Chengdu News

Dandelion, created in 1958, brought Wu Fan
international fame and political disaster.
Courtesy of Wu Fan

By Wen Chihua

It's been dubbed "the big gift". Curators at the Three Gorges Museum of Chongqing could hardly believe their luck when prominent neo-realistic woodblock artist Wu Fan, 83, recently donated 57 of his artworks.

"His works, especially the woodblock prints, provide great, valuable material," says Wang Chuanping, curator of the Three Gorges Museum of Chongqing.

Most of the woodblocks, which made Wu's donated prints, were destroyed during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), so it is technically impossible to make any more copies.

Dandelion spirit

Sitting in a well-worn armchair in the modest study of his home in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province in Southwest China, Wu says: "I know it won't be too many years before I pass on. Those works will do the museum a lot more good than they would me or my children."

To him, the donation is a last salute to his birthplace, Chongqing.

Woodblock printing was in vogue from the 1950s to the 70s, when China was caught up in the fanaticism of class struggle.

Wu's donation includes 30 of his most significant prints such as Dandelion, A Cook Girl, and A Village Postwoman. These artworks earned him worldwide acclaim, but political misery at home.

One of Wu's most popular works is Dandelion, which he created in 1958. Its composition is simple. In the lower right corner, a girl sits blowing a dandelion, leaving a big blank space on the canvas. A basket and sickle are at her side a reminder that she is just a child on her way to pick herbs for her mother to cook, and easily distracted by the beauty of nature.

The simplicity of his work underscores the serenity and tranquillity that it features. Yet there is movement and expression in the work. The scene is in motion the girl blowing the dandelion, the seeds dancing in the air forming a striking contrast with the motionless space.
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I saw the air as a huge piece of wood, on which I drew lines and carved blocks for the scenes and figures I created in my mind.
Wu Fan
Painter

The work, in water-soluble ink, was awarded the gold prize at the International Woodblock Prints Competition held in 1959 in Leipzig, Germany. It also won silver at the 7th World Youth Festival for Peace and Friendship held the same year in Warsaw, Poland.

Dandelions are often used in Chinese herbal medicine to dispel heat and toxins from the body. The plant is robust: Its seeds can be blown anywhere by the wind and grow fast once they have made contact with the earth.

"Because of this very strong and sort of carefree character, I chose a dandelion for the girl to blow. As an artist, you must keep your intellectual spirit free, detached from politics," Wu says.

Even though he had no interest in politics, Wu was not spared in the witch hunts. During the "cultural revolution", Wu's internationally acclaimed Dandelion was singled out as symbolizing pacifism, surrender and revisionism, which were perceived to be hostile to the prevailing movement of the time.

The Dandelion woodblock was destroyed by the Red Guards to prevent Wu from further "blowing the seeds of bourgeois".

Wu was imprisoned for many years. The only thing he was allowed to create were written confessions to the Party. But Wu had his own way of keeping his artistic spirit alive.

"Although my body was jailed, my mind was free and flying. I saw the air as a huge piece of wood, on which I drew lines and carved blocks for the scenes and figures I created in my mind," Wu says. His voice is so soft it almost disappears in the hum of the air-conditioner.

Ironically, the Dandelion, which induced his political nightmare, was responsible for bailing him out. In 1972, then US President Richard Nixon was to visit Beijing. Zhou Enlai, then Chinese Premier, went to inspect the suite in the State Guest House where Nixon would stay. When it came to decorating the suite, Zhou sent for Wu's Dandelion because its symbolic connotations of peace and friendship.
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A Village Postwoman depicts a hardworking postwoman trying to deliver the mail on time in the 1950s.
Courtesy of Wu Fan

The news was published in an official newspaper in Beijing, and Wu was later allowed to go home.

Political art

The technique of woodblock printing was originally used to make books, and for folk religious purposes. A popular and inexpensive form was nianhua Chinese new year prints, which can be dated back to the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). People typically hang nianhua on their doors to usher in good luck and ward off evil spirits during the Spring Festival.

It was not until the 1920s that woodblock printing was practiced as a means of political expression in China. Lu Xun (1881-1936), father of modern Chinese literature, earnestly promoted the social-critical woodblock prints of German artist Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945), and the works of Russian social-realism.

Works of Chinese artists from this period were commonly in black and white, and displayed heart-rending scenes of suffering and oppressed people.

After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, printmaking became a popular vehicle for political propaganda, and reached its peak during the "cultural revolution", when billions of political posters were produced on cheap paper.

Wu is a devout communist who received his professional training in the late 1940s in both Chinese brush and oil painting at the National Art School, today's China Academy of Fine Arts, in Hangzhou of East China's Zhejiang Province.

He intended from the beginning of his career to depart from the mainstream that featured heroic images of workers, peasants and soldiers.
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Lu Xun (left) talks with young artists in 1936 about the political importance of woodblock prints. File photo

Most of Wu's works created in the 1950s and 60s were considered poetic expressions of gentle affection and insignificant scenes.

"His water-soluble ink prints might look small in size and subjects. But they are like the artist himself small in stature, but with a big, touching heart that conveys the ever-lasting humanitarianism, and warm memories of a certain period of time," says Liu Xiaochun, a researcher at the Chinese Art Study Institute in Beijing.

Printing woodblocks with water-soluble inks is a difficult technique. But when it's mastered, the results are similar to a watercolor.

Wu has achieved stunning accomplishments in depicting the beauty and purity of ordinary people's passions and sentiments. A Village Postwoman shows a young woman carrying her bicycle across a suspension bridge in a torrential downpour in order to deliver the mail on time.

Art critic Ding Mu, in Chongqing of Southwest China, says Wu's paintings remind people of the good old days when the social environment was relaxed, natural surroundings were pretty, pure and green, and people could count on each other.

Interestingly, although his prints are not expressly political expressions, as Lu Xun advocated, Wu was awarded the Lu Xun Award for Woodblock Prints in the 1980s to honor his extraordinary contribution to the Chinese art form.

Wu's works could have fetched a handsome price if he had put the limited first-edition copies up for sale at any art auction.

He believes people hold different values in terms of recognition and denial. He says donating his art is more rewarding and satisfying than selling it.

"An auction brings you nothing more than extra money that might improve your material life. My philosophy is that the simpler life is, the more comfortable you feel. Being rich in spirit makes you fly high, whereas being materially rich can pull you down."