Gan is the "paving stone" for Chinese oil painting

"Pictorial Quest - Oral History of Quanshan Stone"

The times need artists who are both virtuous and artistic. The oil painter and art educator Quan Shanshi set an example.

Quan Shanshi is a professor at the China Academy of Art and vice chairman of the China Oil Painting Society, and in 2019, he was awarded the honorary title of "Lifetime Achievement Artist" by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Xu Jiang, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and director of the Academic Committee of the China Academy of Art, said: Quan Shanshi is "the guide of Chinese oil painting." Fan Di'an, president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, said: Quan Shanshi is one of the oil painters with the highest cultivation level and the best kung fu in the Field of Oil Painting in China today.

In 1930, Quan Shanshi was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, to a cultural family. In 1949, just after the founding of New China, Quan Shanshi, who loved music, was unexpectedly admitted to the Hangzhou National Art College (the predecessor of the China Academy of Art), and has since formed an indissoluble relationship with oil painting. In 1954, after strict selection, JeonsanShi was selected by the state to study at the Repin Academy of Fine Arts and graduated with full honors. After returning to China, he returned to his alma mater to teach, and served as the head of the oil painting department, the provost of the academy, and the member of the Art Education Committee of the Ministry of Education. In 2014, Quanshanshi Art Center, China's first private public welfare oil painting art research and exhibition institution, which he was responsible for organizing, was officially opened to the public, contributing to the development of China's oil painting industry.

Among the hundreds of oil paintings in Quanshanshi, the creation of major revolutionary historical themes has always occupied an important position. "Heroic and Indomitable" is his early historical painting, showing the historical event of the defeat of the Great Revolution after the "April 12 Counter-Revolutionary Coup" in 1927. In order to create this painting, he repeatedly read Mao Zedong's "On Coalition Government" and finally found the theme: "The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people have not been intimidated, conquered, or killed. They got up from the ground, wiped the blood off their bodies, buried the bodies of their companions, and they went on fighting. "QuanshanShi symbolically depicts this historical event in a monumental style, showing the heroic and indomitable heroism of the people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and embodying the harbinger of victory in the painting."

In order to create "Eight Women Throwing the River", Quan Shanshi went to the northeast for field investigation and experienced life. In the sudden flood of the Wusihun River, a tributary of the Mudanjiang River, he personally felt the cold of the river. His "Eight Women Tossing the River" takes the fearless revolutionary spirit of "rather than jade fragmentation than waquan" as the keynote, and uses symbolic techniques to express this historical story.

In 2005, the "National Major Historical Theme Art Creation Project" was officially launched, and Quan Shanshi created the "March of the Volunteer Army". Jeonsan Seok believes that the key to this work is to show "build our flesh and blood into our new Great Wall!" This work uses a general and symbolic artistic language to express historical figures, express historical truth, and then embody the indomitable fighting spirit.

On the basis of following the ontological language of Western oil painting, Quan shanshi creatively absorbed Chinese cultural elements, boldly applied the mural style of the Northern Wei period of the Mogao Grottoes and the style of "writing" in Chinese painting to personal oil painting creation, and found a suitable theme for oil painting performance in the vast land of Xinjiang, elevating oil painting to a higher artistic realm.

In 1980, Quan Shanshi was deeply infected by the land and people here when he first came to Xinjiang, and his creative enthusiasm was stimulated as never before. In the years that followed, he went to Xinjiang more than 20 times and became a well-known oil painter with Xinjiang themes at home and abroad.

The old artists in "Craftsman" have a thick smile and a natural posture, as if they are right in front of the audience. In the creation of this painting, the painter boldly adopted the rich meaning and booked lines of the Mogao Grottoes murals, and achieved the effect of meaning and art without affecting the authenticity of the human figure.

"The Tajik Wedding" is the longest to draw. In 1981, JeonsanShi came to Tashkurgan on the Pamiga Plateau for the first time. One day, he suddenly heard the melodious melody of song and dance in the distance, the eagle flute and the tambourine sounded in unison, and there was a joyous song and laughter; when he saw that the mighty welcoming horse team had arrived at the head of the village, the people were singing and dancing, and they were jubilant. He seemed to have entered a dream, and was so excited that he ran with the horse team. This scene is unforgettable for him. More than 20 years have passed, and it was not until 2008 that he began to create this genre painting, which was finally completed in 2020. In this work, he solidifies the tajik spirit of simplicity, kindness, optimism, unity, fraternity, and the pursuit of a better life on canvas through brushes and colors.

Morality is fundamental to being human. As a painter and art educator, Quan Shanshi was strict with himself, abandoning vulgarity and refusing to speculate, while sparing no effort to preach and teach, and devoted himself unreservedly. He said: I don't want to open a personal art museum, I just want to be able to do something beneficial to Chinese oil painting for the rest of my life.

Whether studying in the Soviet Union or teaching at the China Academy of Art, Quan Shanshi always pays attention to and thinks about the laws of art education, so that students can lay a solid professional foundation. In 2012, Jeonsanshi decided to organize an art center dedicated to the display, research and popularization of oil painting. He said: We should tell everyone, especially young oil painters and those who are learning oil painting, oil painting was produced in the West, but we should introduce the crystallization of human civilization to China, so that China's young people will no longer take detours.

Immersed in the reading enjoyment of "Pictorial Quest - Oral History of Quanshan Stone", it is as if following the artist's footsteps, walking through thousands of mountains and rivers, going through the vicissitudes of time, looking at the development of oil painting for hundreds of years, and vaguely seeing Chinese oil painting with national characteristics, just like the ten thousand dawns that spew out on the eastern horizon.

(The author is a research librarian at the National Library of China)