Like oil painting, pastel painting, watercolor painting and other art categories that use materials as a means of naming a painting genre, the term "lacquer painting" directly clarifies the fundamental use of materials in this genre - painting with lacquer. "Zhuangzi World" Yun: "Gui is edible, so cut it, paint can be used, so cut it." "China is the country that produces and uses the most paint in the world, and has unique conditions in the development of the lacquer process, and its influence once radiated to neighboring countries."
The National Art Museum of China recently launched the "Dan Lacquer with Dreams - National Art Museum of China Lacquer Painting Art Exhibition", which comprehensively displayed the fine lacquer paintings collected by the museum over the years, which not only presented the unique personality and diversified appearance of lacquer painting, which is an "ancient and modern" art category, but also showed the aesthetic connotation and artistic expression of modern lacquer painting art.
Lacquer painting is said to be "ancient" because the Chinese nation has a long history of painting with lacquer, and the lacquerware "wooden bow" known as the "source of national lacquer" was excavated in the ruins of the Zhejiang Cross-Lake Bridge 8,000 years ago. Since then, successive generations of skilled craftsmen have continued to develop and innovate, improving the skills of lacquer, and the book "Records of Lacquer Decoration" written by Huang Cheng in the Ming Dynasty has made a detailed description of the various classifications and names of lacquerware and the process techniques of piling, grinding, engraving, and embedding, becoming the only ancient work on lacquer art in China.
Lacquer painting is "modern" because lacquer painting was born from the traditional lacquerware process and evolved into an independent painting genre for only a hundred years. Since the 1920s, modern lacquer painting has gradually and consciously stepped out of the category of traditional lacquerware, especially the Sixth National Art Exhibition in 1984 has become a landmark event in the history of modern Lacquer Painting in China. At this art exhibition, lacquer painting finally appeared as an independent painting genre, completing the transition from lacquerware decoration to pure art form. From this point of view, lacquer painting can be described as an out-and-out "young painting".
This also happens to be confirmed in the collection management of the National Art Museum of China, the earliest collection of lacquer paintings of the National Art Museum of China began in 1964, but the early years of lacquer painting management did not set up a separate "lacquer painting" account, but classified a very small number of lacquer painting works as arts and crafts, until the 1980s, with the prosperity of China's lacquer painting creation and the increase in the number of lacquer paintings in Tibet, the National Art Museum of China officially set up a separate lacquer painting ledger.
For many people, lacquer painting has its own mysterious feeling, the reason is that it has a strong craftsmanship, the creation has a unique set of techniques and production processes, such as painting, engraving, painting, inlaying, polishing and pushing light, which is also the characteristics of lacquer painting that distinguishes it from other types of painting. However, modern lacquer painting is not limited to this, although it continues to inherit the traditional lacquer process in craftsmanship, its core has raised the lacquer to the level of pure painting, presenting a variety of art forms such as figuration, imagery and abstraction. From the perspective of performance content, it is no different from other art forms, and characters, flowers and birds still lifes and pastoral landscapes are all popular themes.
At present, the earliest known modern figure lacquer painting in China should be the "Portrait of Sun Yat-sen" made by The Fujian wu Xishan in the 1920s, this portrait combines the chiaroscuro of Western painting and the traditional gold lacquer process, and the commendation certificate at that time praised: "Although the painting is taken from the West, the application of gold paint is still the essence of the motherland." After the founding of New China, lacquer painter Qiao Shiguang made a new excavation of the technical language of character lacquer painting and created the "aluminum powder cover paint grinding method", such as "Red Girl Scout Army" covers the red transparent paint on silver foil, and then after grinding, a delicate layer appears, which enhances the painterly and realistic ability of the work. His "Songkran Festival" shows Dai girls watching dragon boat racing, their figures are beautiful and their long skirts are gorgeous. Qiao Shiguang comprehensively uses a variety of techniques such as gold pasting and inlaying, and the overall is bright and rich, with decorative effects.
Joe Shiguang, "Songkran Festival", 1978
Flowers, birds and still lifes are also one of the most common expressive subjects in modern lacquer painting. Flowers and birds have a beautiful meaning, reflecting the artist's observation and recognition of the life of the world, flowers and birds and other objects have the characteristics of color composition and lacquer painting material characteristics are very consistent, the use of various craft techniques makes the lacquer painting art language of such themes diverse and rich, the delicacy of painting, the purity of the carved paint, the confusion of the polished paint, the dazzling of the inlay, the thickness of the paint, giving the natural things infinite possibilities. Shen Fuwen is one of the founding figures of modern Chinese lacquer painting, his work "Goldfish" with a black background as water, with distinct lacquer, the painter on the basis of grinding paint kneading into the high pile of lacquer, so that several goldfish have a three-dimensional effect of relief, scarlet goldfish colorful, lively and interesting, screw and use of gold techniques to make the goldfish shine with luster, shining fish scales realistic, lifelike, amazing.
"This body is self-illusory and not a dream, and the landscape of the old garden is in the heart." Chinese artists have always had the artistic tradition and aesthetic pursuit of indulging in landscapes and being close to nature, and the Landscape Garden is the spiritual homeland built by artists, who integrate natural scenes such as the change of seasons, lakes, wilderness skies and personal mental images, creating a different kind of hometown feelings and lyrical moods.
The landscape composition of lacquer painting is ingenious, and on the basis of conforming to the principles of light and dark perspective and other picture principles, it retains the characteristics of flat decoration. As a product of the combination of craftsmanship and painting, lacquer painting emphasizes artistic expression while constantly reforming and innovating materials and processes. The so-called dark easy, lacquer white is difficult, the natural characteristics of the paint determine that white is the lacquer (natural paint) can not, and in order to achieve the effective performance of objective objects, enrich the color level of the picture, lacquer painters creatively introduce the eggshell into the lacquer painting, with the color quality of the eggshell to fill the natural paint can not modulate the pure white defects, the eggshell inlaid white and the special crack texture form a unique visual aesthetic decorative effect, becoming the most widely used process technique by lacquer painters, It is particularly expressive in the Jiangnan houses depicting black tiles and white walls and the snow fields in the mountains and countryside.
Bai Xiaohua's "Noon Gate Ruixue" is a classic work that expresses the Forbidden City, depicting the winter snow scene of the Forbidden City at noon, the color of vermilion paint is calm, the intervention of eggshells successfully creates a scene of snow and snow, and under the white snow of the red wall, the Forbidden City is solemn and solemn, showing the oriental aesthetic charm.
Bai Xiaohua, "Noon Gate Ruixue", 2004
Source Beijing Daily | Author Du Zhidong
Edited by Wang Qiong
Process Editor Yan Shengmiao