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Gao Xingjian: Ink Paintings 1983-1993
40 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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July 13, 2015
"Gao (his surname), wrote his first novel and exhibited his first drawings at the age of 12. A painter, man of letters and the stage, he explained, “Painting is my real profession, my livelihood, while literature is my luxury, my hobby."
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" The essence of art lies in aesthetics. The artist is above all an aesthete and the genesis of his or her thinking cannot be dissociated from the activities of artistic judgement and creation. The criticism he or she makes of society and the challenge issued is an aesthetic and ethical judgement rather than an ideological act. If the artist substitutes for his or her aesthetic judgement any other value judgement, be it social, political or ethical, that person is dead as an artist. No artist has ever saved the world. Beauty is the object of all my work and I look for perfection. However, beauty is not what is pretty,but what is worth looking at. Nor is it something minutely worked, but the search for harmony, something that should spring forth immediately, by chance. Beauty is intuitive, objective and subjective at the same time. The beautiful is not abstract but something very concrete and not only spiritual. Beauty has a very sensual side and sensuality is something of substance, like the body of a woman or a smile as subtle as Mona Lisa’s. Beauty is always an ephemeral state. Everything that is impossible to fix is beauty."
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" The essence of art lies in aesthetics. The artist is above all an aesthete and the genesis of his or her thinking cannot be dissociated from the activities of artistic judgement and creation. The criticism he or she makes of society and the challenge issued is an aesthetic and ethical judgement rather than an ideological act. If the artist substitutes for his or her aesthetic judgement any other value judgement, be it social, political or ethical, that person is dead as an artist. No artist has ever saved the world. Beauty is the object of all my work and I look for perfection. However, beauty is not what is pretty,but what is worth looking at. Nor is it something minutely worked, but the search for harmony, something that should spring forth immediately, by chance. Beauty is intuitive, objective and subjective at the same time. The beautiful is not abstract but something very concrete and not only spiritual. Beauty has a very sensual side and sensuality is something of substance, like the body of a woman or a smile as subtle as Mona Lisa’s. Beauty is always an ephemeral state. Everything that is impossible to fix is beauty."
Displaying 1 of 1 review