The Tempera Painting of Cao Jigang: Reflection of Jade, Deep Concentration, and Minimalism

Dr. Xia Kejun

Almost everyone in the world knows the beauty of Mona Lisa’s smile by Leonardo da Vinci; yet, people rarely understand the secret painting skills behind it. The magical smile seems covered with a mysterious veil, which comes from the painting skill, Sfumato. It was said that Leonardo da Vinci painted up to 30 layers of thin oil paint with the thickness of each layer was merely one to two micrometers. The imperceptible transitions show the obscure, light, and transparent effects that soften the rigid sensation of the outlines in oil paintings, and therefore enhance the charms and subtlety of the smile.

The material of Mona Lisa has been believed is in oil on panel. However, it may be more accurate to be considered as in mixed media during the age of ‘Egg Tempera’. In other words, the painting utilized tempera as the color base, despite that the oil colors were more obvious with little evidence of egg tempera. It indeed used some of such material. It is probably used the abundant color layers as the base, or the repeated glazing skill of tempera, which created the color layer effect of the oil painting. Additionally, one of the advantages of oil paint is that it can create extremely thin layers that are capable of repeatedly covering and amending after the coating dried. The Sfumato technique of the painting exerted such an advantage profoundly in the artwork and employed the skill of tempera and its perception theory as the color base.

Hence, what is the technique of tempera? It is a painting skill in the Renaissance that uses a painting medium consists of water and oil to precast the pigments for painting. The glutinous and turbid binder medium usually utilizes egg yolks or the entire egg as the emulsifier, sometimes with a moderate amount of oil and vinegar, to mix with pigments. The feature of the material is not only fast drying but also presents soft luster that shines as an eggshell. After repeated polish and drying processes, layers and layers of colors will remain and show its best appearance that may even with a texture of marble or transparency as clouds.

Except for the difficulty of the technique and the texture of the colors, such a complicated painting process may also possess a sacred sense of reverence from the artists toward arts or religions, presenting strong faith as the deep and indelible texture. The elaborate process is meant to enrich the colors, as like the tens of trapping halos from the heaven that shines eternally.

Kilns of Song Dynasty, such as Ru Ware and Ding Ware, is well known for its pure and extreme beauty. The name of “China” represents the meaning of “Porcelain”. Why do Chinese people pursue the texture of solid color for their daily utensils such as white porcelain and celadon with minimal form? How do they develop such a high-end metaphysical quality? The solid color has provided the object with an extreme purity, which delivers the “Jade Texture” with a plain yet faint aura. Such a near and far sensation has almost made it a holy relic.

Why “Jade Texture” becomes the supreme life quality in Chinese culture? There were secrets about “Color Breathes in Ink” and “Ink Breathes in Color” since Xia Dynasty, as the literati, Huang Bin-Hong, once mentioned. It transferred the morality and etiquette that were as clear as jade ware into the pure aesthetics as the jade texture. Being the pure quality of cultural life, no matter it is poetic jade dew or the psychic gem described in a novel; the jade texture has become the deepest secret of cultural life and individuals.

From jade to the jade texture of Song Dynasty porcelain, the jade texture differs from the Lapis Lazuli in ancient times, the shiny and waxy sensation in the western classics, the ink light of Chinese ink wash paintings, the monotony of contemporary monochrome paintings, and the dazzling psychedelic colors in modern society. It is a feeling we could touch yet feel mysteriously far away, a touch with aura, and a deep sense with the permeability of time’s patina that contains a gently and deeply peaceful beauty, which enables the slack contemporary souls to concentrate calmly.

If there is a reason for painting to be existed for its delivering a unique perception and touching beauty, it is necessary to “create” a jade texture. This is almost the only and the final secret of painting.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, couple of professors from the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing attempted to retrieve the egg tempera technique from ancient western society. They have been exploring the skills for years, and Cao Jigang is one of the core members. In other words, twenty years ago, Cao Jigang had given up the oil painting skills that he had employed for a long time. Instead, he started to re-explore the contemporary value of tempera paintings.

