholars, but it seems to be generally agreed that his first law enjoins the artist to render the true, inner meaning of a subject rather than the superficial appearance, while the last recommends the study and copying of older masters. The other four rules are practical admonitions on the importance of brushwork, color, composition, and accurate drawing. Acres of paper and seas of ink were lavished on the interpretation of Hsieh Ho’s succinct principles, but he remained on the whole as firmly entrenched in Chinese criticism as Aristotle in medieval science.

The Chinese painter, seeking to capture the inner life and meaning of his subject, evolved a technique in which volume was defined by line and distance by the suppression of detail. Since surface realism was not the aim, a significant part could stand for a whole object. Why paint a mountain when one peak would say “mountain” to any intelligent observer? This technique enabled the great landscape painters of the Sung period (960 to 1280) to translate intellectual concepts directly into pictorial symbols with concentrated power and brilliance. Their successors continued to work in the same spirit, with minor variations due to geographical location and the tastes of the reigning dynasty.

Every artistic style has its limits, however, and by the end of the nineteenth century many young Chinese painters had become dissatisfied with their native tradition. The style that had served so well to express the meaning of Buddhism and Taoism now seemed unsuited to deal with the torrent of new ideas coming into China from the West, and painters seriously feared that their art might degenerate into a mere repetition of old and now meaningless forms. Even before the Revolution of 1911, conscientious attempts were being made to extend the technique and content of Chinese painting, usually by an infusion of European methods. Young painters went to Japan to study Western art — there was an academy for this purpose in Tokyo — and, more sensibly, after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, to Paris. They discovered perspective, plastic color, oils — a whole arsenal of alien weapons which they carried hopefully back to China.

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By the middle 1920s, academies and studios in the European style existed in most of the larger cities of China, attracting pupils, public interest, and occasional scandalized outcries against life classes from the more conservative citizens. The wide variety of European styles available for borrowing led to a great deal of eclectic experiment among Chinese painters, who nevertheless fell roughly into two groups. In Shanghai, Liu Hai-su, who had studied in Europe after a thorough training in the traditional Chinese school, became the center of a group of painters who seemed determined to try out every vagary of French artistic fashion. In Nanking, Hsü Pei-hung, a very able painter of similar background, dominated a coterie which concentrated on technical proficiency. Thanks to the efforts of these men and others like them, painting in the European manner had become fairly familiar in China by the end of the thirties.

The work of these Chinese modernists was, however, hardly more related to the actual progress of events in China than that of the traditionalists had been. An exhibit of contemporary Chinese painting at the Metropolitan Museum in 1948 included Hsü Pei-hung’s dashing, loosely fluid paintings of horses, and economical, vivid, heavily linear representations of crabs and vegetables by Ch’i Pai-shih, but not a painting that hinted at the turmoil of revolution, invasion, and civil war that had swept over China in the past thirty years.

Alongside the serious and somewhat detached experiments of the Chinese modernists, there developed a school of wood-block artists whose aims were primarily educational. The woodblock movement was one of the innumerable enterprises of the author, educator, agitator, and reformer Lu Hsün. He had observed that the Russian Communists used wood-block prints to convey propaganda and information to the semiliterate masses with considerable success. Wood blocks were relatively simple to make, and reproduction was quick and cheap. By 1930 he had opened a class of instruction in Shanghai.


The wood-block class immediately attracted a number of young artists who wished to use their talent for social and political reform. While not all the students were Communists, the movement was solidly political from the first, dedicated to the improvement of conditions and the enlightenment of the mass of the Chinese people. It was European in style, realistic in approach, proletarian in subject matter, blunt, emotional, and malcontent. It was detested by the authorities of the Kuomintang, and official persecution added to the messianic enthusiasm of the artists.

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The Communist Government of China, then, inherited three kinds of art: painting in the traditional Chinese manner, which was little more than a moribund remnant of its former glory; the modern movement, an experimental compendium of European styles plus some fairly promising attempts to blend European and Chinese techniques; the wood-block movement, which was perhaps nearer to graphic journalism than to art, but which at its best was capable of forceful communication.

THE Communist position on art is surely too well known to require elaboration. Art is the servant of the state — that is to say, the Party — and must convey those ideas which the Party wishes the citizens to accept. Artists who cannot or will not echo Party dogma in their work are induced to take up another trade, such as ditchdigging on a remote frontier. Artists who express orthodox Communist ideas with reasonable enthusiasm are rewarded with prestige and privilege. The question before the Chinese Communist Government was how to make proper political use of the available painters.


The wood-block group, always largely Communist in sympathy, was adopted by the regime with little difficulty. It was only necessary to weed out a few deviates who had drifted into the movement for non-Marxist, humanitarian reasons. The survivors continued to whittle out brisk illustrations of true Communist action, exhortations to street cleaning and prompt attendance at the assembly line, and celebrations of the triumph of workers and peasants. Unfortunately, their work lost, in the warmth of success, much of the nervous strength it had shown in the cold days of adversity. Ornament and needless elaboration crept in, and a general softening of line.

