Commemorating the 109th anniversary of Mr. Yu Xining's birth
Editor's Note
January 10, 2022 (the eighth day of the first lunar month) is the 109th anniversary of the birth of Yu Xining, honorary dean of Shandong Academy of Arts.
Yu Xining (1913-2007), a native of Weifang, Shandong. Graduated from Shanghai Xinhua Art College in 1936, he studied under Huang Binhong, Pan Tianshou, Yu Jianhua and other art masters, devoted his life to art education and creation, and was the founder of higher art education in Shandong, New China.
In 1949, he organized the establishment of the Art Department of Shandong Normal University in Xining, and served as the director of the Fine Arts Department. In 1958, he participated in the establishment of Shandong Art College, and successively served as the president of Shandong Art School, the vice president and honorary dean of Shandong Art College. He has successively served as a deputy to the Seventh National People's Congress and a member of the Standing Committee of the Fifth and Sixth Shandong Provincial People's Congresses. He is the director of the Second, Third and Fourth China Artists Association, the chairman and honorary chairman of the Shandong Provincial Artists Association, the honorary chairman of the Shandong Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature, and the president of the Shandong Academy of Painting.
The Great Hall of the People, the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Zhongnanhai Huairen Hall, the Xihua Hall, the Tiananmen Tower, the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the United Front Work Department all collect and hang his huge works. In 2005, Yu Xining donated 72 works to the National Art Museum of China, and the National Art Museum of China collected a total of 100 masterpieces of various periods, and in 2006, he donated 46 works to the Shandong Museum and 60 works to the Shandong Academy of Arts. In 2013, he donated more than 100 works to his hometown weifang.
Yu Xining is a scholar-type artist with a comprehensive artistic accomplishment in poetry, books, paintings, printing and art history, and is an outstanding representative of the introduction of Chinese flower and bird painting in the twentieth century. "Talent deloitte cultivation, three souls (national soul, human soul, painting soul) together" is his life motto. In 2007, Mr. Yu Xining was awarded the "Shandong Provincial Culture and Art Lifetime Achievement Award". In 2013, the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China and the People's Government of Shandong Province hosted the "Three Souls and One Heart - Yu Xining's Centenary Art Exhibition".
On this day when the plums are budding and the spring is greeted, let us pay tribute to the sages of mountain art, comb the cultural context of mountain art, and carry forward the spirit of mountain art.
Let's start with the brush of Chinese painting
--Yu Xining
As a unique art form, Chinese painting not only has the creation rules of general painting, but also has some special laws in terms of expression techniques and artistic techniques, which need to be studied and summarized by us. This short article is based on some of the teaching materials when I was teaching at the Shandong Art College in the 1960s and my creative experience in recent years, mainly talking about the use of pens, but also involving some issues such as the artistic laws of Chinese painting and the cultivation of painters.
The basic means of Chinese painting modeling, in a nutshell, is to shape the image mainly based on lines. The use of thread plays a leading role in Chinese painting techniques. Similarly, the art of Chinese calligraphy is also a kind of changing use of threads. In particular, cursive writing, in the movement and combination of lines rising, bearing, turning and combining, conveys not only the meaning of the text itself, but also a certain sense of rhythm of depression, yang, dun and frustration, with a variety of unified formal beauty. For thousands of years, Chinese painting has absorbed this unique form of expression from the art of calligraphy and developed it, forming a major feature of technique, after a long period of historical evolution, the tradition of Chinese painting based on lines has not only not seen its decline, but also more and more valued by painters, and has been continuously enriched and improved in creative practice.
