Artist Biography In The New Era

Chinese biographical literature in the new era has shown a diversified development, reflected in many aspects such as the gradual extension of the scope of biographees and the increase of the number of biographers with multiple and uniquely styled works. Among these aspects, the creation of painters biography with particular aesthetic value has drawn much attention. With scientificity, historicity and scholarship, painters biography reveal painters'life experiences and at the same time emphasize manifesting painter's individuality. Biographers have an in-depth spiritual communication and"a life-to-life dialogue"with painters on an objective basis. The unique understanding, interpretation and evaluation display painters'individualized images. However, there are no master theses or doctoral dissertations systematically studying painters biography, and existing research papers are just concerned with biographies of particular painters. The present dissertation systematically explores painters biography in the new era. In this dissertation, Chinese painters biography in the new era is studied in the context of Chinese literature history and Chinese fine art history. The dissertation first summarizes the function and value of painters biography in the new era. Next it puts forward the author's viewpoints by making a detailed analysis based on specific texts of the relationship between historicity and literariness and that between biographers and biopgraphees in painters biography. And then the dissertation illustrates the text writing strategies of painters biography to find out the successful creative experiences and the deficiencies and make a systematical analysis. Finally it discusses the new trend of painters biography creation in the 21th century, so as to guide the creation by enhancing the ideology, scholarship and readability in it and promoting the stylistic consciousness of biographers, and to be of great help to the theoretical study of painters biography. The dissertation is composed of sixt parts.The Introduction describes the origin of"biographical literature", and the function and essential attributes of biographical literature. As an independent literary mode, biographical literature contains both historicity and literariness, and is the product of the combination of these two attributes. In modern biographical literature,"biography"has the same idea as"biographical literature". Terms of"biography","biographical literature"and"biographical work"in this dissertation all refer to the literary writing which narrates people's life and contains both historicity and literariness. Painters biographies in ancient China are mostly scattered in writings on painting theories, and there has been no systematically edited painters biography yet. In the new era, a group of painters biographies with high artistic achivements have appeared, revealing various images of painters, and enabling readers to learn of the situation in the painting circle. However, the theoretical study of this field is relatively backward. No master thesis or doctoral dissertation on it has been found.The First Chapter gives a general introduction of the painters biography creation in the new era. The painters biography creation in the new era is very brilliant. Biographers represented by scholars, painters, and friends and relatives of biographees depict vivid images of biographees with their distinctive artistic techniques, and enrich the biographical literature in the new era. However, most biographees are the painters who have achived high status in Chinese fine art history, which is the"celebrity"phenomenon in the painters biography in the new era. None of biographies on oridary painters has been published yet. This is not good for displaying the painters'images as a whole, and demonstrating Chinese fine art history as well. Along with changes of times, themes in biographical literature change, too. Painters biographies in the new era lay emphasis on the description of painters'personality and their unique humane spirit. Biographers illustrate painters'high morality that they pay attention to the social issues and people's living by giving account of painters'words, actions and artistic creations. They display painters'outstanding personalities which are commonly owned by traditional Chinese intellectuals such as being diligent and modest by narrating painters'attitude to artistic creation. And most importanly, they depict painters' various individualities.The Second Chapter discusses the relationship between historicity and literariness in biographical literature. Both historicity and literariness are the essential attributes of biographical literature. Since the biographical style was created, the issue about its essential attributes has been a focus in the theoretical circle of biographical literature. Scholars represented by Liang Qichao believe that biographical literature belongs to history category, so it has to follow the principle of"historical authenticity", while others such as Hu Shi, Yu Dafu and Zhu Dongren think that it belongs to literature category, emphasizing that its literariness is equally important as authenticity. In author's opinion, as a non-fictitious documentary writing style, biographical literature is different from historical study and is essentially distinct from novels, and it is a writing style combining historicity with literariness. The depiction of biographees'life must be strictly subject to historical facts, while diversified literary techniques needs to be applied to show biographees'vivid individual images. Biographical literature cannot be fictitious because of its historicity, and it has to unfold the vivid details of biographees'experiences due to its literariness which have become vague as time passes. Therefore, biographical literature could be moderately imaginary on the premise of being subject to historical