Lee Coco
Before painting, Mr. Shen Guangwei used to hold his pen in silence for a moment — not cautious and hesitant, but allowing his thoughts to fly more than a thousand kilometers, go back more than 30 years and then turn back. Then, the alpine cuckoo opens up in thought, meaninglessly withered and prosperous, without asking questions about the west and the east.
In 1984, Shen Guangwei first met the alpine cuckoo in Huangshan. Later, he went to Sichuan to see the flowers, but he missed the season, and the azaleas were defeated.
It was a surprising and extremely tragic decadence. In early summer, everything should be leafy, but the alpine rhododendron is full of flowers and leaves, and it seems very irrational to bloom like a life. They looked like they were dead.
"It's sad, it's desolate." Shen Guangwei said, "I miss them. Alpine cuckoos are different for me. ”
Lying snow map Shen Guangwei
Shen Guangwei knew the alpine cuckoo for 20 years before he had the courage to depict it. For a long time, he was attracted, inspired, shocked and even frightened, there was a fire in his heart but could not find firewood, there were notes but could not form a movement, he went into the mountains like a pilgrimage year after year, tears filled his eyes year after year, until the emotional accumulation almost exploded, the artistic means and the spiritual perception found the cutting point and began to merge, and the years of memory and thousands of flowers and shadows became unique strokes and colors on the paper.
Once the exit is opened, it is easy to break the embankment, so we often see Shen Guangwei, who is standing solemnly and silently with a pen, and he is concentrating and calming the turbulence in his heart.
What do people paint for? Show off, seek fame, gain profits, or simply enjoy yourself and talk to yourself? The long-distance travelers who passed by raised their hands and shot down the signs. In the end, art is nothing more than the search for and expression of the energy and value of life itself with reverence and humility. "Some people mention this level, some people don't mention it but practice it. This meaning should be pervasive. Shen Guangwei said.
The cuckoos are not dead. The buds sprouted in the dead leaves of the remnants of flowers, what a lovely existence, slender, full, pink-green, tender red, wrapped, cascading, leaf-like and flower-like. They are reborn in the ashes and accompany the seeds to maturity. Not long after, the sun, rain and fertile soil of the mountain forests feed them rich and green.
Shen Guangwei liked these leaf buds and portrayed them in the shape of bamboo shoots. The leaves next to the buds in the painting are very large, often more than 20 centimeters long. But Shen Guangwei said that this is only half of the physical object.
Survival of the fittest, the biological world does not believe in tears. The larger the plant, the more difficult it is to survive, and the alpine cuckoo, whose leaves are half a foot long, is destined to struggle to survive. In order to get the daylight, they exhausted all means —they crawled, stood upright, twisted, obliquely inserted, and groped and rolled. Shen Guangwei once measured a rhododendron tree with his footsteps, the part where it lay down was twenty steps long, and the humble crawl bypassed other trees to come to the daylight, and it immediately rose high and grew toward the sky. In the midst of difficulties, it often hangs a parasitic plant. It is touching that the parasite and the host did not strangle each other. Shen Guangwei also uses simple pen and ink to summarize and depict those parasites, who have their own beauty, delicate and rich.
Spirit of the Mountain Shen Guangwei
"The alpine cuckoo reminds me of the greatness of motherhood." Shen Guangwei said. Alpine rhododendrons are not born with good conditions, their root system is weak, and they have to store nutrients in large leaves for flowering and seeding. At the end of the flowering period, the leaves also dried up and fell. It's much like a mother conceiving a fetus with all the nutrients she seems willing to be squeezed and plundered.
Shen Guangwei called this kind of touching "transmission". Flower and bird painters are different from botanists, painters are intended to brush first, tracing everything as the heart of the painting. They transfer biological attributes to inner enlightenment, and then transfer inner enlightenment to paper fireworks, two, two, three, three births in life, mustard seeds, mustard seeds, and there is a way to exist.
The human world is not as simple as the natural world, but the reason for living to die is more or less the same. Speaking of which, Shen Guangwei is also a person who once had a sudden illness and his life was hanging on the line. Neither illness nor pain can be avoided, just as the seasons cannot be changed. Fortunately, there are some "different" things, which can help the reorganization and recovery of life in the dark, the abyss looks at each other, the light and body reflect each other, and if this different single-minded love is obsession, then cling to it!
Over the years, Shen Guangwei has painted countless alpine cuckoos for the sake of obsession, and he wants to paint again, not because his hands are familiar. The characteristics of the alpine cuckoo are highly consistent with the inner pursuit of the painter, and always make the painter feel that he has not fulfilled his intentions, there are still places that can be excavated and perfected, and he feels that if he continues like this, he will be able to find the true meaning of great love. "What is the purpose of art? It is to sing the praises of life, to praise eternity. Alpine cuckoo embodies great love, and great love is eternity. Shen Guangwei said.
The ancients rarely painted rhododendrons, especially alpine rhododendrons, which are not part of the traditional Chinese painting subject. Shen Guangwei believes that he is still in the traditional schema, which is related to the education he received and his own knowledge reserves, but he intends to look for the contemporaneity of flower and bird paintings, and strives to make breakthroughs in subject matter and form. Alpine rhododendron is an innovative theme, and in terms of form, the personalized pen and ink language that Shen Guangwei has pursued for many years has been quite mature.
