▲Large-scale sculpture "Banner" The creative team of the National Art Museum of China
"With a thousand great deeds in mind, it is exactly a hundred years of style." In 2021, the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, this is the most heartfelt praise and sincere expectation people hear about the centennial party. 2021 is undoubtedly unforgettable for all Chinese, and 2021 is also of landmark significance for the development of Chinese art.
In 2021, people who walk into the history exhibition hall of the Communist Party of China often have a mandatory part - to take a group photo in front of the large-scale party flag sculpture "Flag". In the West Square of the History Exhibition Hall of the Communist Party of China, the imposing four groups of large-scale sculptures of the party flag "Banner" and "Faith", "Great Cause", "Tackling Tough Problems" and "Chasing Dreams" not only add artistic style to this "red gene bank", but also mark the great spiritual dimension in aesthetic language, which has become a vivid footnote to the history of the party in the past century. In a sense, these red sculptures that continue to remain in the minds of more and more ordinary audiences will also become a symbol of the chinese art circle's hard work and achievements in 2021 with the three-dimensional image of the monument in the longer term.
History rolls forward, each generation has the mission of each generation, pen and ink should be contemporary, each generation of artists should also leave a historical imprint with their unique creations. From the revitalization of classics to the creation of classics, Chinese art in the new era has become a witness, participant and creator of the times with a new look of integrity and innovation.
Revitalize the classics
The Centennial Exhibition fondly relived the great cause of party history
In 2021, people who walk into art museums at all levels across the country to visit the exhibition, in the art exhibition celebrating the centenary of the founding of the party with either a panoramic look back or a unique perspective, walk into the magnificent historical picture, go deep into the moving scenes and situations of history, and relive the glorious course of the party leading the Chinese people to carry out revolution, construction, reform and move towards the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with aesthetic visual intuition.
"All the achievements we have made in the past one hundred years are the result of the unity and struggle of the Chinese Communists, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation." On July 1, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, profoundly expounding the flesh-and-blood connection between the party and the people.
▲ The audience visited the Historical Exhibition Hall of the Communist Party of China, and a large number of classic art works in the exhibition attracted the audience to stop and watch, and the picture shows the statue of Marx and Engels created by Wu Weishan and a large number of documents.
▲ In the History Exhibition Hall of the Communist Party of China, the oil painting "Departure" created by He Hongzhou and Huang Faxiang and the exhibition arrangement of the red boat model created a historical moment held by the COMMUNIST Party of China in the South Lake.
Audiences who walk into the National Art Museum of China to visit the "Great Journey and The Picture Scroll of the Times - Exhibition of Fine Art Works Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China" should not forget the exhibition layout of the round hall of the art museum: the sculpture works showing Marx, Engels, and the party's revolutionary pioneers Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu echo the oil painting "Set Sail", which shows the scene of the red boat of the CPC's major conference, the Chinese painting "Flying Dreams", which shows the Chinese of all walks of life in the new era, and the paintings showing the image of several generations of party leaders. In the core space of this entire exhibition, there are no more important time nodes and magnificent event scenes in the centenary of the founding of the party. The form of the exhibition is concise and clear, and the number of works on display is not much, but behind it are marked four big characters - "Communist". Today, this is undoubtedly the ingenuity of the exhibition planners to outline and lead. Indeed, man is the core factor that determines the development of history, man is the vivid carrier of the great spirit of party building, it is the generation after generation of Chinese communists who have led the Chinese people to this day, and it is the story of the generations of Chinese communists that constitute the story of the party's century-old struggle and the national story of the Chinese nation's continuous march toward great rejuvenation, and have become the spiritual source and inexhaustible motive force that encourages the whole party and the people of the whole country to continue to move forward.
▲ The exhibition hall of "Great Journey, Picture Scroll of the Times - Exhibition of Fine Arts Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China".
