Water Makes Man

　　A second group of classical models that Miao Xiaochun has selected for making new works includes three masterpieces: Titian’s Bacchanal (1520-1521), Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo’s The Martyrdom of St Sebastian (1475), and Pieter Bruegel’s Christ Carrying the Cross (1564). Unlike Fountain of Youth and The Deluge, water does not play an important narrative role in these paintings. But water is given heightened symbolic significance in Miao Xiaochun reworkings, so that this natural element now signifies a person’s bodily functions, and by extension is connected with his desire, emotion, and spirituality. Titian’s Bacchanal---or feast of Bacchus--- is most closely related to physicality and desire: the painting illustrates the mythological scene of the arrival of the god of wine on the Isle of Andros. The island's excited inhabitants await Bacchus' arrival---his ship with sails unfurled can be seen in the distance. Already merrily drunk, they raise wine cups to welcome their patron god. When Miao Xiaochun first saw this painting, he was struck by a minor image: a little boy is lifting up his robe while urinating in front of the audience. To Miao, the boy’s uninhibited behavior highlights the physical nature of the entire Bacchus cult: its material basis is nothing but the transformation of a liquid substance.

　　Water does not just fulfill bodily needs and desires, but also signifies spirituality, thought, and emotion. There are Chinese proverbs like “Supreme virtue is like water” (shang shan ruo shui) and “The association between wise men is pure like water”( jun zi zhi jiao dan ru shui ). Such spiritual association is the theme of Miao Xiaochun’s re-presentations of Piero del Pollaiuolo’s The Martyrdom of St Sebastian and Pieter Bruegel’s Christ Carrying the Cross. Most strikingly, certain characters in both paintings are refashioned into figures made of crystallized water, while others remain solid and opaque, or are clothed in the ordinary attire. Among these special characters is St. Sebastian in Pollaiuolo’s painting, who has been sentenced to death for being a Christian. Bound to a stake and shot with arrows, he is surrounded by six archers, whose varying poses and gestures nevertheless reinforce the centrality of the suffering saint. Miao Xiaochun not only represents these two groups of figures in different material forms, but has also altered the original composition to highlight the significance of water: the arrows that had pierced St Sebastian’s flesh are gone, and in their places is transparent fluid spilling out from the wounds. He has also added an image as a visual metaphor: a glass vase toppled over with liquid leaking out. The message is clear: the body is like a vessel; life stops when the “water” inside it have all poured out.

　　His reworking of Bruegel’s masterpiece is more complicated. The original painting depicts a fatal moment in Jesus’ life: “Christ carries the cross, on his way to Golgotha. Behind him is Simon of Cyrene, who helps to bear the weight of the cross. The fainting Virgin is supported by the three other Maries. Saint John the Evangelist, beside her, wrings his hands.” (Matthew 27: 30-3) Breughel’s painting is famous in art history for having transported this Biblical story into the present, giving it an immediacy to his contemporaries and simultaneously making a general statement about human actions. The ritual procession, hurried at the beginning and end, comes to a halt where Christ falls under the heavy weight of the Cross at the center of the painting. Confusion breaks out among his ragged tormentors and sorrowing followers. In the foreground is a remote, isolated group, consisting of the desperate Virgin and her companions. In making his new version, Miao Xiaochun’s goal is not simply to retell the story, as numerous artists have done before and after Bruegel. Rather, he focuses on those deeply spiritual characters in the painting and distinguishes them from the chaotic crowd. By transforming the Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the figures on the foreground into crystallized “water images,” he has devised a unique method to represent suffering, vulnerability, and purity all at once. He explains: “Life is transparent and frail like this. It’s easy to be attacked and die. People only have a very thin layer of skin binding their flesh together, and their body is 70% water. When people are at their weakest, fluids flow out of these bodies: tears when we are sad, blood when we are injured, sweat when we are exhausted.” Again: “(Jesus) too is frail, and endures extreme harm. He sacrifices himself for all, and it is this point that emotionally moves and captures so many people. . . I took all the weeping people in the foreground, including the Virgin Mary and the apostles, and made them all like crystallized water, as a metaphor for their ‘crying until they become weeping figures.’ The other people there, like the soldiers who are to execute the sentence and the indifferent spectators, all wear clothes. In the center, only Jesus has a completely transparent body.”[5]

　　Man Creates God

　　Paintings in the last group of examples Miao Xiaochun has selected, including Giotto’s The Washing of the Feet(1304-1306), Michelangelo’s Genesis: Creation of Adam (1510), and Nicolas Poussin’s Landscape with Diogenes (1647), have varying themes, but all feature water as a bonding agent between people and divinity, between people and Nature, and among people themselves. Giotto’s original painting does not actually represent water, which is only implied in the narrative. It is Miao Xiaochun’s reworking that reminds us that this natural substance must have symbolically connected Jesus with the aged apostle when he washes the latter’s feet. Poussin’s painting depicts a well-known anecdote about the ancient philosopher Diogenes, who, after rejecting all worldly goods, threw away his last possession---a cup---when he sees a man drinking water directly from a stream by cupping his hands. While Miao Xiaochun’s new versions reinforces the significance of water in these two works, his treatment of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam is the boldest in the entire project. Consisting of two photographs and a computer animation, this mini-series departs considerably from the original work in both pictorial composition and symbolic significance.

　　Most important, the relationship between God and Adam is reversed. The latter, though encapsulated inside a transparent capsule and not yet come to life, cups a ball of crystallized water with both hands and thus symbolizes the source of life. It is God who draws life (i. e. water) from the space inside the capsule through a long straw. He then transmits this precious substance to the chorus of angels who surround him. Miao Xiaochun imagines that the setting of this suspended capsule can be either microscopic or macroscopic: the capsule can be a tiny cell in a much large organism, or can be an imaginary spacecraft in the vast space. In both cases it represents a sealed container carrying and protecting life. He says: “In a spacecraft, water is extremely valuable---water used for drinking, washing one’s face, rinsing one’s mouth, etc. is all needed and recycled. In the three-dimensional computer animation I have made based on the same painting, there is a group of people who are outside of this container. They are outside of its protection and suffer in a state of dehydration. They use a long straw to draw it over in order to attain life. The person in the clear sphere (i. e. Adam) transfers the water to the others, and in doing so he loses the water, loses life, and in the end becomes a skeleton, which further transforms into fragments and powder, and vanishes into the universe.”[6]

　　In other words, it is Man who has sacrificed himself to create God.

　　[1] For a discussion of this project, see Wu Hung, “Miao Xiaochun’s Last Judgment,” in Miao Xiaochun：The Last Judgment in Cyberspace (Chicago: Walsh Gallery, 2006).

　　[2] Miao Xiaochun, “About H2O- A Study of Art History.” Manuscript provided by the artist.

　　[3] Ibid.

　　[4] Ibid.

　　[5] From “Re-imagining H2O in Art---A Discussion between Wu Hung and Miao Xiaochun.”

　　[6] Ibid.

【Editor：jen】