Nanqi Sheikh established the theory of "six laws" and listed "bone method with pen" as an important content. Zhang Yanyuan of the Tang Dynasty pointed out in the "Records of Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties": "The image of the husband must be similar, the shape must be full of its bones, the bone qi is similar, all based on the intention and return to the use of the pen, so the painter must be good at writing." Among them, "the shape seems to have its backbone", that is, the important role of the finger in the shape. So, how can the line achieve this variety of rich "bone gas" effect? Of course, it's up to the pen. What we usually call "brushwork" is the expressiveness of the finger line, and the pen plays a leading role in building "bone qi" and "god bones" and expressing the physical beauty and inner beauty of things. Yuan Shu of the Tang Dynasty said in the "Painting Song Poems": "Zhang Xuan painted ancient pines, and often got the bones of the gods. The green broom sweeps the spring wind, and the dry dragon and the cold moon. It is said that the painters have been buried in the strange ways. The branches are not dashing, and the stubbornness is abrupt. It is the heart of the dust, and it is difficult to smoke and smoke. I went to Huaiyang Mountain, deep in the mountains to see the real thing. Since then, many of the writings and painting practices of successive generations have followed this thesis to develop and improve. In painting, it is said that it is necessary to respect the external authenticity of objective things, and to express them through the analysis of the internal nature of things and the subjective intentions of the painter. The "bone method with the pen" is not just a form of expression here, but a product of subjective and objective organic unity in painting. If we only focus on the objective superficial truth, and ignore its inner essence and the subjective will of the author, the result will inevitably flow into simplistic naturalism, as Su Shi said, "On painting as a shape, see the neighbor with children." On the contrary, if we only emphasize the subjective will of the author and ignore or disregard the objective reality, we will inevitably lose the authenticity of art, and thus fall into the formalism of simply playing with pen and ink. Neither of the above meets the requirements of "having both form and god". Therefore, the creative method proposed by the predecessors in summing up the experience is actually a combination of realism and romanticism, but it is limited to the conditions at that time and has not yet risen to the height of theory. My view is to require the author to be able to achieve "the creation of foreign teachers and the source of the heart in the middle" in the face of objective things, and to be good at handling the problems in creation with the aesthetic attitude of "thinking of the wonderful", that is, in the Song Dynasty Chao's "On The Shape and Meaning", Yun "paints the shape of the writing, and the shape of the object does not change; the poetry and painting have the external meaning, and there is a state in the painting". Artistic creation is an extremely complex process, how can it be confined to "carving a boat and seeking a sword" and "rubber pillar drummer"? When the artist enters the creative world, he is often wandering outside the image, thinking that in the picture, the ink is waved, and the pen is dropped. The illiterate think that it is a wild graffiti, but in fact it has its own bamboo in the chest, and when its conception is mature, the poetry and painting rush to the end of the pen. "Not like it" is an important requirement and standard in artistic creation, from the perspective of both readers and authors, there is a problem of "from the surface and the inside", "to the false and the true" and "to the coarse and refined". That is to say, in the process of creation, the author has a problem of re-creation of objective things, and the reader also has a problem of re-creation of works of art in the appreciation activities. In the words of the ancients, it can also be called "the benevolent see the benevolent, and the wise see the wise".
"Dragon Boat Festival" 68x68cm, 1990
"Wu Xiu Long Ke" 68x68cm, 1993
Specific to the issue of using a pen, how to reflect this kind of "wonderful thinking"? I think there is both a technical problem and a methodological problem here. How the creative method and the expression method are consistent is often a concrete expression of the artist's profound skill.
From the perspective of the use of the pen itself, several material conditions (pen, ink, color, paper, water, etc.) when painting must play a role in the painting process, and they all depend on the different use of the pen to produce different effects, constituting different and rich painting languages. When the author runs the pen, he should play a role in organizing and guiding both. The formation and change of painting language lies in this, and the high and low cultivation of painting language also lies in this, of course, the success or failure of the work lies in this. Therefore, the first is to understand and master the basic skills of using the pen, and the second is to study how to better organize the use of the pen and improve the skills of the pen. The former is a problem that belongs to the basic laws of using the pen, and the latter is a problem in the exploration of the laws of art, and the two are interdependent. Without a series of laws of artistic expression, the laws of art cannot be reflected; and if we leave the laws of art to study technical problems, we will fall into blindness. For example, the horizontal, vertical, skimming, dot, pinch, hook, and lift in calligraphy, these basic strokes are the basic elements that constitute the beauty of the calligraphy art form, and the predecessors who learned calligraphy summarized it as the "Yongzi Eight Laws", but it is not that mastering the "Yongzi Eight Laws" can constitute the whole of calligraphy art, which is a very obvious truth. On the other hand, artistic creation cannot yet be completely bound by laws, and it is not possible to take certain laws to rigidly apply, but it must also go beyond these laws to a certain extent and get rid of the shackles of the laws that people are usually accustomed to, that is, the "from the law to the impossible" in painting theory, or "the law of the impossible, but the law of the ultimate". To create a perfect art form with regularity, rich expression ability, rhythmic rhythm, and can be used freely and integrated, it is indeed not an overnight thing, and it requires a lot of hard work to explore in depth and repeated practice to do it. Whether it is the basic law or the law of art, the two must be taken from theory to practice in order to eliminate their blindness.
