An artistic genius who made Xu Beihong jealous
Chang Yu can be said to be the most legendary Chinese painter, known as the "Oriental Matis". He excels at using the smooth lines of Chinese ink painting, blending the simple and strong characteristics of Fauvism, depicting nude women, flowers and animals in elegant and idyllic tones, and the style is lyrical and abstract. After the death of Chang Yu, who was poor all his life, she became famous for the lack of women, she loved women all her life, loved women deeply, loved women, in his view, women are a wonderful miracle created by God to the world, and here is a chat about his flower world ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It can be said that it is almost obsessive, but this is used on Chang Yu, which is not exaggerated at all. So what happened between Chang Yu and the "woman"? Come on, let's look down
Chang Yu, born in 1901 in Nanchong, in the northeast of the Sichuan Basin, although it is a small place, it has a rich temperament and humanistic heritage unique to the land of Sichuan and Shu.
Chang Yu's family is very well-off, which also allows him to concentrate on painting without worrying about survival problems, coupled with the various support of his father and brother, so in 1921 he responded to Cai Yuanpei's "work-study" plan and began to study in Paris, and gradually began to "fall in love" with many "women"
Chang Yu, a young man who has just arrived in France, already has a beautiful large studio, and he is full of spirit.
Chang Yu rarely paints men, and he has been obsessed with women's graceful postures all his life. He once said, "Although the sofa in my studio has long been dilapidated, there have been at least one or two hundred women who deserve beautiful words sitting on it!" ”
In the first 10 years of his arrival in Paris, Chang Yu was free and romantic—he had a monthly sponsorship from his brother, regularly attended art salons, and discussed literature and art with Xu Zhimo and others.
It was on these wonderful days that Chang Yu began his marriage journey to Miss Masso Hamoniye, the daughter of Baron Hammonds, and the two married in 1929.
Harmonie (left by Chang Yu)
At this time, Chang Yu, because of the "woman", began to have some good luck.
For example, Chang Yu, who was stubborn in this year, met Picasso's agent, Henri Pierre Houchet.
While funding Chang Yu's paintings, he also helped him participate in several consecutive autumn salons in Paris and the tulleries Salon at the highest level, which allowed the 31-year-old Chang Yu to be selected for the French "Dictionary of Contemporary Artists' Lives 1910-1930" in 1932.
The proud Chang Yu read a book in his Paris studio
Can you imagine? At that time, Changyu was so beautiful, just like Maxima finally met Bole.
However, the good times did not last long, Chang Yu began to encounter a low point in life ~ because he could not stand Chang Yu and the "women" for a long time, Miss Harmon divorced him, and a few years later went to Morocco to marry someone else. Chang Yu, on the other hand, never remarried in his lifetime.
But whether rich or poor, Chang Yu has a woman's relationship all his life.
He fell in love with a young woman around 1945, and then had several model lovers. In 1956, Zhang Daqian went to Paris to hold a solo exhibition, and Chang Yu also introduced his young blonde girlfriend to him as a model, and Zhang Daqian painted a portrait of Chang Yu's girlfriend.
Zhang Daqian's painting Chang Yu's girlfriend
The doom was not over, and it was also in this year that the silk factory run by Chang Yu's brother Chang Junmin collapsed and died the following year. In addition, dissatisfied with the excessive intervention of the dealer and the agent Hou Xie in his paintings, the two also parted ways
For a time, marriage failure, economic crisis, loss of brother, hazy prospects ~ ~ At that time, Chang Yu was the loneliest foreigner on the streets of Paris, and it was difficult to imagine how helpless and sad Chang Yu was at that time.
Artistically, Chang Yu can be regarded as a real artist, because he has the quality of a great artist.
Pang Xuanxuan once said that he had seen Chang Yu surrounded many times and wanted to buy his line drawing figures, but he gave the paintings away and refused to accept money. Someone asked him to paint a portrait, and he agreed on three chapters: one is to pay first, the second is not to look at it when painting, and the third is to take it after painting and leave without mentioning opinions. This is also the reason why the lines of the "nude women" in his paintings are as smooth as calligraphy.
But in life, especially after the financial support at home is broken, such qualities are not enough to live.
Although the composer John Franko also funded Changyu for many years afterwards and planned exhibitions for him, his life did not change in nature.
This is the largest painting of a woman he has ever handed down, and it is also the last nude work of his life.
At this time, Chang Yu was already penniless. There is no way to pay for a model. In his later years, nude paintings were often referenced by cutting photographs of beautiful women in fashion magazines.
For those who have experienced spending a lot of money at a young age, such a gap is unimaginable. Chang Yu was therefore known as "Jia Baoyu" like jade.
