Foreword
Du Pengfei

Feng Yuan has served as the first director of Tsinghua University Art Museum (abbreviated to “TAM”) since the spring of 2015, and leaved here at the end of 2017 for the preparation of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. It was a great honor for me to work under his leadership and guidance for almost three years. This period was crucial to the development of TAM, during which I had undergone an amazing metamorphosis from a teacher of the School of Environment to a director of an art museum. It is no exaggeration to say that without Feng Yuan's overall planning from a strategic perspective, there would be no high-level and fabulous appearance as well as the sustainable development and promotion of TAM. He laid the foundations for the growth of TAM that attaches great importance to education and high standard, as well as the aim of professional and academic development, which set an example to the university museums. All of these outstanding achievements are inseparable from Feng Yuan's life experiences of hardship, self-improvement power and dogged perseverance.

 

In 1969,When the movement “Educated Urban Youth Working in the Countryside and Rural Areas” gathered momentum, Feng Yuan went to a famous farm which was a wasteland reclaimed by an army unit in “the Great Northern Wilderness” — Zha Ha Yang Farm of Heilongjiang，and worked there for eight years. He also entered upon his art career at that time. In 1974, he got an award with his artwork Under An Apple Tree selected for “the 5th National Exhibition of Fine Arts”, by which he catapulted to fame.


In 1978, as one of the first graduates of Chinese painting after the college entrance examination resumed, he was admitted to the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art (China Academy of Fine Arts) and started studying the postgraduate course of traditional Chinese painting under the tutorship of the famous Chinese painter Fang Zengxian. Two years later, he completed the master's degree in Chinese painting stayed for teaching after graduation, and successively held the posts of Dean of Chinese Painting Department, Dean of Registrar’s office, Vice President of the academy etc. He has been engaged both in painting and teaching Chinese portraiture for nearly ten years, and has made positive contributions to the development of art education of China. In 1999, he was transferred to assume the position of Director of Education and Science & Technology Department of Ministry of Culture, P.R.C., achieving the crossover from a university professor to a government official; in 2003, he was elected to the Vice President of China Artists Association and became the Director of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in 2004; in 2005,he was elected to the Vice President as well as the member of Secretariat of CPC Central Committee of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC)... He was conscientious and responsible in his every post，which has greatly promoted the exchange and mutual reference between Chinese and international art circles.

 

Feng Yuan was invited to serve as the Honorary President of the Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University in 2008, and was tightly bound to Tsinghua from then on as a “super volunteer”. What's more, he has made every effort to prepare for the opening of Tsinghua University Art Museum, and has made great contributions to the development of art majors and professionals of Tsinghua University.

 

Feng Yuan is over his seventy this year. He has played different roles over the years, such as “educated urban youth” in the “Great Northern Wilderness”, graduate of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art, professor and Honorary President of Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University, the government official, Director of the National Art Museum of China, and Vice President of China Artists Association as well as China Federation of Literary and Art Circles... No matter how the roles change, Feng Yuan has kept up painting without interruption as a painter. He always steals a bit of time for conception and painting from the rush of heavy jobs. The most powerful weapon for a painter is his paintbrush, and his work is the “bullet”. Feng Yuan’s work is constantly focuses on the multiple relationships between human and history, human and society, human and art, as well as human and spirit, so as to give consideration to both historical observation and realistic concern.

 

“Untold Implications – Feng Yuan Art Exhibition” is the most systematic and complete retrospect of his art life, which includes over 200 pieces of artworks over a span of 43 years, from which we could catch a glimpse of his footprints and inner journey on the path of exploration and practice of Chinese portraiture’s new expression and forms. Presuming on my juniority and benefiting from Professor Feng’s concern and support for TAM, the fruit of his painstaking labour, so that we were given the chance to host this important exhibition. By taking this chance, it also provides a great opportunity for us to enrich the sequence of our painting collection of modern section by Professor Feng’s kindness to have selected and donated a suite of works to TAM. Undoubtedly, his works, as well as his generosity, exemplary conduct and nobility of character, remain for us the inexhaustible precious spiritual wealth.　

Even if we could give full scope to artistic creativity by size, depth, contrast, joys and sorrows as well as unruliness and restraint, we still have to create the enchanting effect for ourselves and others by thought-provoking works to stretch the imagination and to reveal the artist’s outlook by philosophical, religious and artistic implications in his works. Through the kaleidoscopic appearances are not only in the realm of reality but also in the present of modern times, human spirit is locked deep in the subconscious. Different footsteps and accomplishments lead to the diversity of artistic life.

 

 

“Profound thought, exquisite art and ingenious technique” are integral to a fabulous artwork, which is an unattainable goal to which we could always aim higher. Among a myriad of creatures in the world, human being is the most intricate creation, which is also the living entity hard to “metamorphose”. Presenting figures of the people as the central theme by freehand brushwork of traditional Chinese painting，is closely related to the form and expression of figures and objects. Thus it can be seen that, among the figurative, realistic, freehand and spiritual expressions, no matter which way we choose, technique is undeniably the top priority.

 

 

As individual entities, we are all transitory passengers in space-time. A human being could not get rid of history as an onlooker, but lives as an individual restricted by historical conditions. It almost be either this or that for the path of artistic creation -- “art of human” that aims to realistic spirit, and focuses on narrative by time and historical thoughts, or “artistic human” that was created as the key ingredient of an artwork which gives an ostentatious expression. A piece of marvellous artwork is indubitably a perfect incarnation of the two attributes.

 

 

In the spacious firmament and macrocosm with a myriad of creatures, it was shamelessly boastful to advertise one’s art as “bursting with verve and vitality”. Art is definitely neither a tree without roots nor water without source, but has to rely on objective reality and imagination to reveal the spiritual essence. Even the multidimensional space, a fruit of scientific research, also could not get rid of practical experiences, so as to achieve the logical conclusion, the order out of chaos and representation of significance. Entity and nothingness, are complementary and inextricably linked. Art is constantly wandering around “Being and Non-being” to explore the implications of emergence, creativity, sublimation and empowering value.