The modernist group presented a more complicated problem. Obviously, such bourgeois diversions as impressionism and personal whimsey had to go, but there was some danger that every competent painter in China would go with them. It would have been rash, for example, to hold his occasional reactionary dalliances against a man like Hsü Pei-hung, whose extraordinary versatility included the ability to turn out vast soap-andwater canvases in the most literal Victorian academy style and, moreover, to teach the trick to others. This sort of thing was exactly what was wanted for official pictures of Mao Tse-tung observing a new dam with his retinue at his heels and a group of beaming workers in the background. It also did nicely for posters. Hsü was appointed director of the National Academy of Peking and held the post until his death in 1953. His house and paintings have since been presented to the state by his widow, possibly under official pressure, and are preserved as a museum. Ch’i Pai-shih, who died in 1957 at the age of 94, was permitted to continue unmolested with his highly individual and hopelessly nonpolitical paintings of mice, birds, and plants; he had started life as a carpenter, and this respectably proletarian origin probably served him well. Some less tractable painters left the country, and others continue to do so. Chang Ta-ch’ien, a respected artist and connoisseur of painting, only recently departed to South America.


Although the Communist authorities made occasional allowances for old, established painters, the younger generation is being firmly trained in socialist realism. In September of 1950, the China Weekly Review reported on the result of five weeks of work by the faculty and students of the National College of Fine Arts in Hangchow, who had been sent on a field trip to paint factories and farms. The paintings they produced were exhibited and judged on “their artistic merit and their reflection of the actual life of the people in the new China.” The winning entries carried such titles as Analysis of Class Status by Nyetai, Spies in the Temple by Yu Ying-ch’uan, and Dancing on the Way to Night School by Chang Yang-i. No reactionary doubts or capitalist pessimism disfigures any of these canvases.

Sculpture, an art never as much practiced in China as in the West, has been specifically encouraged by the Communist Government, which considers patriotic monuments indispensable.

While contemporary painting and sculpture have been faced squarely toward Moscow by the Chinese authorities, interest in Chinese archaeology has been encouraged and practical measures taken to preserve and display what the Government describes as a treasure of the Chinese people. A real effort is being made to maintain the pride of the Chinese in their great artistic past and also to impress other nations with China’s attainments. As it happens, a great deal of material of historical interest has come to light through the Communist program of public works, for the digging involved in making highways, dams, and railroads has incidentally turned up many items of beauty and archaeological importance. These finds have been sorted and housed with such enthusiasm that the monthly report published by the Department of Cultural Affairs claimed, in November of 1958, that China is now the third country in the world in the number of its museums.

Activities at the caves of Tun-huang are another example of the interest in traditional art displayed by the Communist Government. Tunhuang is an oasis near the western border of China Proper, on the old silk route into Central Asia. Near it there was created, following the penetration of Buddhism into China, an agglomeration of cave temples containing religious statues and elaborately painted walls. The place was never entirely abandoned, but it was much neglected, and in the early years of this century, English, French, and Japanese explorers, getting wind of a cache of scrolls and manuscripts at Tun-huang, carried away everything portable. There was no opposition from the Chinese authorities at the time, for there was no official interest in the place, but the present Government testily refers to those particular visitors as bandits and imperialist robbers.

The Communists are making a considerable effort to protect, discreetly restore, and publicize what remains at Tun-huang.

They did not actually initiate official interest in Tun-huang. In 1942, when the place was still ten or fifteen days’ travel from Peking by any transport available, the Kuomintang established the Tun-huang Research Institute, now the Art Research Institute of Tun-huang, with a crew of fifty copying the paintings. Colored copies of figures from the Tun-huang murals have been exhibited in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Japan.

All in all, the Chinese Communists must be credited with making shrewd use of most of the artists at their disposal, with improving the status of sculpture, and with a conscientious effort to preserve the great artistic heritage of their country.