Why choosing such a complicated technique as tempera painting? Tens layers of repeated glazing and covering with multiple times of handling to different pigments. It is similar to archaeological works that have complex procedures, as well as similar to the process of making prints. Still, it requires artists to be more patience, to pause, and to consider the light changes and transparency. Finally, the artwork will obtain a sense of gloss that watercolor oil paintings would never be able to present, a texture similar to marble, jade, and porcelain—the jade texture.

The jade texture condenses all kinds of technical skills, aesthetic purposes, and the work of mind cultivation. A task that needs endurance with time-intensity; the work requires tremendous concentration and exquisite sensitivity. These traits are the abundance that the modern accelerate era to be lack of, especially the sense of time in conceptual art.

What will happen when “Tempera” met “Shanshui”? The cultural visual memory of the entire traditional landscape painting and the flawless living memories of literati, aesthetics, mountains, and rivers will be reconstructed and perceived in modern ways. To Cao Jigang, he is not complacent about the challenges and the pleasure after learning tempera. He attempts to modify tempera with ink washed texture. In other words, he expects to address tempera painting with the ink washed texture as the artworks of Song Dynasty to demonstrate the jade or porcelain texture. And this caused the dual modifications, one is adding permeability as ink washed to the tempera technique that already has a transparency effect (although the plaster foundation of tempera painting corresponds to seeping), and the other is displaying the deep touch of time in jade texture (which is much richer and gentler than the jade texture in western tempera paintings). To Cao Jigang, this is not merely a research of “techniques” but the transformation of a “skill toward Taoism”.

When “Tempera” met “Shanshui”, Cao Jigang began with landscape painting which delivered abundant changes naturally without falling into abstract conceptual operation and repeated production. Unlike improvisational landscape painting, it has to engage in-depth cultural history ingeniously while preserving the plentiful changes of natural.

Secondly, Cao Jigang illustrates the cultural-historical memories of traditional landscape paintings through his works. Therefore, he created such a vivid landscape painting with the part of a valley seems to echo with the Snow Mountains by Guo Xi, an artist in Song Dynasty, which shows a flash of a classic part in a Song Dynasty artwork.

Thirdly, his paintings are definitely not like a partial enlargement but the accumulation of many layers of time perception that mixes the vitality at that moment with time differences. Layering the iconography of historical cultures and pushing the scene before your eyes to the extremely far away. It is not the extreme of the naked eye, but the extreme of historical memories, among which, mixing a pinch of vicissitudes. Take the tremendous artwork, “Guangling San”, for example, the scene contains in-depth historical tragedy.

Fourthly, by applying the layering skill repeatedly in tempera painting, the traditional black-and-white ink paintings display a heavier sensation. It feels like the accumulate-ink method of Gong Xian in the late Ming Dynasty that using layers and layers of accumulation is similar to print the historical trauma of hearts. It may seem nothing at first glance. Nevertheless, the delicate granularity and the mottled marks remain underneath the transparent layer with gentle care. Isn’t the tempera technique the care and protection to the broken patterns in lives? Isn’t it like a terminal lucidity of old memories?

Lastly, the value of paintings in this accelerating virtual era is to bring a pause to concentration and to re-confirm the mind to focus on this era full of scattered minds. The accompanying changes in life quality would become the vitality for us to speed up promptly. The more we feel enthusiastic, the more we need to be calm. The white-hot modernity requires extreme calmness; it is like balancing the poetic scenes with empty cold and quiet qualities. This is what the sensation of life need desperately, and such peace and extremes need to reflect via the jade texture! This far-reaching second wind and the desolate and empty cold feelings reproduce the coldness of jade texture, which transfers our restless souls. Consequently, the classic poetry can express in the contemporary era.

The contemporary value of Cao Jigang’s paintings is the repeated glazing in tempera layers. He changes our perceptions about life and rebuilds our souls by the memories in the poetry of cultural history and the jade texture triggered by empty-cold poetry.