In fact, as indicated in the title of the exhibition, this exhibition presents the great journey of the century-old party history and the picture of the era of hard work and achievements in the aesthetic artistic language. The exhibition is a major review of the museum's classic collections. Taking the century-old development context that the party has led the people of the whole country through as a clue, the collection of the art museum has undergone a systematic academic combing and careful planning, so that those classic works of art that people are familiar with or unfamiliar are displayed in front of the audience and activated under the distinct theme of the times.
In addition to the large-scale exhibitions of the National Pavilion, in 2021, various art museums at all levels across the country held different forms of theme art exhibitions celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Party. "Sunrise in the Orient - Shanghai Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China Fine Arts Exhibition", "Yiyuan Spark, 100 Years of Fanghua - The Road of Party Building and National Beauty of the China Academy of Art", "Mushi Spirit - Exhibition of Documentary Works of lai Shaoqi, the Party's Literary and Art Fighter Lai Shaoqi's Revolutionary Cultural Undertakings"... In these theme exhibitions, whether it is the comprehensive sorting out of the development of party history in the region by the provincial art museum, or the meticulous planning carried out by the district and county art museums from the perspective of regional resources and characteristic paintings, whether it is the systematic academic research carried out by the academy art museum, or the growth story of the art under the leadership of the party told by the famous art museum, they all strive to unfold the narrative with in-depth research and vivid exhibition language, activate the classics, and strive to present the height of thought, the thickness of party history, the temperature of emotion and the depth of art.
Create a classic
Concentrate on fine products to engrave the great spirit of the times
"The new era needs literary and artistic masters, and it is also completely capable of creating literary and artistic masters!" The new era needs a literary and artistic peak, and it can also cast a literary and artistic peak! General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the opening ceremony of the Eleventh National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Tenth National Congress of the China Writers Association once again placed high hopes on literary and art workers and gave great encouragement.
As an art project to present the centenary of the party, after three years of "theme sculpture creation project for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party" and "do not forget the original intention, continue to move forward - large-scale art creation project to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China" can be called the highest organizational standard, the largest scale of topic selection, and the largest number of people involved in the creation of a thematic art creation project since the founding of New China.
Thematic art creation has an excellent tradition in China and has accumulated rich creative experience, but literary and artistic creation is ultimately a hard creative work. In the new context, these huge works have put forward more severe challenges to the creators' ability to grasp the idea, capture culture, and control the art, etc. How to avoid conceptualization and schematization, and truly use the language of art to highlight the ideological connotation and shape the spiritual map, is not an easy topic.
Xu Li, vice chairman of the China Artists Association, recalled that most of the main creative personnel involved in the two major projects gave up their holiday breaks in the past three years and overcame various practical difficulties, "Everyone braved the severe heat and cold, overcame the inconvenience caused by the epidemic, engaged in creation in the shed with a temperature of more than 40 degrees in the summer, and deep processed in the sculpture workshop of more than -20 degrees Celsius in the winter; the creation guidance team studied and created while eating a box lunch in the extremely simple old factory; more than 300 painters went deep into enterprises, villages, border and coastal defense, combat troops, and the frontline of anti-epidemic to experience life. Dig up the material... It is everyone's dedication and dedication that have ushered in an artistic treasure that can be called a masterpiece of art. ”
In addition to the two major projects of the centenary of the founding of the party, the two batches of creative achievements launched by the national thematic art creation project in 2021 are also presented in the large-scale exhibition of "Great Journey and Era Picture Scroll". Seeing these new masterpieces with distinct themes, art historian Xue Yongnian deeply felt the positive significance of the development of the art industry itself. He believes that these works have the tendency to correct the heavy vision and light soul that have appeared in contemporary art creation, the bias of shallow chanting and low singing, and the yellow bell and big Lu, which has effectively promoted the consciousness of the current artists to re-establish the core values, reflecting the sense of cultural mission and the sense of historical responsibility.
