Nymph’s Reincarnation II
BEI Jiaxiang’s application of clothing folds subtly echoes Warburg’s obsession with dynamics — those swinging hems and fluttering dress are all slices of flowing time.
Warburg’s concept of iconographic narrative originates from his rediscovery of Laocoön. He recognized the cultural significance hidden within the plastic arts and questioned Winckelmann’s view of “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur,” arguing that “the narrow doctrine of ‘quiet grandeur’ in Neoclassicism regarding antiquities has long hindered thorough exploration of these materials.” For Warburg, the turbulent details in images and their pursuit of movement and dynamism store immense primal energy.
The intense twisting of muscles and drapery in the Laocoön sculpture embodies his spiritual resistance. BEI’s breakthrough lies in transforming this intense emotion into an Oriental spiritual sediment — he attempts to achieve “dematerialisation” through symbolic clothing. Whether depicted are street workers and passersby in Echoes of Shanghai, or the elegant qipaos and ornate cloaks in Shanghai Dialect, without prominent body shapes or clear facial features, BEI embeds all he wishes to convey into the characters’ garments. The simple, ordinary lives and the dust of years come alive silently, more eloquently than words.
In Loaf Around 02, the flowing hem of the woman’s qipao, caused by her gentle stride, is depicted as layered patches of colour: titanium white intertwined with various shades of grey. The brushwork both mimics the delicate lustre of silk and hints at motion through disjointed facets. This approach is similar to Degas’s sketch-like brushstrokes on ballet skirts in The Dance Class — both capture the essence of movement through the dissolution of materiality. As viewers’ gaze follows BEI’s flowing garments, it’s as if they witness a century of fashion on the Shanghai Bund — imperial legacies of long gowns, Western influences on modernised qipaos, the earthy charm of rough fabrics and short attire — all shining brightly through varied textiles.
Loaf Around II - Hometown Series
Oil on Canvas
165*172 cm
2019
This kind of “spacetime folding” precisely embodies Warburg’s visual practice of his Memory Atlas. Just as Warburg juxtaposed Renaissance star maps with Native American snake dances, BEI’s clothing becomes a “pocket of memory” for Shanghai amid the changing centuries. Through depictions of attire, he connects the everyday life of Shikumen with the sprawling metropolis, weaving the enduring vibrancy of Shanghai into an epic on canvas.
Moreover, in Warburg’s studies of plates, Greek folds meet Indian fine cotton, Byzantine gold embroideries intertwine with Persian patterns, and the Nymph’s gauze dress remains a medium of cross-cultural dialogue. BEI’s Frequenter pushes this “mixed aesthetic” to the extreme. The elderly man in the foreground at the breakfast stall, dressed in white cloth, embodies the everlasting warmth of Chinese street life, while the black long gown paired with a fedora and the modified qipao in the middle-rear shadow allude to the encounter of Eastern and Western civilisations converging in Shanghai. Agriculture and industry, tradition and modernisation—with just a few strokes, the clothing becomes the best testament to the boundary-blurring and coexisting cultures.
Frequenter - Hometown Series
Oil on Canvas
126*134 cm
2019
History, as always, echoes with dramatic resonance — just as Warburg’s Nymph ultimately moves from Greek temples to Renaissance altar paintings, the qipao woman in BEI Jiaxiang’s work steps from Shikumen into an unknown mist. As a “roamer carrying memory,” the Oriental Nymphs in BEI’s brushwork harbor not nostalgic dirges, but glyphs of civilization embedded in their folds and patterns. Each wrinkle and motif reflects a glance back through history, illustrating the eternal cycle of human memory.