Cui Ruzhuo is the hottest figure in today's painting world. He became the object of attention with his outstanding artistic achievements, admirable social status and great personal wealth. In his own way and unremitting exploration, he opened a successful model of modern painters and made "noble spirit" synonymous with modern painters! It is self-confidence and differentiation that make great artists and promote the advent of a brilliant artistic era! It is no accident that Cui Ruzhuo can have such achievements and status, behind this "hilarity" is his unique knowledge and understanding of art, society and the market.
Write the "finger ink" weather with ten years of effort
Cui Ruzhuo actively explored how to form his own characteristics on the basis of in-depth tradition, and gradually formed his "three non-repetition" theory: "Learning history does not repeat history, learning from others does not repeat others, and the most important thing is not to repeat yourself." Wang Mingming once wrote, "In recent years, mr. Cui Ruzhuo's paintings and creations have become more extensive, especially the large-scale freehand paintings of flowers and birds and landscape paintings that have left a deep impression on me. He attaches great importance to the traditional pen and ink interest, emphasizing the artistic conception of Chinese painting. His large-scale lotus flowers have the brushwork of Xu Wei and Shi Tao, and the spirit of Li Kuchan and Pan Tianshou, but the style has its own appearance. His landscape paintings also borrow from many things from ancient times and the present, but they have created their own world, and his finger ink is novel and lawless. ”
Cui Ruzhuo's "Apocalypse of Success"
In fact, finger ink painting is only a small part of Cui Ruzhuo's creation, and he is also proficient in large-scale landscapes, flowers and birds. But we can never simply define Cui Ruzhuo by "artist". He is also a well-known art critic, writer, entrepreneur, collector...
Since the 1980s, Cui Ruzhuo began to engage in collecting, and in his residence, tang Bohu, Shi Tao, Bada, Li Keyan, Pan Tianshou, Li Kuchan and other famous artists of the past were authentic. At the same time, the performance of Cui Ruzhuo's works is also very good. In 2011, "Prosperous Lotus Wind" was sold at Christie's Autumn Auction for 128 million yuan; in 2012, Christie's Spring Auction sold 28 paintings for 123 million yuan; "Flying Snow in a Thousand Mountains" was sold for 77.15 million yuan, an increase of 5 times in seven years; the total transaction volume of Hong Kong Poly Cui Ruzhuo Boutique Special Sale was 130 million yuan; in 2017 Poly Hong Kong Spring Auction "Autumn Smoke Desert And Rain" was 120 million Hong Kong dollars; in 2019, "Cold Blue Autumn Water, Beautiful Colors and Empty Sky" was 140 million yuan; and in 2020, "Autumn Mountain Smoke and Green" was 180 million yuan Beijing Yongle's 2021 spring auction "Giant Landscape Four Screens" sold for 345 million yuan, setting a new record for the auction of Cui Ruzhuo's personal calligraphy and painting works...
Noble painters, to be the four masters of life
It is no accident that Cui Ruzhuo has come to this day! He has his own unique understanding of art, society and the market. "Of course, there are many people who question me, but in fact, many people are enjoying the price increase I have brought. Faced with questioning I said it was okay, he said his, we do ours. China's economy is going to take off, and art will definitely take off," Cui said. The unique concept made Cui Ruzhuo the focus of the market, but also brought him a lot of wealth.
In the face of wealth Cui Ruzhuo also has his own opinion, "Creating wealth is ability, enjoying wealth is art!" In the history of Chinese civilization for thousands of years, the literati have always taken pleasure in being poor, ashamed to talk about money, have a deep prejudice against wealth, and believe that material ugliness and spirit are beautiful, and the result is a tragedy similar to Xu Qingteng's being forced by poverty and illness. If in the past, the literati took pleasure in being clean and elegant, then I would like to change it to qinggui, and qinggui is to be created by material conditions. Qing Gui Qi is to the artist as the book volume qi is to the reader. ”
In the face of great wealth, Cui Ruzhuo seemed very indifferent. He even engraved a plaque called "Seal of the Four Masters" to indicate his concept of human life. "The so-called four masters must first be the masters of the body, secondly the masters of the mind or spirit, the third to be the masters of wealth, and finally the masters of the family."
I have three dreams
Cui Ruzhuo, who was born in 1944, is now 77 years old and can be described as a success. In the eyes of ordinary people, he should "raise his life", but he still has his own worries. "I often think that even if our GDP surpasses that of the United States and becomes the world's largest economic power, those Western countries may not necessarily attach importance to us, because we do not attach importance to our own civilization, and our nation does not really stand on its own cultural independence among the nations of the world." Cui Ruzhuo wrote in his "Tan YiLu".
In order to realize the dream of revitalizing Chinese culture, Cui Ruzhuo tried to start from the beginning in his own way. He has said on many occasions that he has three dreams: "First, my art should surpass history; second, my works should surpass Picasso and Van Gogh in the art market; at the age of three or eighty, he set up the 'Ruzhuo Humanistic Arts Award', the prize money exceeded the Nobel Prize, and set up an expert jury composed of experts from all over the world to award artists with outstanding contributions around the world." Of course, the focus is on Chinese artists."
As for why I have these three dreams, Cui Ruzhuo explained, "First, as an artist, I want to transcend history; second, many people say that I do the market because I have money, in fact, I do the market for the Chinese nation, why is Chinese painting not worth much, the price is not as good as the West? The reason why I do the market is to show the world, the living painter is the most expensive for me, 19 times in a row to break 100 million, they think I am playing, say you can still rise? See if you can go up? It rises every year, all the way up to surpassing the West. When you do, you're real! In this process, you must allow others to doubt you, and let the Western and Chinese people realize the greatness of Chinese painting through the market.
The realm of knowledge and action of the Chinese dream of art
Artistic creation has always been regarded as a kind of personalized, idealized and strong "casual" trip, and the value of art lies precisely in this. It seems that starting from this sense, for artists, the artist's home and country feelings and cultural dreams are equal and secondary value standards, but looking back at the realm of classical Chinese culture and the cultivation of kung fu thought, it is not difficult to find that the neutralization of "the unity of knowledge and action" - "inner sacredness in the heart, outer king in the world" is the peak realm of ancient Chinese intellectuals to attain holiness.
Wang Yangming keeps his heart clear, but he can calm the chaos and rule the world, cover the world without loving glory, and achieve meritorious deeds with the clarity of his heart, Cui Ruzhuo is not only an art creator, but also a cultivator who knows and acts, is not tired, the mood is not persuaded, and he feels the homeland, Cui Ruzhuo's value to contemporary Chinese art has exceeded the boundaries of a painter, an art market authority, and a collector, and has set up a dream and sentiment model for contemporary China of "knowing and acting together to reach the home and the world"!
The Chinese art market is not only connected to a regional market and the market value of art style and art tradition, but also an important indicator of the universal cultural value and global cultural identity of art creation rooted in Chinese culture, in this sense, the art market has become the most important indicator of the chinese dream of art and its global competitiveness. Cui Ruzhuo adheres to the artistic creation and business model with market sensitivity and influence, and insists on continuously improving the market value recognition of Chinese artworks in the global market, which is precisely the artistic Chinese dream and the cultural Chinese dream that are in mind. In this sense, artists and collectors like Cui Ruzhuo need to popularize not only art in China, but also a cultural consciousness and dream feelings.