1. Orwell Smoking
Orwell seemed to be smoking all the time. He looked like a worried old man. 1984 has long past, however nothing had happened.
i. The Capitalist Who Exploits the Workers is a small picture book originally published in 1964 by China Children Press, many years ago I got all of the manuscript illustrations in this book by chance. The cover was pictured by the famous Mr. Hua Sanchuan, another author is Chen Huiguan. It is a typical revolutionary mass art work under realistic line. As the important cultivating supplies of visual experience for youth of my generation, although picture book as a kind of artistic heritage is not taken seriously today, it’s always precious to me. Watching and watching, I decided to select five of the illustrations to repaint. It 's not about tribute, also not about imitating. It can be regarded as the re-creation process of the context in the text. Is the production process of copying text about the text, the information related to the old text is now linked to generate new information in present time. And the pen and ink always serve the time, imitating the old is eventually to depict today. Remaking the old pictures has a special meaning at present time.
ii. Tracing back from Mr. Hua Sanchuan’s way, I pondered the Talks at the Yen’an Forum on Literature and Art, I laid my eyes on another important heritage – Yan’an Woodcut. In Shoot-Bang!, I borrowed the original image to create a parody of the masterpiece of the Western Master Goya, in Mr. Wang Shikuo 's old works I saw some revealing similar to religious paintings, so I rigidly added punk chicken and bright sun to Reforming Loafers~Wooo~. They are the carefull fathom about the heritage of Yanan Woodcut, and the quiet comprehension about the great discipline.
iii. Chicken Blood Therapy was liberated in 1967, and was spread all over in a time, mass people competed to do Chicken Blood Therapy, various instruction brochures were printed, on most of the covers was a combination of an injector and a big cock. In the good pictures, the big cock looked mighty and magnificent, the bad pictures had a sagged and silly cock, as POP ART at that time, it’s also very interesting. I might as well copy for once, after all, now our sleeves are rolled up, even without chicken blood, don’t we still have to work harder?
iv. Yellow streamers hang on the Mount Lion, just like the Six-words Memoir on the Five Elements Mountain. Six words memoir turns into five words, you got to prevent from heartbroken if you have too much complain.
2．Huxley Taking Medicine
Huxley liked taking medicine. No one knows what medicine gave him the inspiration for the fictional "Soma ". They say he 's right. He also was a worried old man.
i. In Brave New World people dated with bottles on the floor, after taking the pills they fell asleep. Science develops to the digital age, the mosaics are my "soma ". The world in Out of control is in fact not losing control, it’s a more precise control. How much the world loves Kevin Kelly 's future, that’s how much I love Aoi Sora behind mosaics.
ii. November 23rd 1949， Mao Zedong approved the Ministry of Culture Shen Yanbing to issue The Instruction about the Development of New Year Pictures with his signature, which was published by People 's Daily on 27th. Once the instruction was out, all characters responded rapidly, the movement spread like a raging fire. Mr. Li Mubai who was taught by the calendar master Hang Xiying, set the model for the style of new year pictures. His modeling language was the combination of Chinese and Western, his subjects pieced ancient and modern together, that rigid good awkward taste, with its strong spreading power, influenced the aesthetic countless Chinese family, until the end of 80s. About the origin of Hello Chang’e, the author I’m not very familar, but it is typical the new year picture. The goddess on the moon meets Chinese good and brave children, behind the old void type of imagination is the beautiful vision for the nation’s narrative vision. This is not the painter 's dream, it’s the dream of flying to outer space, is the dream of a big country. So I facsimiled it, and sketched it once more.
iii. In 2013, the dream of flying to the moon came true, the moon landed Jade Rabbit. It never comes back. If the universe lends Jade Rabbit another five hundred years, how will its form evolve? This is not a dream of big country, this is the painter’s dream, the inferior science fiction. That’s why I painted it like the cover of general spread science fiction. Then I made a big rabbit out of it, still it’s just the imagination about the future from a farmer inventor.
iv. How good is the future? All kinds of dreams, big dreams and small dreams, they are all the dreams drawn on the textbook for us to watch. Under blue sky and white clouds and on the grass, we daydream with chin rested in the standard posture. Good discipline tells us that this is called the Longing about the good future.
3. What Do We Do?
"We will have bread, " how many years we have said this sentence, and "We Have Bread Now ", and it’s quite some. But facing the great and good discipline, we "Butterfingers ", and "Rolling No More ". This is involuntarily noncooperation, it’s to discipline the shameless and weakness of our generation. However, there are weak grassroots, but also twisted mob roots. There are motionless timber, there are pillars of society which can roll. There are people who can’t receive it, there are also who can wait for opportunities, dead trees also want to grow new flowers. There are people who pour cold water and dirty water, naturally there are people to wash clean with blood. For such a chaos, why bother to ask, just so-called, do what you do. Let me see Pinocchio on the donkey, listen to him: "Backward！Backward！Backward！ "
4. Orwell and Huxley
Two old men were disheartened and hopeless. In the long night, the bonfire is silent. "Ah... " they could not help but saying: "The Fire is Out ".
Gao Yu
2017.3.7