共产党领导下的艺术
1959年12月号
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在中国共产党政权下创作并得到批准的艺术与该国的传统艺术相似，就像拖拉机与早期青铜器相似一样，但如果把这种对比完全归咎于社会主义现实主义和艺术必须吸引大众的理论，那是不公正的。在共产党掌权的时候，中国艺术正处于一种奇怪的不稳定状态。

二十世纪中国艺术的不确定特征是由一个非常古老的传统的崩溃造成的。汉代（公元前218年至公元206年）强烈而优雅的纪念碑式作品，以其对人物和动物的偏爱，被一种强调风景的线性风格所取代。这种风格在某种程度上得到了中国美学理论的支持，美学理论认为绘画和书法是来自同一源头的平等艺术，并致力于同一目的：通过图片表达意义。绘画被认为是一种更现实的图片书写形式，它很自然地保留了书法技巧的元素。结构是由笔墨创造的，而颜色则限于水墨。这种绘画风格一经确立，就被证明具有极大的多样性和表现力，以至于它在一千五百年间一直占据着主导地位。


早期的中国画旨在成为一个精心设计的书法符号，传达一种知识、哲学或宗教意义。画家是知识精英的成员，享有该阶层的尊重和自由。他们的作品是为他们自己的观众完成的。

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早在五世纪，一位叫谢赫的人就制定了六条绘画原则，成为后来所有美学讨论和实践的基础。学者们对他的著作有不同的翻译，但似乎普遍认为，他的第一条法则责成艺术家呈现主题的真实、内在含义，而不是表面现象，而最后一条则建议学习和临摹更古老的大师。其他四条法则是对笔法、色彩、构图和精确绘画的重要性的实际告诫。为了解释谢赫简洁的原则，人们花费了大量的纸张和墨水，但总的来说，他在中国的批评中就像亚里士多德在中世纪的科学中一样根深蒂固。

中国画家为了捕捉其主题的内在生命和意义，发展了一种技术，在这种技术中，体积由线条来界定，距离由细节的抑制来界定。由于表面现实主义不是目的，一个重要的部分可以代表整个物体。当一座山峰对任何聪明的观察者来说都是 "山 "的时候，为什么还要画一座山？这种技术使宋代（960年至1280年）的伟大山水画家们能够将知识概念直接转化为具有集中力量和光彩的图像符号。他们的继任者继续以同样的精神进行创作，只是由于地理位置和在位王朝的品味不同而略有不同。

然而，每一种艺术风格都有其局限性，到19世纪末，许多年轻的中国画家已经对其本土传统感到不满。这种风格曾经很好地表达了佛教和道教的意义，现在似乎不适合处理从西方传入中国的新思想的洪流，画家们严重担心他们的艺术会退化成仅仅是重复旧的和现在毫无意义的形式。甚至在1911年革命之前，人们就在有意识地尝试扩展中国绘画的技术和内容，通常是通过注入欧洲的方法。年轻的画家们去日本学习西方艺术--在东京有一所专门的学院--更明智的是，在1895年中日战争后，他们去了巴黎。他们发现了透视法、塑料色、油彩--一整套外来武器，他们满怀希望地把这些武器带回了中国。

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到20世纪20年代中期，中国大多数大城市都有欧洲风格的学院和工作室，吸引了学生和公众的兴趣，偶尔也会有比较保守的市民对生活班发出丑闻。多种多样的欧洲风格可供借鉴，导致中国画家进行了大量的折衷性试验，但他们大致分为两类。在上海，刘海粟在接受了传统中国学校的全面培训后，又到欧洲学习，成为一群画家的中心，他们似乎决心尝试法国艺术时尚的各种变化。在南京，具有类似背景的非常能干的画家徐悲鸿主导了一个专注于技术能力的小圈子。由于这些人和其他像他们一样的人的努力，到三十年代末，欧洲方式的绘画在中国已经相当熟悉。

然而，这些中国现代派的作品与传统派的作品相比，与中国的实际进展情况几乎没有什么关系。1948年在大都会博物馆举办的当代中国画展包括徐悲鸿的潇洒、松散的马匹画，以及齐白石的经济、生动、线条感强的螃蟹和蔬菜画，但没有一幅画暗示了过去30年席卷中国的革命、侵略和内战的动荡。

在中国现代派的严肃和有点超脱的实验的同时，还发展了一个以教育为主要目的的木版画派。木版画运动是作家、教育家、鼓动家和改革家陆逊的无数事业之一。他观察到，俄国共产党人利用木版画向半文盲的群众传递宣传和信息，取得了相当大的成功。木刻版画的制作相对简单，而且复制速度快、成本低。到1930年，他在上海开设了一个教学班。


木版画班立即吸引了一些希望利用自己的才能进行社会和政治改革的年轻艺术家。虽然不是所有的学生都是共产党员，但这个运动从一开始就具有坚实的政治性，致力于改善条件和启迪广大的中国人民。它的风格是欧洲的，方法是现实的，主题是无产阶级的，直截了当的，情绪化的，而且充满怨恨。它受到国民党当局的厌恶，官方的迫害加剧了艺术家们的救世主般的热情。

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那么，中国共产党政府继承了三种艺术：中国传统方式的绘画，这只不过是其昔日辉煌的奄奄一息的残余；现代运动，欧洲风格的实验性汇编，加上一些相当有希望的融合欧洲和中国技术的尝试；木刻运动，这也许更接近于平面新闻而不是艺术，但在其最好的情况下能够进行有力的沟通。

