"Pidgin", "Jiuqu Bridge", "Sixteen Shops", "Four Roads", "Paramount", "Shanghai Liberation"... On the first day of the New Year in 2022, the exhibition of "Looking Back - Shanghai Centennial Events" was opened at the Hongqiao Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai.
The exhibition is organized by the Shanghai Artists Association, the Shanghai Democratic League Calligraphy and Painting Institute, the Hongqiao Museum of Contemporary Art, and hosted by the Shanghai Character Painting Garden and the Shanghai Guoji Art Museum.
Nearly 100 figure paintings, focusing on "Shanghai Centennial Events"
As a thematic art exhibition, "Looking Back - Shanghai Centennial Events" was initiated by various figure painters in Shanghai under the name of "Figure Painting Garden". The nearly 100 figure paintings on display range from the newly created works of the painters to the exquisite masterpieces selected from the large number of thematic works they have created in recent years.
Particularly eye-catching in the exhibition is a set of works "Shanghai Centennial Events", which is the title of the entire exhibition. "Shanghai Centennial Events" selects a typical location in old Shanghai and revolves around the story that took place at this location, in the picture, there are not only citizens, but also a large number of historical figures and important historical events. This set of works is composed of "Pidgin", "Jiuqu Bridge", "Zhang's Weiyuan Garden", "Sixteen Shops", "Four Roads", "Ai Li Garden", "Paramount", "Big World", "Shanghai Liberation" and so on.
One hundred years ago, Shanghai had become a world-famous bustling metropolis in the Far East. Colonial cultures and local cultures collide and clash here; traditional cultures and progressive cultures compete and blend here, precipitating a variety of essences and dross, leaving countless important relics and stories worth recording. Because the painters of the Figure Painting Garden have been engaged in the creation of Shanghai-themed works for many years, they have a very deep memory and imprint on the earth-shaking changes in Shanghai in the past hundred years.
Ye Xiong, convener of the Character Painting Garden, told reporters: "The motivation for creating this set of works has a long history, I painted a set of comic strips with old Shanghai themes "Midnight" in the early 90s of the last century, and since then I have always had the desire to continue to create works with old Shanghai themes. In the past, although I painted a group of Chinese paintings "Sixteen Shops", it was weak and did not become a climate. This time, the painters of the Figure Painting Garden worked together to excavate from all angles in Shanghai, and various styles were gathered. The number of people is great, and the grand scene of the great Shanghai jumps out at once. ”
Sang Linkang, a painter at the Painting Garden and director of the Shanghai Artists Association's Comic Strip Art Committee, has the same feeling. A few years ago, Sang Linkang painted a "Big World" comic strip and collected a lot of information, which is equivalent to a concentrated interpretation of more than three hundred comic strips.
Several drafts have been changed, and artistically they have learned from each other's strengths
Talking about the creative process, Xin Bingyong, a painter at the Painting Garden, said: "The difficulty is really not small! "Although the painters have decades of experience in creating figure paintings, and several have won many national art awards, most painters are still the first time to create such genre paintings.
In order to paint this set of works, they searched for a large number of historical documents and books, visited the older generation of insiders, and collected various materials about old Shanghai in detail. In the process of creation, he changed his manuscript several times, maintained his unique personality in style, approached each other in expression techniques, and learned from each other's strengths and weaknesses artistically.
Because there are many characters in the picture, there are many storylines to be expressed, and the span of time and space is large, it is relatively difficult for painters to control, so the effort is also very deep. Zhu Xinlong, a painter at the Painting Garden and former president of the Meishan Academy, said: "After the creation of this set of works was completed, we tried to launch it on the public account, and the response was quite good. Experts and scholars in various fields have placed high hopes on us, and while encouraging, they have also put forward many insightful opinions and suggestions. From the height of revitalizing Shanghai's realistic figure paintings, higher requirements have been put forward for us, which is undoubtedly a great encouragement to the painters of our painting garden."
Painter Xi Wenyuan said: "This exhibition has also been favored and helped by many enterprises and institutions. The Hongqiao Museum of Contemporary Art is the first exhibition, and will continue to be exhibited at the Guoji Art Museum in Shanghai on February 16, and several museums have since issued invitations to make exhibition reservations. As the first part of the artist's creation, the nine works of "Shanghai Centennial Events" intend to continue to paint in the future. ”
Shanghai needs works that solidly express Shanghai's historical themes
The Symposium on Works of the Character Painting Garden was held the day before New Year's Day (December 31, 2021), and the leaders and experts attending the meeting discussed the current situation of character painting, especially realistic character painting, around the content of the exhibition.
Wang Guanqing, a well-known painter, said, "Painters should have social responsibilities, and social change and progress are promoted by people." In this sense, figure painting should attract full attention and widespread attention. ”
In Wang Guanqing's view, due to the influence of the market economy, there are fewer and fewer figure painters, and even in many art exhibitions with the theme of major anniversaries, theme creation and character creation are seriously lacking. "In this exhibition, we see the persistence of these realistic figure painters through their works. Not only did they meticulously create such a set of difficult and high-quality works as "Shanghai Centennial Events", but their other figure paintings were also wonderful. It is hoped that they will continue to work hard and make a contribution to the revitalization of Shanghai's realistic figure paintings; at the same time, they will influence more painters to get closer to life, express life, and produce more works that praise the era, reflect the progress of human society, reproduce major historical events, and the spirit of the advanced characters of everbright sages and heroes."
"The figure painting garden can unite the figure painters, based on Shanghai, and create positive energy reflecting the theme of Shanghai, which is worthy of our support and affirmation." Zheng Xinyao, chairman of the Shanghai Artists Association, said: "A group of figure painters in Shanghai who came out of comic strips, with a sense of dedication and responsibility, continued to study and explore on the road of Chinese painting in their old age, and created a group of works with old Shanghai themes and a number of main themes. These works are ideologically strong, have distinct themes, have breakthroughs in the treatment of art, and combine the treatment techniques of Chinese painting on the basis of inheriting tradition, which not only maintains the style of Chinese painting, but also has a very popular appreciation. ”
Mao Guolun, a well-known figure painter, said: "Shanghai needs such works that solidly express the theme of Shanghai's history. ”
Xiong Yuezhi, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said: "On the whole, these works vividly reflect the sentient beings in Shanghai society. Through these works, we can see how Shanghai has developed step by step, from which people can understand the history of Shanghai and interpret Shanghai's red culture, which is a very vivid textbook. ”
At the seminar, the participants pointed out that when we are in the midst of major changes unprecedented in a hundred years, looking back at the history of a hundred years ago, observing the great changes of the Chinese nation over the past and millennium from the perspective of art, examining the past, present and future of Shanghai, and having a new understanding of exploring the roots of the city's spirit and taking the formation of The Shanghai culture, Jiangnan culture and red culture.