美国里德学院的曹星原教授对20世纪中国人物画的研究,“主张撇开政治社会的背景,从视觉本身出发,即从作品自身的发展演变来探讨人物画的得失成败。”这种提倡从艺术本身研究艺术的功夫,当然是要做的。但我认为,要对20世纪人物画乃至20世纪中国美术问题进行评价和研究,撇开20世纪的政治和社会背景,是不能将20世纪的人物画、乃至20世纪整个中国美术研究得清楚与透彻的。 对于中国来说,20世纪的最大政治是什么呢?一部20世纪的中国近现代史,是伟大的中国人民由沉睡到觉醒,是中国由一个半封建半殖民地的社会,历经以谭嗣同、孙中山、毛泽东到邓小平等为代表的几代革命先贤和人仁志士,进行长期的艰苦卓绝的斗争,前仆后继,英勇奋斗和流血牺牲,终于在中国共产党的领导下,运 Professor Cao Xingyuan of Reed College in the United States studied 20th-century Chinese figure painting, “advocating setting aside the background of political society and proceeding from the vision itself, that is, the success or failure of figure painting from the development and evolution of the work itself.” Of course, art’s own art of studying art is to be done. However, I think it is impossible to appraise and study 20th century Chinese figure paintings and Chinese art problems in the 20th century. Apart from the political and social background of the 20th century, it is impossible to clearly and thoroughly study the 20th century Chinese figure paintings and even the whole Chinese art research in the 20th century of. What is the greatest politics of the 20th century for China? A 20th century Chinese modern history is a time when the great Chinese people, from asleep to awakening, is a society of semi-colonial and semi-colonial China, with Tan Sitong, Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping represented several generations of revolutionary predecessors and benevolent lofty ideals and carried out long and arduous struggles. They went a long way and bravely worked and bloody sacrifices. Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,