Mr. Zhao Xianzao is a Chinese-American photographer and an outstanding representative of overseas Chinese photographers. His works are not only a feast for the eye, but also very good materials for us to study the differences, blending, and influence of western and eastern cultures.
Mr. Zhao was ranked 2nd in the World Top 10 Photographers in 1968. In the early 1980s, when the tide of color salon was sweeping mainland China and overseas Chinese photographers, he, however, had a gorgeous turning in his creative life: insisting on black-and-white and turning to realistic landscapes. At the same time when he was getting simple he also tried abstract images. He was one of the first eastern photographers to step into US mainstream photographing realm. He may be the soberest among his peer famous Chinese photographers, but may also be the loneliest.
Mr. Zhao was an admirer of American landscape photographer Ansel Adams, but the strong oriental appeal in his works shows a completely different philosophy of art from Adam’s. In his works, there are more emotions of “blending heaven and man”, a kind of emotion of oriental men of letters. In Zhao Xianzao’s world, there are more free and natural qualities. The “blending of heaven and man” refers to Zhuangzi’s words “the heaven and earth were born together with me, and all things of creation are combined with me as one”, which means a believing that the world is a harmony and conformity of heaven, earth, and man, and man is part of nature. In dealing with the relationship of depth of field, foreground, and background, and setting the position of horizon and level line, Zhao Xianzao’s landscapes often make it difficult for viewers to tell his position. What the works emphasize is not the target of photographing itself, but the subjective feelings of the photographer. With Adam’s regional exposure, the landscapes in Zhao Xianzao’s lenses are not protruding between the sky and the land, but mixed with the waters and the sky. The photographer’s feelings also reach the state of “forgetting both the materials and oneself” through this mixing.
Mr. Yuan Yunfu, a famous Chinese painter and professor of the School of Art of the Tsinghua University, highly valued Zhao Xianzao’s works in 1990: “In his works, Mr. Xianzao tries to raise Nature to a poetic level of mixing feelings and ornaments, reflects his special depth and width in the black-and-white world. He persues a wide noble spirit and captures the graceful figures. His vague landscapes contain the truth of human feelings. Mr. Zhao endeavors to comply with the creative spirits controlled by the concept of blending the heaven and man, which is the reason for the appeal and moving quality of his works. Though he has been away from China for decades, his works still contain eastern artists’ special feelings and offscreen voices, which is very precious.”
Zhao Xianzao’s works are very good cases for us to study the mutual influences between Eastern and Western photographing cultures.
- Shi Zhimin