"Snow Girl" 68x68cm, 1994
"Fragrant Island Bauhinia", 262x67cm, 1997
Chinese painting, whether it is a form of gongbi, stick figure or half-work and half-simple, is inseparable from the use of lines, and the changes of various different lines have a certain form of beauty in themselves. This form of beauty is often called "bookishness". Here, the meaning of "book qi" includes two meanings, namely "book qi" and "calligraphy qi". The former is from the perspective of the painter's character knowledge, temperament and demeanor, and artistic accomplishment, and the latter is from the perspective of whether the use of the middle line of painting has absorbed some laws in the art of calligraphy.
The ancients said, "Read thousands of books, travel thousands of miles", to use today's words to interpret, that is, usually said to go deep into life, to strengthen literary and artistic accomplishment. The embodiment of "bookish atmosphere" in painting is also an important factor for Chinese painting to stand alone in the forest of world art and be unique. For an aspiring and visionary Chinese painter, it is imperative not to take it lightly. The requirement of "calligraphy qi" is often difficult for painters who lack exercise in calligraphy art. For example, if two people who have also painted for decades have a higher cultivation in terms of "bookishness" and the other has a lower or lack of such cultivation, then the thinking expression ability and artistry reflected in their works will be obviously different. The ancients said that "the ancient painter has many good books" refers to the commonality between the pen and calligraphy of Chinese painting. The "setting of Chen Bushi" in painting theory is also consistent with the structure of the interstitial frame, the method of chapters, and the line of qi mentioned in calligraphy theory. On the issue of some artistic laws, many aspects of ancient painting theory are often developed by borrowing from calligraphy theory. This will inevitably prompt people who study Chinese painting to study calligraphy and practice it repeatedly. For a long time, painting and calligraphy have become the most intimate sister arts, and some accomplished calligraphers are also famous painters, such as Su Dongpo, Mi Fu, Zhao Ziang, Wen Zhengming, etc., who are recognized as famous calligraphers and painters in history.
Specifically, from the pen rules of using strokes bit by bit, to the structural layout of "loose and sloppy, dense and not allowed to needle", to the pens of "cone painting sand", "house leak marks", and "folding strands", as well as the pens of "pen simplicity and meaning", "blending and simple Mao", "Gang Jian Wanna", "dry vines and knotted knots", "running thunder falling stones", "Hongfei beast horror", "Luan dancing snake fright", and so on, these idioms that describe the mystery of the pen, the beauty of the line, and the artistic effect, are basically universal to the Chinese calligraphy art and painting art based on the modeling of the line. These theories are often first seen in the works that comment on calligraphy, such as the Tang Dynasty Sun Guoting's "Book Genealogy" said: "If you think through the kai, it is less than old; learning rules is not as good as less." Thinking is old and getting better; learning is less and more encouraging. Reluctantly, there are three times, and the changes are sudden, extremely different. As for the distribution of beginners, but seek to be straight; both know the peace and integrity, and pursue the danger; both can be dangerous and return to the right. The first is not reached, the middle is passed, and then it is general. At the time of the meeting, people are old and old." Why don't these theories about calligraphy apply to painting? From the use of the pen to the modeling, from the strict rules to the boldness, the return to the strict, the strict in the release, such as repeated, so that the pen gradually becomes sophisticated, gradually understand and master its artistic laws, and obtain the unexpected natural interest of practice. In his book "YangSuju Painting Learning Hook Deep", Dong Di of the Qing Dynasty said: "When a book is written and painting is