"Painters should have their own colors, such as Wu Guanzhong's Chinese paintings, which are nothing more than red, yellow and green; the colors used in his oil paintings, which I summarize as 'Western food colors', are the colors of salads, cream, toast and coffee." Shen Guangwei's rhododendrons are white, pink, purple and red, which can be beautiful, but the surrounding environment is cold, and the leaves in the painting are no longer oily green, but the cool colors created by the flower blue and ink tell people that it has experienced ice and snow. That gray-blue comes from the deep valley of thought and aesthetics. Parasitic small flowers are often made of stone blue dots. "I limit my colors, and in the limits there are categories."
Dancing God Shen Guangwei
Shen Guangwei looked all over the mountains, tracing with a pen, no matter how large the scale, often only a close-up, focusing on starting from the individual, from the point to the surface. This branch is enough to lead the painter and the viewer into the dense forest of the valley and into the ancient style and novelty.
Now, Shen Guangwei can no longer go to see the azaleas every year, but when it comes to the blossom season, he will paint the azaleas. All this", "from the touch of life and the feelings of the artist, from the thoughts that will never be forgotten in a lifetime." This sentence is taken from the "Ode to the Ice Soul" written by Shen Guangwei for his mentor Yu Xining's "Ode to the Ice Soul". Some things are more secure in the heart, why meet each other. Shen Guangwei remembers that some of Yu Lao's representative works are out of unseen thoughts, such as "Chaoshan Song Mei". When Yu Lao went to see the plum tree, the plum tree had been cut down, and he was very sad, and when he came back, he painted his biggest plum blossom. He saw a Changshu Song vine 48 years ago, and when he went there, he was gone, and after 48 years of vicissitudes and rare deaths, he painted the largest painting in his life, "Spring Full of Qiankun". "He couldn't fully remember what the vine looked like, but he gave it a new life form by imagination." Shen Guangwei said.
Shen Guangwei painted a set of "Hundred Plum Diagrams" last year and held an exhibition. Painting this batch of paintings is objectively because there is free time during the new crown epidemic, and it is more of a nostalgia for the teacher. Shen Guangwei always had Yu Lao's poetry collection on his desk, "This set of poems and grasses was sorted out by me in 1996, and there are 118 plum blossom poems by Yu Lao, so I drew 'Baimei Tu'." ”
Moon chart
The value of life, the ideal of aesthetics, needs a suitable carrier, sometimes attached to something, sometimes pinned on someone, there is always a place to come and go. For the alpine cuckoo, Shen Guangwei sent his feelings a thousand times, painted a thousand times and inscribed it a thousand times, still as he first saw. In a work at the end of last year, he inscribed: "Alpine cuckoos have been painted, and few have been passed down in the history of painting." Most of the chants of the literati and gentlemen poured out their feelings of sadness and desolation, or became their unique cultural feelings. Yu Ai has painted alpine rhododendrons for decades, searching for famous mountains in Jiangnan, and what moves me most is the indomitability and unrestrainedness of his life, which is always portrayed. If only a little bit of its spirit is enough. There is desolation and sorrow, and there is the hope of reunion. The reason why flower and bird painting can become an independent large painting is because it can express more humanities and the relationship between man and nature, and its communication methods are beautiful, intuitive and rich, and it can tell the thoughts in thousands of ways.
Shen Guangwei continued: "Yu's love affair with the alpine cuckoo began in the Huangshan Mountains and was formed in Bashu, and in 1987 there was an ancient style that described it: 'Baidu is looking for it for 80,000 miles, and Jiuzhai Huanglong is close at hand.'" Strange peaks and strange waters are disdainful, and mountain flowers are withering and I am late. He Bird hissed with blood, and Rilang Waterfall cried. There is less color on pearl beach, and Jing Hai silently puts his head down. The snowy mountains are red and the road is returning, and the Min River drinks tears and falls on the long causeway. Ander meets early in the coming year, full of flowers and blue pools. '——Xin Ugly is looking forward to writing the impression of Chuan Xing, and the beauty of the big-leaf cuckoo is engraved deeply within the five, and must not be forgotten. ”
Must not be forgotten, so so many touching feelings. Shen Guangwei's family things are always related to thoughts, and with a twist of his fingers, he pulls out a long timeline. On the wall hangs the landscape created by the old friend with "cramping and peeling", and the old ledger paper on the table is newly painted with cinnabar red bamboo, inscribed with the words of Mr. Yu Xining: "One pole, two poles, three poles and four poles at will." In this way, the painter swims with his mentor, with his old friends, with flowers and plants, and with pen and ink in the long river of time, and gradually drifts away in the vast world of art and life.
All things have a way to live, a mission, or in the city, or in the mountains. Year after year, the alpine rhododendron is still open to death and recklessness, thanks to the vitality and symbiosis of this plant, which can make us continue to realize the Tao, let us traverse the mountains and rivers more worthwhile.
Shen Guangwei
Born in 1950 in Weifang, Shandong Province
Professor of Shandong Academy of Arts, master tutor
He is a member of the China Artists Association
Consultant of Shandong Artists Association, Honorary Director of Flower and Bird Painting Art Committee
Deputy Director of the Art Committee of Shandong Academy of Painting
Vice President of Shandong Chinese Painting Society
Consultant of Shandong Provincial Academic Committee of Chinese Painting
In 2017, he won the "Taishan Literature and Art Award" Outstanding Contribution Award of shandong provincial party committee and provincial government
One point number can be said