In recent years, there are more profound changes in Cao Jigang’s artworks. In the Cao Jigang Solo show represented by Bluerider ART, we can see more masterpieces that are new and experience profound, heartbreaking exploration. This is the reason why Bluerider ART particularly named the exhibition as “When Tempera met Shanshui”, which indicates an encounter of two classics in the contemporary period and expects shining sparks to forge!

There are no straightforward landscape paintings. Instead, you will find something simplified, similar to a part of or the hemming of the Southern Song Dynasty, which is the segmentation of black and white.

Something seems like mountains, may it be a split of an abstract concept or even the contrast of black and white colors. Nonetheless, they are not abstract paintings but something with light creases. The gentleness of seams at the edges of mountains lingers the deep emotion of the artist.

The peaceful gaze from the distance of the horizon will bring an insightful intimation. The traditional Chinese art theory of “three distances”, in Cao Jigang’s masterpieces, will be demonstrated in a more simplified abstract way, which gives subtle tremble to the atmosphere.

There is a bit of gray appeared on the surface seems merely black and white, which are like the new three primary colors. The painting has again divided into three, which are the parts of gentleness, dimness, and poetry. These parts present the bright and elegant poetry to the entire artwork. Because the lightness at the edges of the outlines and the seams, the three parts seem to float secretly with meandering breathes.

In these minimalist works, unlike the minimalism in abstract arts, they only leave a touch of smoke shadow and the floating intangible color. It is exactly the smoke shadow lingers between vanishing and staying, gives a feeling of either impermanent or timeless. Charming yet blurred, transparent yet abundant, the artist managed to seize the moment on the painting naturally.

It is a world as virtuous as jade, like merely presenting the outline of mountains with touches of transparent and light marks, and like the rim of a Song porcelain cup. Are the calm peace and smoke lightness not the hidden poetry that attempted many times to deliver on the overlapped rock cliffs or in the smoke mist by Wang Shen in Northern Song, Ni Zan in Yuan Dynasty, and Dong Qichang and Wang Hui in Ming Dynasty? Under the dilemma between landscape painting and photography, the poetic sensation of skills seems to be lost in modern times. Nevertheless, Cao Jigang with the support of tempera’s technique, prosperity, and haze, as well as the dual transformation of ink wash and jade textures, enable the reappearance of the poetic calmness and aura.

Absentminded and floating, impermanent yet eternal, painting provides an implicit tension that offers those rushing, empty contemporary souls an opportunity to concentrate calmly. Nothing is more impermanent than those moments, and nothing is more eternal and stable than mountains. However, in Cao Jigang’s tempera paintings, those floating objects has been stabilized and eternal matters started to float, which rejoins after reversing. It is so simple and quiet which expresses the contemporary era by the deepest desolate calmness.

The new paintings of Cao Jigang are the representative of the contemporary aesthetics in imaginary color. It differs from the abstract landscape paintings of Zao Wou-Ki that show a strong emotional performance and brushstrokes, and it differs from Richard Lin’s abstract collage with minimalist bars, either. Instead, it is something that deepens into ancient Chinese poetic scenes; yet, with the mindset of minimalism and abstract logic.

When ‘Tempera’ met ‘Shanshui’, a divine intersection of two classics themes. Mixing two of the most supreme qualities is the modern conciseness and abstract, which enables us to absorb the essence from the classic and to combine it with the poetry. This might be a brand new contribution in Chinese painting: a return of the classic poetry while simplifying the abstract idea into something with higher purity. A reappear of classic techniques in the western and the prosperity while maintaining the timeless jade texture of traditional Chinese classic, which becomes the revival and combination of the two classics themes. Engaging the classical mindset and the elegant sentiment with the fashion of modern conciseness and purity to acquire in-depth sensation. Only to keep the tension of paradox can reach the internationalization standard in painting, and enable painting to go further and be more fascinating. Cao Jigang’s paintings develop in such a high-tension environment, supreme and elegant while being concise and subtle. We will all sincerely expect the path of its future.

Dr. Xia Kejun
Philosopher, art critic, curator. Doctor of Philosophy, currently teaching as professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China.