Napoleon Series

“Icon” originally means the images of saints rendered in a special way in medieval presentation in the Eastern Roman Empire, a kind of Byzantium style. But it broaden its definition in different occasions. In Dr. Chen’s Neo-Iconography, the “icon” indicate an image with symbolic meaning, mostly public images, like Napoleon, Mao Zhe-tong, Gandhi, as historical icon, Mona Lisa as esthetic icon, astronaut s scientific icon etc. In our age of computer, icons become the representatives of genre in our thinking and creation, therefore images outstanding in the history of world civilization become familial to us, becoming a kind of “Sign” out of their existed Time and Space, obtaining an everlasting representation in human history. In this sense Dr. Chen’s Neo-Iconography is a conceptual art instead of descriptive art or historical art. This series of Napoleon is of sumptuous scenarios based of combination of cutting portions of different masterpieces of Western art works to create new paintings which are categorized into Post-Modern expression. Obviously the Icon of Napoleon is taken form Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), the Neo-classic master of France.