ZHANG ADDS MODERN INFLUENCE TO CALLIGRAPHY
A PICTURE pops into my mind when I think of artist Zhang Dawo:
It is sunset and a man about 50 is walking on the seashore near his home in Launceston, Australia. With his hair blowing in the sea breeze, the man carefully searches the fine sand for artefacts left by the ebbing tide.
"I am an avid seashore-goer," said the artist, who is now in Beijing for a stay.
But, he said, rather than swimming, basking in the sun as gentle breezes waft by, or collecting shells and crabs, he often takes a quiet walk on the beach while looking for what he refers as "lines".
"I am fascinated by the beautiful natural lines - fluid or jagged, mild or wild - created by anonymous artists: the tides, fish, crabs, shrimps pebbles and so on."
"The gorgeous lines inspire me to create modern calligraphy - a reason why I am so much given to living at the seaside," said Zhang.
A modern Chinese artist, Zhang has since 1982 attempted to add modern expression to the traditional art form of Chinese calligraphy.
He believes that incorporating modern influences into traditional calligraphy will begin a modern art movement that will affect generations of Chinese calligraphers and traditional Chinese calligraphy.
Ultimately, the artist and his contemporaries are helping foster a new type of modern abstract art derived from traditional Chinese calligraphy.
Zhang Dawo's artwork is reminiscent of the natural lines left on beach sand, though the lines are well-chosen and the images more insightful.
At first glance, the rhythmical lines in his modern calligraphic work call to mind the charm and strength of nature: waves, whirlwinds, clouds, fog and even the debris of charred wood.
In critic Zhang Zhaohui's words, Zhang Dawo's "uninhibited and innocent ink trail makes you feel the rhythm from the deep soul and the echo from holy heaven."
Upon further examination, the critic continued, within Zhang Dawo's work "viewers might feel the profundity of a combination of oriental and occidental spirits and artistic practices which go beyond the boundaries of nationality, race and culture towards the purity and essence of art itself."
"The ink line has displayed its role as a medium to explore the universe of the human spirit, revealing the powerful potential of the ancient art as an instrument to seek out and console the sprit of modern humanity," said the critic.
Born in 1943 in Northwest China's Shanxi Province, Zhang lived in Shanxi, Tienjin, Heilongjiang and Beijing before moving to the island city of Launceston, Tasmania, in southeast Australia in 1992 to work full-time as a modern artist.
He grew up in a scholar family and his childhood was surrounded by traditional Chinese culture. His father, Zhang Wanli, an accomplish Chinese calligrapher, translator and professor of English, was his first tutor in Chinese calligraphy.
Then, when his father taught in the English Department of Nankai University in Tienjin in the 1950s Zhang Dawo has the chance to learn from veteran Chinese calligraphers Wu Yuru and Li Henian.
Although Zhang Dawo has the talent and training to be a traditional Chinese calligrapher, he wants to do more.
"There is an inborn unwillingness in me to reconcile myself to traditional work, although for many years I have been involved in traditional art and, frankly, have borrowed from traditional calligraphy to create my art," said Zhang.
Years of practising different forms of traditional Chinese calligraphy, an in-depth study of Chinese palaeography and a keen interest in modern arts and contemporary concepts have evolved into highly personal and original expressions in his modern calligraphic works.
"His interest is … an aesthetic concern with 'line' which seeks to cultivate the creative appeal of the calligrapher - that is, to entirely abandon the shape of characters and give full play to the dynamic of 'line' itself," commented well-known Chinese artist and critic Wang Nanming.
It has become a common concept among modern calligraphers and theorists that calligraphic lines should no longer be confined by the shape of Chinese characters since the importance of learning the skills in traditional Chinese calligraphy has been waning in a modern society that has absorbed the wide use of computers and printing.
Such lines are demanding to be emancipated from Chinese characters and to be free to display their own peculiarity as an art medium, according to modern calligraphers.
"Modern calligraphy has evolved into an art of line and space, which in return demands a completely new understanding of calligraphy. Any attempt to appreciate modern calligraphy in a traditional way will be misleading, "commented Wang.
Like many of his contemporaries who create modern calligraphy, Zhang Dawo in his early stage, use Chinese characters extensively - often a few selected ones - in his works while freeing the shape of the characters.
For a while, he also tried to seek inner harmony in his work by combing calligraphy with painting, especially Shuimo (water-ink painting), based on the traditional Chinese belief that the two art forms were of the same origin.
"I did not know at the time what on earth I wanted to do. In my mind was simply one word - change. It's always better to change than not, I believe," said Zhang.
In his latest works, it seems that he has found great fun in the wild dancing of line, which is derived but separated from Chinese calligraphy. The injection of modern concepts especially gives rise to exceptionally bold, romantic and lyrical lines and images in his works.
However, the dynamic line in his works is distinct from other kinds of lines since it is created by a well-trained calligrapher and preserves the feature of calligraphy extensively. More or less, viewers can also feel the vague influence of what he has tested in previous works - for instance, Shuimo (water-ink).
The indistinct shape of Chinese characters was at work in his earlier art creations but, in his recent works, they are simply the strokes of a freely moving brush reflecting the "tension of line itself caused by various conflicts," said critic Wang Nanming.
"Perhaps another distinct type of abstract will be derived from modern calligraphy later on. This is the very direction today's modern calligraphers are taking," Wang said.
"I owe my thanks to my recent years of life abroad, which offered me a chance to experience the collisions between different cultural backgrounds," said Zhang.
"But I come back to China - where I was born, grew up and where I feel at home - to live for a while almost every year and get myself enriched when I feel I am short of the nutrition of my original culture in creating art works," the artist said.
"I do not have an exact idea where I am going when I create art; rather, I am always feeling my way. But it is this kind of uncertainty that always draws an artist to what is better and more beautiful."
"Zhang Dawo is a talented artist with great potential, fine skills strong creative appeal and wide artistic scope," critic Tang Songyuan said.
"His direction in art represents the trend of modern Chinese calligraphy - that is to stand out in the world eventually," Tang said.
Since 1986, Zhang's modern calligraphy art works have been exhibited in China, France, Australia and Britain and have been widely collected by well-known museums, galleries and private collectors at home and abroad.
Besides serving as director of the Chinese Society of Modern Calligraphy and Painting, he is also a member of the Chinese Calligraphers' Association.
Yang Yingshi
China Daily
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