The world of ice and snow in Chinese paintings

Snow Mountain Xiao Temple Diagram Fan Kuan/Painting

Snow landscape is a unique category of Chinese painting and an important branch of Chinese landscape painting. Snow has a feminine posture and a clean quality, and perhaps it is precisely because of these natural qualities that the ice and snow world has always been a favorite and competitive depiction of literati and scholars throughout the ages. Whether in terms of visual experience or emotional implication, the coldness and depth it conveys seem to give us a more spiritual impact than other seasonal works. "Painting Events" said: "Whoever paints snow scenes is mainly lonely and bleak, and there is a dark and cold atmosphere." "It can be said that it accurately defines the unique tone of the snow landscape. In China's long art history, snow landscape painting is not static, it is developing forward in inheritance and innovation, forming an art form with epochal and national nature, and showing its unique and long-term artistic vitality.

The origin of snow landscape painting and traditional Chinese landscape painting invariably points to one person, this person is the Eastern Jin Dynasty painter Gu Kaizhi. Before the Wei and Jin dynasties, Chinese painting was usually based on depicting people. Subsequently, metaphysics prevailed, scholars began to pursue the ideal life of quiet and inactive mountains and forests, the concept of landscape was transformed by the influence of metaphysics, and Gu Kaizhi's "wonderful thinking" gave landscape painting a new aesthetic significance. In the "Pictorial Chronicle" and other documents, it has been clearly recorded that a snow landscape from Gu Kaizhi's hand is called "Snow Mist Looking at the Old Peak Map". This is the first painting in the history of Chinese painting to show a snow scene, but unfortunately no physical object has been handed down, so that future generations cannot see the face of this snow landscape. Later, there is a "Map of Mangrove Trees on the Snow Mountain" written by Liang Zhang monk of the Southern Dynasty, which can be said to be the earliest surviving snow landscape painting. Although some scholars have identified this painting as a facsimile of the Song Dynasty according to the brushwork of this painting, we will not discuss it here. Only from the creation itself, because the landscape painting at this time was just born out of the figure painting, the natural scenery has just been liberated from the background and background of the characters, people's main focus is still on the characters, and the wind, frost, rain and snow in the natural world has not yet had a sufficient understanding, or the painter's observation ability and understanding of nature are still in the initial stage, so whether from the technical or creative theme, the landscape painting at this time still has the shadow of the figure painting, which will inevitably weaken the sense of natural weather.

If the above works are regarded as the embryonic stage of the snow landscape, then Wang Wei's "Snow Creek Map" of the Tang Dynasty has become the true origin of this type of painting. Not only because it has things to examine and reason to rely on, but also because of its important breakthrough in snow landscape techniques. Wang Wei's status as a poet provided the necessary cultural foundation for him to form the view of "poetry in paintings". Wang Weixi painted snow scenes, and from the account of the Northern Song Dynasty's "Xuanhe Painting Notation", more than 20 of the 126 landscape paintings he created were related to the theme of snow scenes. His "Snow Creek Map" depicts the scene from a lyrical point of view, expressing the Confucian idea of "Leshan Leshui". Although the painting method is simple, it gives people the meaning of being far away and clear, so that the viewer is comfortable and immersed in the peaceful and clear snow landscape, showing his pursuit of tranquility and Zen life. Wang Wei is regarded as the beginning of this vein, and because his painting theory "On Landscape and Water" is the first theoretical document involving snow landscape painting, it is recorded: "Winter scenery borrows the land for snow, the woodcutter bears the salary, the fisherman leans on the shore, and the water is shallow and flat." From this, we can see Wang Wei's pioneering achievements, "borrowing the ground for snow" became the original creative method of expressing snow landscapes, laying the foundation for the development of snow landscape paintings in later generations.

The Five Dynasties was a critical period for the maturity of snow landscape painting, and the literati and scholars pursued a reclusive and idyllic life in the idle life of escaping the world, which greatly affected the aesthetic psychology of the society at that time and promoted it to enter a mature state. The most representative and pioneering is Zhao Gan's "First Snow Map of the River Journey", which depicts the arduous livelihood of fishermen on the riverbank when the north wind is whistling and the snow is flying. The pen is hard and strong, the air is smooth and ancient, and the water pattern is slender and fluent, and the brushwork is vivid and lively. Its unique feature lies in the first application of the "bullet powder method" in the technique, Fang Xuan's "Mountain Quiet Residence on Painting" once said: "Chen Weiyun and Wang Meng deliberately painted the Daizong Secret Snow Map, and the snow was shot with a small bamboo bow in powder, and the posture of flying, the servant had intended to do it, quite chic." Then in addition to knowing the pen and ink, there is the magic of bouncing snow. This is precisely the improvement of the shortcomings of traditional snow landscape painting, which enriches the expression method of snow landscape painting, breaks through the depiction of the state of snow, and turns "static" into "moving".

The snow landscape paintings of the Song Dynasty are a peak. Yun Ge said in the "Snow Map of the Inscription Stone Valley": "Since the Snow Map, it has only been called Yingqiu, Huayuan, Heyang, and Daoning. "These painters all show their inner snowy cold forest in different ways. Examples of the Song people's use of ink techniques in the creation of snowy and cold forests abound, such as Wang Xue's "Little Snow in the Fishing Village", "Snow Map of the Han River" passed down as Song Huizong, Liang Kai's "Snow Landscape Map", Ma Yuan's "Snow Landscape Map" and so on. Fan Kuan's "Map of the Snow Mountain Xiao Temple" gives the viewer the first impression that the painting is stable, and it deeply contains the state of Zhongzheng and Pingyun. The rigorous and meticulous depictions in the painting may be difficult to conjure up with the word "lyrical", but this kind of shock comes from the painter's cautious attitude when he looks at the mountains and rivers, and his infinite love and deep awe for natural landscapes. His cold mountains are closely linked, witnessing the vicissitudes of the world in an indestructible and unshakable posture. The common "lonely cold" in Song painting can be regarded as a painter's independent high standard, different customs of the fox, they use the lonely peak cold forest to symbolize their own state of mind, regard the lonely cold as the home, and seek the adaptation to the lonely cold.

