3 questions to... Tchang Yifei and Dominique Maricq

It is said that travel shapes youth, and you, in examining the destiny of Chang, have also shown that it shaped the aspiring young artist. How did these peregrinations nourish his work?

Yifei : First of all, it's important to remember that it was thanks to his early learning of French at school in Shanghai that he was able to travel to Europe and immerse himself fully in Western culture. It was a revelation for the young artist. His journey began in Brussels, where he studied painting and sculpture for four years at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. After that, he travelled to Flanders, Wallonia, France, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. To immerse himself in the aesthetics of Western painting, he visited all the major centres of artistic creation (museums, galleries, artists' studios, etc.). He was fascinated by what he saw, and so as not to lose any trace of it, he recorded all his impressions and remarks in a diary that accompanied him everywhere from 1932 to 1936. This document is packed with anecdotes and information, recorded day by day. It's a moving account that allows us to faithfully retrace the path that opened his mind and his eyes. In those days, there was no Internet, so artists often had to travel to find new sources of inspiration. In fact, it was by painting the countries he visited, meeting people, talking to them and observing the way they worked that his style took shape.

Dominique : There's no doubt that this tour of Europe in the first part of the 1930’s had a profound effect on Chang Chong-Jen. Although as a teenager he had already become familiar with art in the West (through the education he had received at a college where music, fine arts and crafts were an integral part of the curriculum), it was once he had settled in Europe that he really began to study, assimilate and, in a way, ‘appropriate’ the techniques and processes of the painters and sculptors of our continent. There's nothing like being ‘confronted’ with the reality of things and coming face to face with works of art in museums Chang documented, informed himself and took notes on the work of the masters he admired so much. He went on to create his own pictorial and sculptural works, in a style characterised by a harmonious synthesis of traditional Chinese art and local artistic trends.

Yifei : Their meeting was a deep cultural exchange that quickly turned into a friendship. In Brussels, Chang rubbed shoulders with many artists, but it was with Hergé that the closeness was most obvious. They had a lot in common. They were the same age, had the same philosophy, the same poetry and were interested in the same artistic disciplines. Their collaboration was immediately placed under the label of tolerance and fraternity, which are two universal human values. As a result, they were able to communicate with mutual respect. Everyone was able to express their point of view according to their own culture and sensibility. It broke down many barriers and cliches. On an artistic level, thanks to his mastery of watercolour and calligraphy, Chang was able to introduce Hergé to the use of brushes so that he could enrich his style by drawing with a simple, fluid and expressive line made up of nuances and depths, depending on whether it is dry, wet, pressed and/or inclined. On a personal level, Chang also opened up Hergé's horizons and definitively transformed the way he represented nations and cultures in his comic strips.

Dominique : For the first time in his life, during the creation of a new episode in The adventures of Tintin, Hergé collaborated almost systematically with another creator. Chang was the same age as Hergé, had the same religious convictions and, like Hergé, had a thirst for knowledge that was not limited to artistic matters. Together, they were to create an extraordinary story, The Blue Lotus, a story that far surpassed the previous episodes of Tintin's adventures in tone and realism. The work sessions were interspersed with conversations on all sorts of subjects, as varied as philosophy, Chinese manners and customs, art, current affairs, history, religion and morality. For Hergé, Chang was the lesson of the Orient. At the time (1934), the Belgian cartoonist was seeing mainly Belgians, and even a few French, but this was one of the first times he had come face to face with a foreigner with whom he could talk in depth about a wide range of subjects. It was a real initiation. Hergé discovered another way of thinking and acting. It left a lasting impression on him.

Yifei : Chang was indeed a tireless and prolific artist. He lived his art to the end, even in the darkest years. At the end of the 1960’s in China, the conditions for creation were limited and controlled by the political power in place. It therefore took a great deal of courage and tenacity to continue working in this context. In fact, most of his colleagues gave up their careers to live within the imposed rules. But he had far too much respect for his art and couldn't resign himself to the idea of giving it up. Many years later, I remember someone asking him: ‘And are you going to retire one day, Mr Chang? He replied: ‘I don't think my status as an artist will allow me to, because every day I continue to learn new things’. He always had an appetite for learning. Curiosity too. That's why he was a complete artist. And although he excelled in several fields, throughout his career he always presented himself as follows: So I would say that if there was one work to remember from his output it would be The Fisherman's Wife, because it is the first of his sculptures to have received honours (this proof piece was created as part of a competition organised in 1932 by Égide Rombaux, who was his teacher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. It won 1st prize.) This composition powerfully expressed the feelings of anguish he felt at the time, due to the Sino-Japanese war raging in his country. Today, it is one of the remarkable pieces in the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Dominique : Chang Chong-chen is a complete artist. He tried his hand at many artistic genres and practices. His style was the result of a slow maturation, of a long learning process that included traditional Chinese painting, the Impressionist movement, ancient sculpture, contemporary sculptors and renowned watercolourists. In sculpture, Auguste Rodin is his absolute role model. In a vein that could be described as realism with a human face, he bequeathed us a rich artistic heritage, with busts that scream with truth, bronzes that capture the full force of a look and the personality of those who posed for him. From François Mitterrand to Claude Debussy, via Deng Xiaoping, Hergé and Prince Rainier III of Monaco, this is the art of Chang, the travelling artist. His canvases and paintings are also well worth a visit, a subtle and delicate osmosis between the classics of Chinese painting and Western fine art.