When he was in Paris, Xu Zhimo once visited Chang Yu's studio and joked that his sofa was too worn, and the gentle nobleman replied: "Don't look down on my spring-loaded sofa that has been mourned earlier, there have been at least one or two hundred women who deserve beautiful characters!" "At that time, Chang Yu had a lot of money and spent it quickly. If you don't have any money on hand, you have to use it to hire female models. He said, "I can't go a day without a woman with a radiant spirit in front of me to offer, comfort, and feed my 'fornication.'" ”
Chang Yu's words can easily make people think that he was a "promiscuous person" before he was born, and such a view is actually not unreasonable. For example, he and Xu Beihong's ex-wife Jiang Biwei once had a scandal, which is little known.
It is said that "when studying in France, Chang Yu and Xu Beihong were not only 'classmates', but also love enemies. In the Overseas Chinese circles in Paris, it was widely rumored that Chang Yu admired Xu Beihong's wife Jiang Biwei very much, and the occasional interaction between them would also make Xu Beihong often suspicious and unhappy because of the trivial matters of life, so that he had a grudge.
Xu Beihong and Jiang Biwei
Although it has been passed on, the scandal is a scandal after all, and its authenticity still needs to be considered.
In fact, Chang Yu is an artist who only wants to live out his own life, he has a very high artistic talent, but he lacks the ability to live in this world. Despite his poor living and the fact that he went to work in a restaurant, he still invited beautiful women to be models, and this branch was never provincial.
Around the 1950s, Chang Yu, forced to make a living, found a Chinese antique furniture factory to work, and his daily work was to paint painted screens and utensils, which was always related to his craftsmanship.
At such a depressed moment, he really didn't have a little self-pity for The Shadow, and still didn't care. What was this prince thinking at that time?
Combining his experience playing tennis, he conceived of a sport called "ping-pong tennis": rules and tennis, but with a badminton-like racket to hit a ball slightly larger than table tennis, the court area is smaller than the squash court, the whole field is painted red, surrounded by white lines, and can be played indoors and outdoors. This sounded unreliable movement, and Chang Yu once wanted to promote it to the whole world.
Chang Yu and friends
Chang Yu in the photos of this period did not even show that he was a wanderer who had to work around to make a living. It is still the same as the "Dancing Prince".
"Because of his laissez-faire and poor use of the opportunity, he fell into a lifelong mess." Wu Guan once wrote about Chang Yu in a reminiscence article.
In the late period, Chang Yu began to love dull colors, using dark iron-like lines to outline the outline, and his works had more weight of life than the tenderness of his works in his youth. But you can still see the firmness in his heart.
Wu Guanzhong also said that the lines of Chang Yu's late works are "black iron-like lines" and "no longer a dream, but a deep pain of a whip and a trace".
It is reported that when Chang Yu was 60 years old, he was still painting the female body, he also began to draw small animals, sometimes even meditating on the window, sometimes playing music to plants, it seems that he began to enjoy the fun of old age, but who knows what Chang Yu was thinking at that time? Looking at the work alone, Yi Yun felt that Changyu was still that Changyu ~~
Chang Yu's late works
In the winter of 1965, several of Chang Yu's friends held one last exhibition for his friend Le Wei's garden villa, and Zao Wou-ki, Zhu Dequn, Pan Yuliang, and Xi Dejin all went. That was the last time they saw each other.
A few months later, Chang Yu died in his apartment. No one even knows when he dies. Looking around his life, it gives people the feeling that there are a few key words, woman, wind, poverty, nameless...
Chang Yu's still life paintings, especially "flowers", accounted for a large part of his life's works. Chang Yu completed a country of his dreams in nostalgia. This country has spring prosperity, there are endless memories of wealth and magnificence, there are also the miserable loneliness after the prosperity is over, the indescribable loneliness and desolation.
Wu Guanzhong once commented: "Chang Yu painted so many bonsai, and the bonsai blossomed with beautiful flowers and was full of business; the bonsai was covered with withered branches, miserable and cut, but it was sharp." Due to the intact and full composition of the cut form, the thick and rich foliage flowers are often planted in very small pots that are obviously out of proportion. I think Changyu himself is a bonsai..."
Therefore, after the nude of Chang Yu in the end, the flower series became a new hot spot. Just now Beijing Poly 2019 autumn auction, Chang Yu's late still life flower series collection of masterpieces "Ju Rui Yingxiang" started in RMB that night, and finally fell the hammer for 67 million yuan, plus a commission of 77.05 million, Chang Yu another high-priced work sold.
Beijing Poly 2019 auction site
However, many people have heard of Chang Yu painting nude women, but they don't know his "flowers".
Beijing Poly 2019 autumn auction Chang Yu "Jurui Yingxiang" sold 77.05 million
For Chang Yu's nostalgic flower works, Wu Guanzhong once said: "I think Chang Yu himself is a bonsai, an oriental bonsai in a Paris flower garden. ”
The world of flowers and flowers of Changyu
Note: This article originates from the network, this platform pays attention to sharing, if there is infringement, please contact us to delete