共产党对艺术的立场肯定是众所周知的，不需要详细说明。艺术是国家--也就是党--的仆人，必须传达党希望公民接受的那些思想。那些不能或不愿在其作品中呼应党的教条的艺术家被诱导去从事另一种行业，比如在偏远的边疆挖沟。那些以合理的热情表达正统的共产主义思想的艺术家会得到威望和特权的奖励。中国共产党政府面临的问题是如何在政治上适当利用现有的画家。


木刻版画组，在很大程度上总是同情共产党的，被政权采纳的难度不大。只需要剔除一些出于非马克思主义、人道主义原因而进入运动的异己分子。幸存者们继续对真正的共产主义行动进行了详细的说明，劝告人们打扫街道，迅速到装配线上工作，并庆祝工人和农民的胜利。不幸的是，他们的作品在成功的温暖中失去了它在逆境的寒冷日子里所表现出的紧张力量。装饰和无谓的雕琢悄然而至，线条也普遍软化。

现代主义团体提出了一个更复杂的问题。显然，像印象主义和个人奇思妙想这样的资产阶级消遣必须离开，但也有一些危险，那就是中国所有有能力的画家都会跟他们走。例如，如果把他偶尔的反动行为与徐悲鸿这样的人对立起来，那就太草率了，徐悲鸿的多才多艺包括能够以最直白的维多利亚时代学院派风格画出巨大的肥皂水画，而且还能把这种技巧教给其他人。这种东西正是毛泽东观察新大坝的官方照片所需要的，他的随从跟在他身后，背景是一群满脸笑容的工人。它也很适合做海报。徐志摩被任命为北京国家画院院长，并一直担任此职，直到1953年去世。他的房子和画作后来由他的遗孀（可能是在官方压力下）交给了国家，并作为博物馆保存。1957年，94岁的戚继光去世，他被允许继续画他的高度个性化和无望的非政治性的老鼠、鸟类和植物；他开始时是个木匠，这种可敬的无产阶级出身可能对他很有利。一些不那么棘手的画家离开了这个国家，而其他人则继续这样做。张大千，一位受人尊敬的艺术家和绘画鉴赏家，最近才启程去了南美。


虽然共产党当局偶尔会允许老的、有地位的画家出现，但年轻一代正在接受社会主义现实主义的坚定训练。1950年9月，《中国评论周刊》报道了杭州市国立艺术学院师生五周的工作成果，他们被派去实地考察工厂和农场的绘画。他们的画作被展出，并根据 "其艺术价值和对新中国人民实际生活的反映 "进行评判。获奖作品的标题是：尼泰的《阶级地位分析》、余映泉的《寺庙里的间谍》和张养一的《夜校路上的舞蹈》。在这些画作中，没有任何反动的怀疑或资本主义的悲观主义的成分。

雕塑这门艺术在中国从来没有像在西方那样被实践过，它受到共产党政府的特别鼓励，因为它认为爱国主义纪念碑是必不可少的。

当代绘画和雕塑被中国当局直面莫斯科时，对中国考古的兴趣得到了鼓励，并采取了实际措施来保护和展示政府称为中国人民财富的东西。正在作出真正的努力，以保持中国人对其伟大的艺术历史的自豪感，同时也让其他国家对中国的成就印象深刻。碰巧的是，通过共产党的公共工程计划，大量具有历史意义的材料被发现了，因为在修建公路、大坝和铁路的过程中，挖掘工作顺便发现了许多具有美感和考古意义的物品。这些发现被分类存放，文化部在1958年11月发表的月报中称，中国现在是世界上博物馆数量第三多的国家。

在敦煌石窟的活动是共产党政府对传统艺术表现出兴趣的另一个例子。敦煌是靠近中国西部边境的一个绿洲，位于进入中亚的古老丝绸之路上。随着佛教对中国的渗透，在它附近出现了一个洞穴寺庙群，里面有宗教雕像和精心绘制的墙壁。在本世纪初，英国、法国和日本的探险家在得知敦煌有一批卷轴和手稿后，将所有可携带的东西都带走了。当时中国当局并没有反对，因为官方对这个地方没有兴趣，但现政府却试探性地将这些特殊的访客称为强盗和帝国主义强盗。

共产党人正在做出相当大的努力，保护、谨慎地修复和宣传敦煌的遗迹。

他们实际上并没有发起官方对敦煌的兴趣。1942年，当这个地方离北京还有十天或十五天的路程时，国民党成立了敦煌研究院，即现在的敦煌艺术研究院，有50名工作人员在复制画作。敦煌壁画中人物的彩色副本已在波兰、捷克斯洛伐克和日本展出。

总而言之，中国共产党人必须归功于他们精明地利用了他们所掌握的大多数艺术家，提高了雕塑的地位，并认真努力地保护他们国家的伟大艺术遗产。