Fifty-five years ago this May, yet another aspiring painter arrived in Paris. The French capital was then the mecca for artists from around the world, but 34-year-old Chu Teh-Chun (Zhu Dequn), who is being honored by a major retrospective this month at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), had traveled particularly long and far to reach the city of his dreams. His study of art had begun almost 20 years before at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, and from the first time he looked inside a book of Western painting he knew Paris was where he wanted to be.

书法的演进理路大约可以分为三种。魏晋至宋代渐次构建起来的“文人传统”,强调书法的精英文化品格,深含着对民族文化复兴的热烈企盼;清代构建的“碑学传统”,文革后又扩展为“民间书风传统”,赞美无名书迹的勃勃生机,体现出对权威秩序的挑战,充溢着肯定个体生命价值的强烈意愿;借鉴改革开放后从欧美进入的前卫艺术而发展起来的现代书法,其表现是放弃汉字的“制约”,以笔墨的抽象构成(乃至行为、观念)为表现方式,使书法成为“世界艺术”而非仅仅是“民族艺术”。这三种演进理路相互交融,形成当今书坛纷繁复杂的局面。