Mountains and rivers
Nine-person exhibition of contemporary Chinese landscape paintings
Academic support
Art Committee of China Artists Association
Organizers
Zhejiang Artists Association
Propaganda Department of the CPC Ningbo Jiangbei District Committee
Co-organizers
Ningbo Jiangbei District Federation of Literary and Art Circles
Ningbo Jiangbei District Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau
Collection Magazine
Organizers
Zhejiang Xinjie Construction Co., Ltd
Exhibition time
25 December, 2021 - 8 January, 2022
Exhibition venue
Ningbo Art Museum
Ru Feng
Born in Suzhou in 1963, he graduated from the Chinese Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1990 and entered the Chinese Painting Department of the China Academy of Art in 2003 to pursue a doctorate. He is currently the secretary and vice president of the party branch of the Zhejiang Academy of Painting, a director of the China Artists Association, a researcher of the National Academy of Painting of China, the vice chairman of the Zhejiang Artists Association, the vice president of the Zhejiang Lu Yu Shao Art Research Association, a professor and a doctor of fine arts.
Looking for landscapes with my own realm — Talk about Ru Feng's recent landscape paintings
Text/Geng Xianglong
In the history of Chinese landscape painting, the northern and southern styles can be described as distinct. The northern landscape presents a majestic and majestic realm of lofty heights and a beautiful landscape of the southern school of pingyuan, which together present two different schemas, concepts and interests in the development process of Chinese landscape painting. Ru Feng is an authentic Jiangnan native, living, studying and working in his life is nothing more than Hangzhou and Suzhou, so his landscape paintings present a typical classical artistic conception of the southern literati landscape.
A large number of painting literature shows that when artists face questions about the creation of teachers, the ancients of Shi, or the heart of teachers, it seems that before the Song Dynasty and after the Yuan Ming Dynasty, it seems to be different. Painters and painters before the Song Dynasty believed that the master should cultivate the mind, and the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, especially after the Ming and Qing dynasties, emphasized that the ancient masters were meeting with the heart. Today, however, how to deal with the abundant traditional resources has become a difficult problem for many Chinese painters. When we all think that Chinese painting should break through barriers and innovate, or that Chinese painting should go deeper into tradition, we seem to have forgotten what Fan Kuan said, "The methods of our predecessors have not been able to get close to all things, and I have not been able to learn from others. I and those who are not masters of things are like the hearts of the teachers." The teacher's heart, expressing his inner feelings through his works, should be the true needs of the painter and the soul of art.
In fact, Ru Feng's landscape paintings from the earliest heavy color of the Jiangnan water town series, to the previous years of the Northern School of the two Song Dynasty landscape meteorological works, and then to the current small transformation of the Ming and Qing brushstrokes, in fact, it reflects that an artist is constantly exploring a creative path suitable for himself. According to Fan Kuan's words, this is also the process of seeking the master's heart through the shigu and the shiwu. From a psychological point of view, it is the artist's continuous attempt to find inner care and emotional expression. As Ernst Kris, a pioneer in Austrian art psychology, points out: "Art does not arise in the open, no artist has nothing to do with his predecessors and models, and artists are part of a particular tradition like philosophers and scientists." ”
As for why he gave up the Song and Yuan dynasties to pursue the Ming and Qing dynasties, Ru Feng has a very practical explanation: "After all, I grew up in Suzhou, and the peak of Suzhou culture was also the Ming and Qing dynasties. From the 'Four Houses of Wumen' to the 'Four Kings', it is all in Suzhou. The landscape of the Song Dynasty was mostly in the north. Fan Kuan and Li Tang were both northerners. I'm not there, and there are differences in mindset. I didn't grow up under that kind of high mountain, the mountains I saw were hills. From the perspective of culture and experience, what is more harmonious with me is the Ming and Qing landscapes. ”
This creative mode of creating a situation according to the situation and creating a situation according to the heart is precisely the most important value of landscape painting. The basic materials of Chinese painting are ink and rice paper, which determines that in the function of conveying realism and portrait records, it will never achieve the same effect as Western oil painting. In terms of lyrical expression and nostalgia, it can be played to the fullest. Therefore, we see that figure painting declined sharply in the Song Dynasty, flower and bird painting also declined after the Yuan, and the literati only had a special love for landscape painting, through which they subtly conveyed an ideal, mood and attitude towards heaven and earth, nature, and life. The so-called to the virtual pole, shou jing du, so it seems that Ru Feng's landscape recent works are not only the inheritance and exploration of the ontological language of painting, but also the search for an emotional expression that can be more in line with the appeal of the soul.
Ru Feng's recent works are basically created on antique rice paper. On the yellowed paper, the brushwork is skillful, the ink is dripping, the breath is pure, and with a large section of ancient poems or painting inscriptions, the whole picture is full of rich bookish atmosphere and quaint literary popularity. It can be seen that the study of the Ming and Qing landscapes, especially the Wumen school of painting, as well as Dong Qichang and the Four Kings, is the focus of his current schema approach. Ru Feng deliberately seeks a kind of purest "restoration" of the Ming and Qing traditions, which is ostensibly selfless and selfless, but in fact it is also the painter who focuses on new constructions in the process of learning the ancients. In his own words: "This is a selective interpretation of ancient texts ... Zhao, Dong, and Wang expounded their own ideas through the process of antiques instead of blindly repeating the achievements of the ancients, what they embodied and expressed was an ideal realm, and in my opinion, the process of reinterpreting the ancient texts is also the process of meaning. ”
In fact, when I first faced Ru Feng's many ancient works, I was thinking about its current significance. Because today's art ecology has a very distinct value orientation, when we all think that tradition is a problem that cannot be discussed, and innovation is a problem that does not need to be discussed. In other words, we have seen tradition as a burden and a burden, and advocated the banner of innovation. In fact, art has nothing to do with grand purposes, and the moral benchmark of "enlightenment and helping others" is obviously the self-promotion of ancient literati. Art is a typical technique that is almost the tao, and when it is done well, it is just a "small way". Through this brush in your hand, it is enough for a painter to draw his own paintings, comfort his soul, and find a way for the heart to communicate with the outside world. Why bother to tell if he's traditional or innovative? Moreover, tradition and innovation are not diametrically opposed concepts, but are interwoven with each other.
《Baoguo temple》
68cm×68cm
"Yanhui into Fun Map"
136cm×68cm
"Hidden Map Under the Ridge"
《Qingyasu Turbulence Map》
"Mountains and Streams Sound Far Away"
"Spring Intention of Xishan Mountain"
《High Mountains and Mountains》
《Smokey Mountain Map》
"Sound Map of Glen Creek"