learned, it is not easy to change its body and it is not easy to do its law, and to cover the painting is the principle of the book, and the book is the method of painting." He also said, "The writer has everything, and the painter has everything." However, painting can be passed through books, calligraphy can be passed through paintings, and the same way is the same, and calligraphy and painting are the same. Zhang Yanyuan's "Records of Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties: On Gu Lu Zhang Wu's Pen" said: "The traces of Gu and Lu are tight and continuous, the cycle is super abrupt, the style is easy, the wind tends to be electric, the intention is to save the pen first, and the painting is exhausted, so the whole spirit is also." In the past, Zhang Zhi learned the method of Cui Yu and Du Du cursive, so it changed into the posture of today's cursive writing, one stroke, the qi pulse is connected, the interlacing is continuous, only the prince respects its deep purpose, so the first word of the line often follows its forward, the world is called a pen book, and then Lu Tanwei also makes a stroke, continuously, so it is known that the calligraphy and painting are the same as the pen. The above record is enough to show that calligraphy and painting complement each other in the use of pens. Even in some modern painting theories, this is also very important, such as Lu Weizhao's title "Selected Paintings of Lu Weizhao's Non-Flowers and Birds": "If you want it to be new, if it is not new, it is gouge; if it wants its spirit, if it is not spirit, it will die; if it desires its life, if it does not live, it will stagnate; if it does not want it, it will be dirty; if it is not lustful, it will be dirty; if it is not mellow, it will be wanton." This "new", "Gou", "spirit", "dead", "alive", "stagnant", "Ying", "dirt", "alcohol", "wanton", in addition to factors such as color, ink, water, paper, etc., which one is not directly related to the use of the pen, and is the same as the theory of calligraphy? This is the reason why Chinese painting focuses on "writing" rather than "drawing". Here, it is not only in terms of literal meaning, but by the artistic laws of Chinese painting itself. As early as the 1360s, Zhao Mengjian of the Southern Song Dynasty pointed out this problem very clearly in the long poem of "FuMei": "Thick writing of flowers and branches is light, scales and old dry ink is slightly focused", "The pen end of the luminous non-painting, the vertical and horizontal on the axis is not a drawing". This is not just for the sake of phonological confrontation and the harmony of words, but has its practical significance. In a narrow sense, "writing" is to borrow some basic rules and methods of calligraphy with pens, including the essentials of "mentioning", "pressing", "dun" and "frustrated" of holding and moving pens, so as to help exert the expressive power of linear shapes; in a broad sense, "writing" draws on elements such as calligraphy modeling, knotting, chapters, and momentum to strengthen the formal beauty of Chinese painting, strengthen the factors and sense of rhythm of picture power, thereby enriching the connotation of Chinese painting and forming an important feature of literati painting. The inseparable blood relationship between books and paintings has played a positive role in the history of the development of Chinese painting and cannot be erased. Judging from the existing various painting relics of Chu, Han, Jin and Tang and the paintings of the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing and even modern times, Chinese painting is becoming more and more important than "writing", such as Chen Baiyang, Xu Qingteng, Zhu Yun, Shi Tao of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as zhao Zhiqian, Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Pan Tianshou and other famous painters of the late Qing Dynasty and modern times, and even Famous painters such as Xu Beihong, Wu Zuoren, and Liu Haisu who are engaged in the discussion of Chinese painting by Western painting. Their technical innovations and artistic achievements are not separated from the practical and theoretical study of calligraphy.
