Qian Xuesen: I am a beneficiary of the combination of art and science

Qian Xuesen

Qian Xuesen:

Beneficiary of the combination of art and science

Meng Yunfei

Born in Shanghai and his ancestral home in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Qian Xuesen is a world-famous scientist and the "founder of the Two Bombs" of the People's Republic of China. He was not only exceptional in science and meritorious in his achievements, but also had extraordinary insights in art. He attaches great importance to the combination of science and technology and art, believing that scientists need to understand some specific arts, and artists should also understand more scientific knowledge. He has been practicing this, saying he is a beneficiary of the combination of art and science. His artistic accomplishment is reflected in many aspects, such as literature, poetry, music, gardens, calligraphy and painting. In many fields of art, he not only has practice, but also has unique insights and even theoretical construction.

Qian Xuesen's secretary Tu Yuanji published "The Combination of Science and Art: An Experience of Studying Qian Xuesen's Letters" in the third issue of Frontier Science magazine in 2007, in which he said: "His first hobby is calligraphy and painting. During my tenure as secretary, he often visited the National Art Museum of China and Rong Baozhai to visit calligraphy and painting exhibitions, and had his own views on the art of calligraphy and painting," and said that Qian Xuesen had loved literature and art since childhood, and when he was studying at the Affiliated High School of Beijing Normal University, he studied watercolor painting with Gao Xishun. Gao Xishun had received the guidance of chen shizeng, Yao Mang's father and other masters, founded the Jinghua Academy of Fine Arts, and studied in Japan, and had close contacts with Qi Baishi. Gao Xishun has long been engaged in teaching, creation and research in colleges and universities, and is a famous painter and art educator in modern and modern times. It can be seen from this that in painting, Qian Xuesen is also a well-known teacher.

During his study in the United States, although Qian Xuesen missed his hometown, he could not return to China because of his busy affairs, so he wrote a letter to his family and wanted a Chinese painting. So his father, Qian Junfu, asked his colleague and friend Jiang Dan to paint the painting "A Corner of the West Lake". Jiang Danshu was one of the first batch of modern chinese art teachers, he liked to paint Chinese paintings and was good at art theory. There are many of his students, and the outstanding ones are Feng Zikai, Pan Tianshou, Lai Chusheng, Zheng Wuchang and so on. Because Qian Xuesen's ancestral home is Hangzhou, Jiang Danshu chose the West Lake as the theme. He not only wrote a five-word poem on the painting, but also inscribed a long passage of trekking, praising Qian Xuesen for his achievements in learning and hoping that he would not forget his home country. Qian Xuesen regarded this painting as a treasure, according to Qian Yonggang, the son of Qian Xuesen: "In his old age, my father specifically asked me to find this "Corner of the West Lake" and hang it in his bedroom. In fact, the father generally does not randomly place things in the bedroom, which shows that the father cherishes this painting very much. ”

Qian Xuesen once discussed the development of Chinese painting with painters through letters, involving not only flower and bird painting, landscape painting, but also Gongbi painting and freehand painting, he often put forward his own views and ideas, saying: "The road of Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi has come to an end, and the development of Zhang Daqian and Liu Haisu actually began in Xu Beihong in the 1920s, but what is the future? Chinese painting should also usher in a new era. ”

On May 23, 1979, Qian Xuesen, then deputy director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, invited the professional painter Mu Ge of his unit to the office and had an in-depth conversation with him on the issue of art creation. Qian Xuesen said: "Art creation should be a part of teaching by example, a part that can only be understood and is difficult to convey. That is to say, art should be the part of the future that is thinking about doing, ready to do, what is underway, what can be achieved in the plan, what the camera cannot see, that is, the part that the electronic computer cannot do. No matter how magical the electronic computer is, it cannot replace the creative activities of artists. He believes that today's young people know too little, and art should play a certain educational function to help them understand the world. When talking about oil painting, Qian Xuesen said: "Chinese oil painting, in terms of painting methods, are similar, neither classical painting methods, nor modern painting methods, a bit like the kind of painting methods in the middle of the 19th century, painting people are very similar to brothers, looking similar, mainly no artistic personality, no life, partial conceptualization. Oil painting can use a variety of painting methods, do not always be a painting method. He emphasized that art should blossom and suggested that the pastoral should not be limited to painting land from the perspective of looking at the land, but also from the perspective of outer space, and also from the perspective of land - in fact, he hoped that the painter would have a broad vision.

As a scientist who understands art, Qian Xuesen believes that pen and ink should be contemporary, and painters should also pay attention to the present and look forward to the future. On June 26, 1992, he wrote a letter to Sun Dashi, a painter who was then a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggesting that he develop the painting of urban street scenes into a new form of Chinese painting, urban landscape painting, and hoped to further play the precursor of China's urban construction, Shanshui City. On August 14, 1992, Qian Xuesen also talked about similar issues in his reply to Wang Zhong of fine arts magazine, he believed that the painter's creation should not be divorced from reality, should praise the current reform, opening up and modernization construction, and especially proposed that we hope that our painters will create a kind of urban landscape painting with socialist urban architecture as the theme; I hope that the painter's urban landscape can also promote the construction of the landscape city in China, and the two complement each other and beautify people's lives.

Qian Xuesen once saw an article about Wang Xuezhong in the Xinhua Digest, which called Mr. Wang "three monsters of poetry, calligraphy and painting", and he was very interested. On September 15, 1992, he wrote a letter to Wang Xuezhong requesting Mo Bao, and said: "I don't even have the paper that you 'need only paper to polish the pen', which is really abrupt, please forgive me for being rude." After receiving the long volume "Wild Grass Fu" created by Wang Xuezhong and the album "Night Berth Painting Collection", Elder Qian was very excited, and immediately wrote back: "Today is the 43rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, I stared at the first painting of the album "Huaisi", I was excited, and the characters engraved on the cards appeared in front of me again... The calligraphy and paintings given by my husband will be the spiritual food for the rest of my life, and I will not be able to use them inexhaustible. ”

As a scientist, Qian Xuesen understands the close relationship between science and technology and art. On June 5, 1987, he said in a letter to Zhang Fan, a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music: "I think that a highly civilized society should be that art and beauty are omnipresent, and science and technology are also omnipresent!" I have said many times that rice paper, brushes, ink and pigments are all science and technology, so painters cannot do without science and technology. "Qian Xuesen said in his speech at the teaching seminar commemorating the 40th anniversary of Professor Jiang Ying's teaching that he and his wife Jiang Ying are engaged in completely different work, one is music, the other is science and technology, but mrs. Jiang Ying's work has been of great help to him, and whenever he is confused, it is his wife's singing that gives him inspiration and inspiration." One point I want to emphasize is the interaction between literature and technology. "Although we are talking about the interaction between music and technology, the relationship between painting and technology is very similar to this. In Qian Xuesen's view, painting is the same as other art, because aesthetics are the starting point of everything, and they are all the creation of beauty.