La mort de Marat

A comparison of the painting La Mort de Marat by the Chinese contemporary artist YUE Min Jun and the painting that inspired him,  La Mort de Marat, a late 18th century historical piece by French artist Jacques-Louis David.

The David painting, representing the final moments of the murdered revolutionary Marat and bearing the inscription "to Marat, David".

We can observe realist figurative elements (bath, knife, letter from Charlotte Corday), but also use of idealisation and dramatisation (the force line of the light along the diagonal, the tomb-like inscription, the heroic representation and Christ-like elements). It is clear that the painter wished to create a personable hero in order to convey a strong symbolic and political message in the historical context of 18th century France.

The backdrop however is an abstract representation occupying more than half of the upper part of the piece. If the principal figure of Marat and certain other natural elements were to be taken out, the spectator would be left in an abstract world.

The Chinese artist YUE has taken steps towards doing exactly this: he removes the figure of Marat, not only in the sense of removing his person, but all that his person represents within the limits of the artistic piece : the composition of the original pivots on the diagonal line of force alone the fallen arm of the murdered Marat (such a line of force represents the notion of tragedy in classical painting), imposing on the spectator a hierarchical relationship between the elements in the painting, by which the human tragedy of this figure is of primary importance. Furthermore, the figure of the naked Marat, marked by elements corresponding to classic esthetic ideals, is raised to a Christ-like idealisation.

YUE Min Jun's choice of this semi-abstract, semi-figurative piece as his inspiration indicates a reflection on the role of art, its uses of esthetic force to involve the spectator in emotional states and yet with a political angle.
In traditional Chinese art, the artist takes on the role of a philosopher who demands that his viewer carry out a work of self-reflection. What work of self-reflection might this artist be inciting us to carry out?

The visitors at the recent YUE Min Jun exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain may well wonder if “the Laughing Painter", thus christened by casual art critics, is seeking an escape from his cumbersome title in these phantasmagoric pieces. Beware of superficial appearances! Is it logical to assume that the painter of Gun Gun or Mao Xing Lan, also a child of the pre-Deng Xiao Ping China of the 60s and 70s, is of a psychological profile sensitive to the demands of conformity from others? Would it not be reasonable to imagine that the Reinterpretation series corresponds to a continuation of YUE’s reflections on the identity and representation of the individual in different cultures in the modern world?

YUE Min Jun is generally considered to be a Chinese artist with an ironical vision in regard to certain elements of Chinese society. However, we might recall that this artist has never himself given precise explanations of his pieces, preferring to limit himself to anecdotal information on his generation or on his creative processes. YUE has discussed the difficulty of separating one's personal from cultural identity, yet just as he avoids being pigeon-holed as a "cynical realist", he does not appear easily classifiable as part of the fashionable new wave of China-critical Chinese artists that seem to be so pleasing to our western eye. It appears that YUE possesses a more universal quality.

Coming back to the La Mort de Marat piece, let us consider the representation of human tragedy by our modern channels of information, namely, the main-stream media. Their audience is exposed to genuine tragedy, sensationalist pieces and inane news items, arranged on the page in a non-hierarchical relationship. Thus, in the modern era, human experience is represented either through fabricated interest or sensationalist massacre. Might we, as the viewer of this representation, find it increasingly difficult to understand the role of the human individual on this confused stage? Perhaps the artist YUE Min Jun is suggesting that in this era, it is only when the representation of the tragic human figure is removed that the psyche of the viewer finds itself capable of successfully adding it back in.

It is also clear when viewing the two paintings that YUE has imposed his own distinct style of manga esthetic combined with realist depictions, which some art critics consider reflect this artist's vision of human experience in general as containing elements of farce and artificiality.

We eagerly await future exhibitions of YUE's work in Europe, and hope to continue to discover the changing face of his sharp yet elusive style.