"Vines", 138x70cm, 1997
Since the Song and Yuan dynasties, in the field of flower and bird painting, it has advocated painting plums, orchids, bamboos and chrysanthemums. Many accomplished flower and bird painters have started with this. Over time, the "Four Gentlemen" became an independent subject often depicted in flower and bird paintings. The reason is that, on the one hand, Chinese literati paintings often adopt the method of sending affection to things, with the hardiness of plums, the sweetness of orchids, the strength of bamboo, and the pride of chrysanthemums; on the other hand, from the perspective of practicing freehand brushwork, it is most appropriate to "write" these four kinds of flowers with the pen of calligraphy. In particular, Lanzhu is almost all a combination of dots, lines, skimming, and pinching, which makes the "write" characters in the paintings more obvious. Generally speaking, there are few people who can't do calligraphy and can draw orchids and bamboo well, on the contrary, good orchids and bamboo people are good at calligraphy. There have been many painters in the past, when painting other flowers, they always used the orchid and bamboo brush methods to paint, and they were only slightly flexible. One uses the simplicity and generalization of this style of writing; the other takes its elegant charm and seeks a higher style. Therefore, many experienced flower and bird painters think that painting flowers without learning orchids and bamboo is always a deficiency, which I think is very reasonable. For example, long-leaved grass, leek or pu, short-leaved peach, willow, oleander, peony and other herbal flowers, and some woody plants can be borrowed from the brush modeling technique of painting Meilan. In short, with the foundation of plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum pens, when painting other flowers, as long as the technique is slightly adapted to adapt to the objects depicted, it not only feels comfortable to paint, but also the pen disease can be relatively reduced. Because in the process of painting, if you use "writing" to command when you drop the pen, the habit of "drawing" will naturally retreat, one of them. Because "writing" is used instead of "tracing", it may gradually change the weakness of the arm and wrist, replace the wrist force and arm strength with finger force, and get rid of the problem of floating and slippery pen barrel and pen bottom. Of course, from practicing calligraphy to writing orchids, there is also a process of re-creation, and there is also the problem of observing life and shaping the image, which will not be discussed in detail here. When I paint flowers, there are many aspects of the use of the pen that are based on painting orchids and bamboo, and in the process of painting, I rarely use multiple brushes, which is also cultivated from practicing calligraphy. I think that since it is "writing", it is necessary to boldly write and do it in one go, and there is no room for hesitation. In the Qing Dynasty Wang Zhiyuan's "Painting Art of The World Has Mountains and Halls", there is a saying that "there is bamboo in the chest, and then the pen is like a wind and clouds, and it is carved in an instant, then the spirit is idle", which is the experience of writing bamboo. This is applied to other freehand flowers, and it is also common.
All the laws of painting language exist and develop to reflect the laws of art, so it is impossible to remain unchanged. As far as the pen is concerned, from obeying certain laws to being handy and free to use; from being constrained by laws to breaking through the barriers of laws and seeking the realm of doing whatever you want, this is the process of improving the artist's artistic accomplishment, and it is also a process from gradual change to mutation, from quantitative change to qualitative change. The brush used in Chinese painting should pursue and organize a number of changes in form through square, straight, thick, heavy, rigid and soft, dry and wet, thick and light, virtual and real, etc., to express the complex content of objective things and the formal beauty of art, and to express the subjective thoughts and feelings of the painter. This first requires that the pen be accurate and skilled, that the pen be realized, that the change of the line forms a sense of rhythm and formal beauty, and that the ideological content contained in the work is integrated and integrated. Therefore, the first step requires that the painter must firmly grasp the basic rules of using the pen. Strictly speaking, this is only the first step in the beginning of the mastery of the expressive power of the law of knowledge. The reason I say it is the first step is that a painter must establish a code stage. Further, it is also required to gradually improve the ability to understand and express, to achieve a higher stage of liberation from the constraints of the basic laws, to be able to change freely, to play arbitrarily, to write business, to be good at discovering contradictions and resolving contradictions, and to give full play to the artistic expression of the pen. There are laws that are not confined to the law, and the letter and pen are in line with the law, which is the second step, the stage of liberation, which is also what every painter hopes to be able to do. Only the first step of being solid can we truly enter the second step, which is what the ancients said about the realm of "pen pen is pen, pen pen is not pen". This "yes" and "no" are dialectical unity of opposites. "Non" is not a wild scribbling without any basis and without laws, but a step-by-step climb up on the basis of "yes", thus entering a higher stage, reaching the pen for me, not me for the pen, turning the dead pen into a living pen. To this end, we must correctly understand and understand the law of using the pen under the premise of going deep into life, and correctly recognize and understand the dialectical relationship between "yes" and "non" in the brushwork of our predecessors.