In the view of He Hongzhou, a professor at the China Academy of Fine Arts, the return of thematic art creation has not only led to a change in the creative atmosphere, but more gratifyingly, this change has been transmitted to the teaching link of higher art education. For example, the China Academy of Art has cultivated a large number of outstanding young talents in thematic art creation through the establishment of the "National Major Theme Art Creation Innovation Platform" and the joint construction of the "National Thematic Art Creation Research Class" with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Promote the classics
Edutainment and beauty Integrate and disseminate spiritual values
In 2021, in the special program "Party History in Art Classics" launched by the Central Radio and Television Corporation, each classic art work not only led the audience to relive important party history moments and enter the magnificent historical scenes, but also told the story behind the art creation in a variety of and rich expressions, becoming a "blockbuster product" that integrates party history education and aesthetic education.
If the success of this series of programs is that the use of a variety of television means makes party history education and art classics more vivid and appealing, then when we re-examine and think about this successful case, we should not ignore that it is the spiritual energy, cultural connotation and aesthetic value contained in the classic works of fine arts that provide a rich mine of spirit and content for the current media integration and development.
Some viewers commented: "The situation created by the program "Party History in Art Classics" is a kind of awakening to childhood memories. In fact, it is this kind of "awakening" that enables the audience to obtain emotions and memories from the aesthetic experience, so that truly excellent art creation becomes a drainage resource in the context of media integration.
In 2021, viewers who enjoy the TV series "The Age of Awakening" will not forget the deep sense of history and the strong character of the characters in the play. The extensive use of this art form of woodcut prints in the play is particularly impressive, and the deep and thick printmaking art runs through the whole process as a classic symbol, which plays a role in outlining the progress of the plot. Many viewers thus enter the situation of history, not only in the emotional boiling of blood, but also in the philosophical imagery created by the picture to obtain a deep reflection on history.
▲ The audience visited the "Great Journey and The Picture Scroll of the Times - An Exhibition of Fine Art Works Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China" at the National Art Museum of China.
In 2021, around the large-scale exhibition of "Great Journey and Era Picture Scroll", the National Art Museum of China broke the exhibition cycle and geographical restrictions, launched cross-border cooperation, and innovatively used VR panoramic technology, virtual experience, intelligent navigation and other technologies to simultaneously launch an online panoramic exhibition hall. Well-known hosts Kang Hui, Hai Xia, etc., and performance artists Pu Cunxin and Zhang Kaili became the docents of the exhibition, and the audience could listen to their vivid explanations with their mobile phones. In December, the National Art Museum of China once again cooperated with science and technology enterprises to launch the "Digital Experience Exhibition of 100 Classic Art Works in 100 Years", with the help of new technologies and new applications, with high-definition picture screens as the carrier, so that art collections can enter the public vision.
In 2021, on CCTV's "First Lesson of School" with the theme of "Ideals Illuminate the Future", the sculpture works of Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong, Chen Wangdao, Peng Shilu and other communists stood on the scene of the performance, and these sculptural figures created by the famous sculptor Wu Weishan reflected the resolute gaze of adhering to the truth and adhering to the ideal in the host's story explanation and camera performance...
The integration of promoting classics and educating in beauty allows us to see that in the topic of the popularization of art, which is constantly being discussed, today's exploration shows that it is not "professional" that is accommodated to "the masses", nor is it "popular" to be "elegant", but that classic artistic creations are not only affirmed and activated in the context of mass communication, but also give cultural interest and aesthetic character to technological communication in the Internet era.
Literature and art win with images, and classic literary and artistic images will become an important symbol of the literature and art of an era. Activation proves that the classics can withstand constant scrutiny and are worth digging deeper; creating, illustrating that the classics are the eternal direction and pursuit of excellence for artists to climb the peak. Classic means benchmark, classic means inheritance, but today, the meaning of classics lies more in the role it plays in the times, which means its spiritual impact on people in multicultural interaction.
On the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Party in 2021, Chinese art is original, honest and innovative, and shows its due style of the times with a strong sense of classicism!
(Photo: Lu Xu, Chen Xi)
Source: China Culture Daily