facts to display biographees'vivid images by various writings skills, e.g. the depiction of characters'legendary experiences, the reasonable exaggeration of the plot, the skilful portrayal of the environment and atmosphere, the design of languages, actions and internal monologues that conform to the social background and living environment the biographee is in and the biographee's individuality, and the psychological description. All these writing skills also show biographers'free spirit. However, the fictionality of biographical literature is definitely different from that in novels. Biographical literature cannot be fictious without limits, and the"historical authenticity"has to be manifested. Biographers should try to achieve a good balance between"authenticity"and"fictionality"in the creative process. Biographical literature could be reasonably imaginary on the premise of being subject to historical facts so as to display various individual images of biographees and to enhance the artistic appeal of works.The Third Chapter elaborates the relationship between biographers and biographees and how biographers play the key role as a subject in biographical creation. Biographers and biographees are the two subjects in biograpgical creation, and biographers play a crucial role in the entire creative course. Many biographers tend to choose a person as the protagonist who is admired by or has the similar enperiences and spiritual resonation with themselves. By writing the biographee's life experiences, biographers try to express their thoughts, emotions and ambitions, and convey their values and philosophy. Moreover, biographers should skilfully use the large amount of complicated material available. The selection and organization of material reflect biographers'understanding and interpretation of biographees and convey biographers'philosophy and creative ideas. In addition, biographers should pay full attention to the interpretation of biographees and their works. Interpretation has become a biographical element that most modern biographers consciously pursue, and"the uninterpreted facts are useless like gold buried deep in ground". Outstanding biographers should play his role well as a subject in the literary creation and explore deeply biographees'inner feelings. With strong subjectivity in their writings, biographers have"a life-to-life dialogue"with biographees and unfold great artistic charm of characters with literary techniques. However, biographers should interpret biographees and their works objectively, fairly and uniquely on the premise of being subject to historical facts. The phenomenon of"Bihui"( a word or expression to be avoided as taboos) exists implicitly or explicitly in the biographical creation of the west and China. It is an inevitable phenomenon that results from the projection of biographers'subjective consciousness. From the ethic perspective, as for the mistakes made by biographees and their shortcomings, biographers should"neither skip them nor manifest them too precisely", but describe them moderately to maintain biographees'images in people'mind. In the creative process, biographers should try to avoid"making taboos for the respectable, for the relative, and for the philosopher"and display vivid images of biographees objectively and dispassionately without exceedingly exposing biographees'privacy.The Fourth Chapter explores diversified artistic techniques applied in painters biography in the new era. The artistic appeal of biographical literature is embodied by the text writing. The painters biography in the new era inherits and breakthroughs some traditional techniques such as the construction of works, and the narrative angle and form, manifesting fully the artistic charm of biographical style. Most biographies are done in strictly chronological order. Generally, biographers narrate biographees'life experiences year by year or in several stages with time progress or place transition as basic clues, and interpret biographees'thoughts development, academic activities, social communications and personalities in chronological order with detailed description of the highlights of biographees'life. Thus, biographees'life experiences are shown in an all-sided way. On the other hand, some biographies are not organized in exactly chronological order. Biographers would choose something about the biographee that is most iconic and attractive to readers as a starting point, and unfold vividly the biographee's whole life. In most excellent works of painter biographies in the new era, the narrative technique of"omniscient perspective"is flexibly applied by which the narrator could see the events happening, recall the events which happened, or imagine the events to happen or may happen, and even explore deeply the biographee's inward world to display his thoughts. Biographees in painters biographies in the new era have"upright"and"energetic"images, which reflect diversified techniques of creating characters: the biographee is put in an intense conflict; the daily life of the biographee is portrayed in detail; the characters'individualized languages and conversations are depicted; the inward feelings of the biographee are described. All these techniques contribute to showing before readers the charaters who are far away from us in historical or modern real life world.The Conclusion is about the trend of painters biography creation in the 21th century. More painters could be included in biographical creation, so ordinaty painters would appear in the scope of biographees, and a large number of painters autobiographies would appear. Biographers should try to avoid making taboos for biographees, interpret biographees in an all-around way, and let readers learn of painters'inward world by psychological analysis. Thus, the painters biography in the new era could show greater artistic charm, and"dance beautifully"in the area of Chinese biographical literature.