Jinhuidui paintings (above) and porcelain items (below) created by Geng Xuezhi. The folk artist who lives in Zibo, Shandong province, has been devoted to the inheritance of the traditional art form for more than 20 years.[Photo provided to China Daily]
In enduring Western pop art such as Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe and Richard Hamilton's Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? ordinary objects and characters are vividly revealed, and insignificant things are presented dramatically and absurdly.
Many seemingly unintelligible combinations, even something copied and pasted directly from other pictures and paintings, are the main characteristics of pop art.
The creative concept of jinhuidui (literally "a pile of beautiful things from ash"), a Chinese art form which is said to have originated in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and prevailed in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), shares similarities to pop art.
At first, jinhuidui was just artists' casual drawings with the unused ink left after they had finished a serious painting. Opened scrolls, discarded sketches and ragged brushes were crammed onto the paper in a jumble of layers.
Gradually, jinhuidui has developed into an art form that pieces together ruined fragments. Any element, such as traditional Chinese calligraphy, discarded paintings, historical documents, damaged book pages, notes, folded letters and bronze ware, could be the protagonist in the artwork.
Multiple methods, such as overlaying, inlaying and smudging to give it an aged appearance, are applied to present a kind of messy beauty.
Jinhuidui is perhaps less-known today, but its origins and development directly reflect social change and aesthetic trends. Some experts say it gathers defective beauty, diversity and realism, reflecting the aesthetic sensibility of the public and showing the characteristics of different eras.
Many Chinese artists have gained inspiration from this ancient art form and presented in their works the contrasting combination of traditional Chinese culture with modern elements.
Shanghai-based artist Li Haitao is one of them.
In the works on display at his solo show in Shanghai last year, he used ink-and-wash art as the main means of expression, and made a collage of news of eye-catching affairs and works of 12 modern poets in the art form of jinhuidui, allowing viewers to read and think while appreciating the image.
The artist especially highlighted some parts of his artworks with bold colors, such as blue, yellow and pink, to enrich the paintings.
"Humans sense the world through two parallel mediums — words and images. And jinhuidui is a perfect combination of the two," says Li.
[Photo provided to China Daily]
Demanding skills
However, creating traditional jinhuidui artwork is much more difficult compared to pop art, as all the images are painted as if they were copied and pasted.
It requires a good command of calligraphy — cursive script and seal script, as well as excellent skill in painting flowers, birds, fish, insects, landscapes and figures, and a mastery of techniques such as seal carving.
The composition of jinhuidui artworks may seem random, but it is in fact very elaborate and cleverly arranged, haphazard but not dull; the shades are staggered between the fragments, and the same shades are echoed in different parts.
Geng Xuezhi, 50, from Zibo city, Shandong province, is one of the masters of jinhuidui.
Geng has been learning Chinese painting and calligraphy since he was 16. He came into contact with jinhuidui painting skills through his father in 2006.
The artist says the distinctive feature of jinhuidui can be summed up as "broken", which means that it has to present fragments in forms such as broken, rolled, overlapped, torn, burned or smoked.
He says it will take at least 10 years to master the skill.
The creation of jinhuidui is complex and lengthy, and the process of dyeing is laborious and time-consuming. Sometimes a fragment needs to be dyed a dozen times.
Geng reveals that it is sometimes necessary to look through ancient books and go to antique shops to find materials to enrich his work.
"A simpler work of jinhuidui takes about 20 days to complete, while a more complex one will take several months, and sometimes some extra effort has to be made," he says.
A few years ago, in order to complete an artwork on the theme of bronze ware, Geng went to a local museum to observe the shape of the bronze relics and the font of the inscription, visited antique shops to look for old envelopes, and went checking the relevant documents and historical materials at a local library.
Geng usually works for 10 hours a day."There's no shortcut on the path of learning. It's all about long-term and consistent practice," he says.
"Jinhuidui depicts miscellaneous objects in fragments, but artists nowadays are normally creating based on the original objects that are intact. Turning the complete object into fragments as the artist imagines is the core artistic expression of jinhuidui painting."
As for the painting standard, he says there is no specified pattern, either sparse or dense, or size anyway, or color contrast.
Protection and inheritance
To better protect the art form, Geng began to collect relevant materials and write a comprehensive introduction for its declaration as a local intangible cultural heritage in 2008.
The application was formally submitted to the Zhoucun district cultural bureau in Zibo in 2009.
Four years later, jinhuidui was declared a provincial intangible cultural heritage in Shandong.
For the development of jinhuidui, an exhibition hall and a workshop were opened in Zhoucun Ancient City, a popular scenic spot in Zibo, in 2016.
Inside the exhibition hall, with many jinhuidui artworks hanging on the walls, the house that is built with bricks exudes an aura of antiquity.
It receives more than 200,000 tourists annually, and Geng has passed on his painting skills to more enthusiasts.
In 2019, Geng began to devote himself to the art of painting and firing jinhuidui porcelain, which can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
He spent time in Nanchang city, Jiangxi province, on a training course opened to inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, which was organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, to learn new color painting.
