Discussing the Classics: The Mona Lisa

The classic figure of Mona Lisa has become the representative figure for many cross-over projects, and has been spotted wandering freely among professional and amateur, art and commodities, seriousness and sarcasm. After hundreds of years, her/his mysterious smile can still appear at any time, while you are turning on your computer, lifting your cup to take a sip of coffee, or taking a walk on the street, would bringing a grin to your face.

However, in an age where photography had not been popularized, the only way to freeze an image had been through drawing. Through the talent of a small number of artists, having a portrait became fashionable among the rich and elite of the time. As time progressed to the 21st century, advances in digital technology have filled modern life with images. Regardless if you are willing to accept them, you are forced to be inserted among the daily “images” which have become a cheap commodity that is readily available.

Breakthroughs in “Reproduction”: Gathering Stones from Other Mountains

Since the past, many artists use masterpieces as a basis to integrate different sceneries and change articles of clothing to “reproduce” the classic images. Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, (1863) from a hundred years ago, referenced Titian’s (1488/1489-1576) Le Concert champêtre (1509), and Titian’s painting originally referenced the engravings by Italian painter Marcantonio Raimondi (1480-1527).

The fame of Mona Lisa has attracted numerous artists to play modern jokes at the expense of the classic masterpiece. In 1919, Duchamp added a mustache to a Mona Lisa reproduction. When this was done, it aroused the questions of originality and artistic value in mechanical reproductions. The American female artist Cindy Sherman and Japanese artist Morimura Yasumasa, are also famous for their creations referencing classic western artwork.

Although Morimura Yasumasa used computer imaging software in an attempt to make improvements, he was still unable to resolve the problem of texture differences between camera images and hand-drawn images produced from the naked eye. He only used symbols from ancient paintings and not the artworks themselves, because all these so-called masterpieces from the early Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque era, to the nineteenth century, especially those prior to the nineteenth century, were either about biblical stories, portraits of royalty and wealthy merchants, or still-life and landscapes, etc. The media was always frescoes or tempera, and oil paintings mainly on wood boards or canvas. All works were expressed with uniform, concrete techniques, and rarely did they surpass these boundaries.

So what was the reason these people could eventually become acclaimed and rise to the title of master? How could it be the result of subjects in the portraits wearing special clothes in weird positions, or having pipes in their mouths? Therefore, this is a challenge when dealing with ancient paintings and using processing techniques besides painting. Despite the advanced modern digital technology available to process high resolution and finer printing, when encountering items that do not exist or inserting characters in an image, unless someone can develop an image special effects software such as the “Rembrandt Holy Light Filter” or “van Eyck Oil Painting Effects Filter,” the results will certainly be obtrusive and have an “anti-collage” effect. Therefore, I believe that only through using the same forms as the original work can be the perfect intervention be completed.  

Time Traveler – A Restorer’s Joke

In the ancient city Salamanca in central Spain, there is a cathedral which was built in 1102. Among the complex decorative carvings on the Baroque-style door which located in the left side of the building. You can see an astronaut, a lobster, and an authentic bowl of Spanish paella. This is a joke played by the restorer, a joke that transcends past and the present. He transformed a magnificent building left by his ancestors into material for personal artwork, making a heavy impact on time and space.

According to the attitude of technical processing in the “Mr. Big Nose in Wonderland-Time Traveler” series, I do not only attempt common copying. In the course of my studies in Spain, I spent three years studying painting materialogy, ancient paintings, old sculpture restoration skills, and also absorbing a lot of information on these subjects. First of all, it was necessary to study the background of each master and the materials and techniques used. In terms of the materials, I researched the painting base, substrate, undertones, and referenced the X-rays of the ancient paintings and slices of the paintings under the microscope. I also asked restorers to speculate the painting process methods in order to figure out the basic painting logic and coloring methods of the masters. I did not limit myself to solely pursuing the general viewers’ perception of “resembling.”

After completing the parts that were kept the same as the original painting, I used the same methods of the classic artworks to incorporate Mr. Big Nose “unobtrusively” in the ancient images. Because the theme was ancient paintings, even if all the techniques were perfectly carried out, new base materials and the fresh paints still lacked the “antique” feeling when juxtaposed with the original work on the art museum’s walls. According to my understanding, although oil painting materials have high stability, they will still “age” as time goes by. The most basic change is in the “drying oil.” In the six hundred years of oil painting history, flax seed oil was the most commonly used type. However, flax seed oil has a tendency for inevitable yellowing, so the colors of the paintings were affected and eventually changed color. The “varnish resin” used as a protective layer for the oil paintings had the same problem, causing most ancient artworks to take on a brownish tinge. Colors that were affected by the drying oil cannot be easily modeled through mixing colors, and the yellowing surfaces cannot be carried out in the drawing process. Other types of external substances or agents must be found and applied on the surface of the painting.  

Weaving Innocence and Sophistication – Mr. Big Nose in Wonderland

I have always had a strong interest in “self portraits,” and have continued this type of self-description methods for many years. A few years ago, when I suddenly became seriously overweight, I looked at myself in the mirror and it seemed surreal when compared with my thin face from a few years ago. Deep in my heart, when I thought of what I looked like, I felt I was still naïve but was required to gain worldly wisdom. Mr. Big Nose is my innocent self, at an age of over thirty but still having a body proportion of a child. The quality of “chubbiness” was created through digital imaging methods, reflecting a sign of the digital era. In addition, the modern pathologic demands for beauty are highlighted through new and contemporary realistic painting techniques. The image of a “Taike” in a white shirt, black pants, blue and white slippers, has become an ordinary rather than elaborate “Taike” philosophy.

In 1434, van Eyck completed his famous work The Arnolfini Portrait. On the wall depicted in the painting, the artist wrote “Jan van Eyck was here.” However, Mr. Big Nose who was derived from my self portrait, has either “possessed the soul of the master” or “reappeared” through taking a time machine, and appears in the ancient scene, creating an odd conflict of time and space because “Mr. Big Nose is now here being painted by van Eyck.”

This type of “Taike identity” impacts the immediate visual and artistic concepts of the viewers. This series of artworks bring the viewers into the past, so that the sceneries in old paintings can resemble photography and have the function of “slicing a section of time.” The remnant antique artifacts, buildings, paintings, music, are pieced together by incorporating imagination and draw modern souls closer to the classic masters. 

The reappearance of Mr. Big Nose obscured the dual boundaries between professional art and amateurish “art” fans, and eliminated the solemn aesthetics of classic masterpieces distanced by space and time. Lu Fang’s Mr. Big Nose grows on the generation of agony via a path of humor and brings joy to people of the modern times. As the writer Milan Kundera says in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, “Laughter, on the other hand, is an explosion that tears us away from the world.”

-- artist's statement by Lu Fang

Guest Lecture

Lecture: 2010/11/13(Sat.) 15:30-16:30
Guest: 龔卓軍 Gong Jow-Jiun
Topic: Phenomenology of Spirit for Oil Paintings