The depth of the yuan dynasty literati doctor's picture skills seems to only stay at the level of literati self-entertainment, and it is difficult to reach the level of "divine skill". The Yuan Sijia are mostly based on the southern landscape, except for Huang Gongwang's "Nine Peaks Snow Ji Map", the rest of the excellent snow scenery works are basically difficult to find. The Ming Dynasty is closer to a synthesis of the Southern Song and Yuan Dynasties, with both the Zhejiang school similar to the Southern Song Dynasty painting style and Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming and Dong Qichang, which are close to the Yuan Sijia. In the Qing Dynasty, it tended to be more inclined to the pen and ink technique itself and gradually ignored the content and form of the work, and under the atmosphere of flaunting the teacher's ancients, the snow landscape paintings were almost all under the shade of the ancients' pen and ink. However, the more significant point is that the painting theory at this time has a full discussion of the technique of painting snow. Tang Dai's "Painting Events And Micro" Yun: "Painting the Winter Mountains with stored stones or Qingdai combined ink, painting cold water streams, flying snow condensation columns, or painting dead wood and cold forests, a thousand mountains of snow", Tang Zhiqi's "Painting Things Micro Words" and Shandashi's "Journey to xishan Mountain" also have profound and unique expositions on the techniques of snow painting.

Since modern times, with people's multi-dimensional appreciation ability and the painter's ability to observe nature, snow landscape painting has undergone significant changes in subject matter. Although this transformation is still based on the "creation of teachers", the introduction of Western painting theory and the reference of elements such as perspective and light and shadow have made painting techniques show a new development trend. In the new historical period, Chinese snow landscape painting conforms to the opportunity of development and has been revitalized. At the beginning of the 20th century, Tao Lengyue devoted himself to the exploration of the integration of East and West, harmoniously unifying the full moon, snowy mountains, and light clouds in a cold and ethereal poetic world. In "Snow Moon Landscape Map", the water surface is shimmering due to the reflection of moonlight, which is also his unique way of creating an artistic mood, making it more agile. Fu Baoshi changed the gentle and sparse atmosphere of the Ming and Qing dynasties, highlighting the vitality of the nation. His collaboration with Guan Shanyue on "So Many Delicate Rivers and Mountains" vividly expresses the magnificent scene of Chairman Mao's poem "The scenery of the northern country, the ice of thousands of miles, and the snow of thousands of miles" vividly. Similar works include "Qinyuan Spring Snow", "More Joyful Minshan Thousand Mile Snow", "Lin Hai Snow Field" and so on. Li Keyan introduced the chiaroscuro method in Western painting into Chinese painting, so that it harmoniously melted into the deep traditional brush and ink and modeling imagery. In his "Scenery of the Northern Kingdom", the Great Wall nestles in the mountains and mountains, and the Yellow River kisses the boundless earth, with its own unique curved form, vertically running through the picture, responding left and right, expanding into an incomparably rich layer. The original cold colors of heaven and earth are dispersed by warm light, making a painting have thousands of weather, which is the pride and broad mind shown in "Sunny Days, Watching Red Dressed, Extremely Charming". Song Wenzhi's snow scene skillfully uses the obscurity of clouds and smoke to enhance the depth of the stacked mountains. Judging from works such as "West Sea Snow Ji" and "Ten Thousand Peaks of Snow", the steep and towering peaks are close to people's feelings about "the cold in the high places", coupled with the depiction of snow, so that the viewer can transcend the severe cold of the senses, achieve psychological and spiritual cold silence and Depression, and even run through the shape and spirit of the mountains and rivers, in order to obtain the effect of "mountains and rivers and gods meet and trace". In the field of contemporary Chinese landscape painting, Yu Zhixue's ice and snow landscape is unique. He grew up in the North, and ice and snow are his source of inspiration. Drawing on the beneficial factors of Chinese tradition and Western art, he explored snow landscape painting, using alum water as a breakthrough in technique, and on the basis of retaining the essence of Chinese brush and ink, he painted the transparent and clean natural state of ice and snow. There are also some painters who are good at painting snow scenes, on the basis of respecting the traditional spirit and language of Chinese painting, constantly updating their expression techniques, or freehand, splashing freely, or part-time writing, meticulously portraying, excavating and enriching the imagery of snow, achieving a unique aesthetic mood and aesthetic space, presenting a heroic and magnificent scene.

With the clarity and vastness of the snow, we hurriedly reviewed the historical trajectory of Chinese snow landscape painting from the budding of Wei and Jin to the peak of the Song and Yuan dynasties to the development to the contemporary era, and it is not difficult to find that as a classic representative of Chinese painting, it has continuously innovated and advanced with the times in the millennium inheritance, maintaining a permanent and vivid vitality. This vitality is the foundation of the melting of the past and the present, and its significance is not limited to the exploration of the style and language of the snow landscape painting itself, but also provides a practical basis for the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese nation and the contemporary development of Chinese painting. This winter, we look forward to a snow, enjoy the snow and read the paintings, and feel the power of the classics.

(Author: Mo Xiaowen Unit: College of Fine Arts, Capital Normal University)