Ballantine, 83x76cm, 1998
"Yellow Loofah" 103x77cm, 1998
Artistic creation is a creative practice activity, which requires both skilled techniques and profound cultivation. The rules of use of the pen that I have described earlier are based on both. A person who pays attention only to technique and does not pay attention to cultivation is at best a skilled painter, and cannot become a true artist. A painter, if he does not pay attention to his own cultivation, his works will inevitably be shallow! And with the development of the times and the progress of history, the cultivation of artists is by no means once and for all, and it is necessary to constantly supplement and accumulate new knowledge, constantly broaden their horizons, enrich and increase their own insights, which is endless. The reason why artistic cultivation is important is because it is directly related to the image thinking activities of the whole process of painting creation. All creative intentions, temperaments, emotions, etc., as well as the handling of starting, inheriting, turning, and combining literary thought, are closely related to the artistic qualities of the painters themselves. From the perspective of the relationship between poetry and painting, not to mention earlier, take Gu Kaizhi as cao Zhi's "LuoshenFu" as an example, if it is not the painter who has a deep understanding of the poet's work, how can he paint such a beautiful Roselle with charm, graceful style, and Ling Bo Gupan? The painter jumped on the original roselle of "as if the moon was covered by a light cloud", "as if the sun rose in the morning glow", and "if the green waves came out of the plover", which was really an example of the combination of poetry and painting. Later, Wang Mojie's "Painting in Poetry" and "Poetry in Painting" were uploaded as good stories in the art world. After the rise of Song and Yuan literati painting, the poetry inscriptions on the screen, long and short, became an organic part of the format. Painters either have a strong poetic interest in life, or they have the impulse to draw with a brush inspired by the poetic works of others. Although from the language of literature to the language of painting, although it is necessary to follow the laws of plastic arts, expressing its shape, quality, feelings, intentions, interests, etc., which all depend on the imagination of thinking and the effort of the bottom of the pen, it should also be seen that the dominant issue is the cultivation of the painter himself. With cultivation, the thinking can be broadened; with cultivation, the pen and ink can be psychic. Otherwise, even if there is a brilliant pen, it will not help, because it will never replace the artistic accomplishment that needs to be accumulated for a long time to enrich.
When I read the two sentences of "Wildfires Burn Endlessly, Spring Wind Blows and Grows Again" in Bai Juyi's poem "Farewell to the Ancient Grassland", I feel that I can inspire the spring spirit and endless vitality, churning the things accumulated in my mind, and a number of such creative themes and images stimulate the thinking activities of the brain and inspire to open up creative ideas. Many beautiful literary languages often come up with vivid pictures in your mind, and eagerly force you to explore how to express them in the language of painting. I think this should be a very necessary habit of thinking in the daily life of the painter. Others, whether it is the refinement and generalization of Peking Opera, the delicacy and simplicity of local opera, or the richness and breadth of film, can provide many useful inspirations for the image thinking and expression of painting creation. Over the past few years, the development of Chinese painting, from the subject matter content to the form of expression, is not limited to the technical scope of Chinese painting itself, but depends on the multi-faceted nutrition provided by the sister art and the entire literary and artistic field, including various excellent literary and artistic achievements in ancient and modern China and abroad, which are worthy of extensive reference by painters. In today's era, we should continue to open up our own ideological realm, constantly enrich our own expression methods, and strive to create excellent works worthy of the great era and can be in harmony with the feelings of the people!
"Proud Snow", 137x69cm, 2002
"Soaring Old Ji" 136x68cm, 2002
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This article was originally published in Chinese Painting Research, No. 2, 1982
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