Hibiscus Huang Binhong
Remembering the scene after the rain, Li Kuchan
Morning glory butterfly Qi Baishi
Splash Ink Immortal Figure Liang Kai
Peony Wu Changshuo
Miscellaneous flowers · local Xu Wei
【Scholar Talk】
The large brushstroke of Chinese painting is based on the philosophical aesthetics of Lao Zhuang, which has a profound connection with the literary form represented by poetry, synthesizes the artistic achievements of calligraphy, especially cursive writing, and highly reflects the aesthetic pursuit of Chinese literati "Shangyi", the modeling concept of "calligraphy and painting with the same body" and the individual life experience of "beyond the image".
The freehand practice of Chinese painting began with the figure paintings of the five generations and two Song Dynasties, and the five generations of Shi Ke and Liang Kai of the Southern Song Dynasty created a style of character painting with coarse brush and ink and simple shapes, Shi Ke's "Erzu Tuning Heart Diagram", Liang Kai's "Splash ink immortal diagram" and "Six Ancestors Cut Bamboo Diagram" are all elegant in brushwork, and the shape is simple and profound. By the Ming Dynasty, large-scale freehand flowers reached the peak of artistic insight and expression, and Xu Wei, a giant of poetry and calligraphy, "had to paint wild sweeps and au pairs", and his works such as "Ink Grape Map" and "Miscellaneous Flower Diagram" were not limited to objects, fierce and unrestrained, and full of vitality. He uses a bald pen to spread out, but he is even more arrogant, and the pen and ink are like a storm, and he can pour blocks in his chest.
1 Do not seek to resemble a survival rhyme
"Don't seek to be like a survival rhyme, the roots are all five fingers planted" is a poem by Xu Wei, which shows his artistic proposition of not falling into barriers and has a distinct personality, which is also one of the typical characteristics of freehand art. Why does the capitalization "not seek to resemble", and where does the aesthetic basis of this concept come from? There is a very exquisite passage in "Zhuangzi Foreign Objects": "Therefore the person who is in the fish, gets the fish and forgets the basket; the hoof is in the rabbit, and the rabbit forgets the hoof; the speaker cares, and the proud forgets the word." I'm andyph's forgetting to talk to the man who talks! While lamenting the rarity of tacit understanding, Zhuangzi pointed out that once the purpose is achieved, the tool can be abandoned. Along this line of thought, as far as the context of Chinese painting is concerned, it may be said that the shaper cares, and the proud forgets the form.
In the Five Dynasties and Two Song Dynasties, Chinese painting reached the expressive height of "both form and god" through the realistic technique of "writing god in form", and when "shape-like" was no longer a problem, painters began to pursue "non-similarity". The Tang Dynasty theorist Zhang Yanyuan proposed in the "Records of Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties" that "the shape is not like the appearance of its painting", the Northern Song Dynasty Ouyang Xiu proposed that "the painting intention does not paint the shape" and "forget the shape", under the advocacy of the literati artist, the concept of "Shangyi" has become the aesthetic core of Chinese painting. Su Shi's poem "On Painting with Shape, Seeing Neighbors with Children" encourages painting to get rid of the shackles of "shape-likeness" and pursue vivid charm. Since then, the literati painters of the Song and Yuan Dynasties have transcended the limitations of "shape-likeness" by virtue of their freehand expression channels, and reached the artistic realm of "getting carried away from shape" and "detaching from shape". The understanding of "similarity and dissimilarity" of Chinese painting epitomizes the concept of shape and god in Chinese literature and art, and later freehand painters have made their own answers to this proposition from their own perspectives. Ni Zhan, one of the "Four Houses of the Yuan", believes that painting can be "sketchy and sloppy, not seeking shape", and talk about writing about the escape in the chest. Qi Baishi once said: "The like is kitsch, the non-similar deceives the world, and the magic lies between the similar and the non-similar." ”
After the creative practice of generations of artists, the idea of painting that does not seek similarity and deviates from the shape has become the consensus of successive generations of freehand painters, and it is particularly fully reflected in the creation of large-scale freehand. "Vivid charm" has been the first point of appraisal of painting for thousands of years, and it is also the primary pursuit of freehand creation. For Chinese painting, the image of pen and ink is the carrier, the mood of the qi rhyme is the connotation, and the works that have empty strokes and ink clusters but no qi rhyme cannot be vividly and moving. In the front of the wonderful large-scale freehand works, often before they can look at the pen and ink forms, the breath in the painting will come to the face and grab people first. Because the brush and ink of the freehand painting itself has a sense of beauty independent of the object, the flying white texture swept out by the dry pen, the ink stains under the wet pen color print, the halo seeping out of the ink color, the full ink line, the rich color block and the squeezed blank... All forms present the unique visual appeal of the pen and ink itself, and there is no need to distinguish what is painted, there is already a pleasant aesthetic enjoyment, which is the typical feature and unique charm of the big picture.
2 It should be noted that calligraphy and painting are the same
Huang Binhong once said: "The national nature of Chinese painting is not seen in pen and ink. Although the large brushstroke does not seek similarity and is proud of the image, it does not abandon the depiction of the object, and still uses pen and ink as a object. The core characteristic of Chinese brush and ink lies in its writing, and the modern aesthetician Zong Baihua once said: "Chinese painting is based on calligraphy... The brilliance of calligraphy and painting is born from the use of pens. "Painting with books" has become another important point in the creation and evaluation of Chinese paintings.
The literati painters of the Song and Yuan dynasties raised the importance of brush and ink to an unprecedented height, and used the pen to emphasize the relationship with calligraphy. Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan Dynasty has a poem: "Stone is like flying white wood is like a basket, writing bamboo should also be eight methods, if there are people who can do this, it is necessary to know that calligraphy and painting are the same", pointing out the core essence of "calligraphy and painting homology" and the basic principle of "writing into painting". Such examples are all over the ancient painting theory, such as Wang Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty, who had the theory of "painting bamboo, dry as a seal, branches as grass, leaves as true, and knots as subordinate".
The similarities between calligraphy and Chinese painting in terms of tool use, language expression, and aesthetic standards provide the premise for "painting with books". Cai Yong of the Han Dynasty said in the "Nine Potentials" that "only the pen is soft and strange", and special tool materials have become the common carrier of the flat language of calligraphy and Chinese painting, both of which take points, lines and surfaces as the basic language elements to construct the aesthetic standards of flat decoration. From the perspective of using the pen, the freehand character of "writing" emphasizes the word "writing", which Wang Xuehao summed up in "Shannan's On Painting": "Some people ask how to paint a scholar? A: Just one 'write' word. This phrase is the most pertinent, writing should not be written, painting is the same, once into the drawing, it is a common work. ”
The freehand brushwork of "painting with books" reflects the painter's deep understanding of line modeling and line expression, and the freehand style of famous artists of past generations is based on their unique and exquisite writing brushwork. In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei combined the flying and longitudinal and colorful brushwork, the smooth flow of ink and the vivid imagery of the model to achieve free expression and reach the realm of grandeur; the Bada Shanren entered the painting with bald brushes, which was sparse and cold; Wu Changshuo entered the painting with a seal gold stone, domineering and vigorous. Later freehand paintings have all tempered their unique brushes in order to get rid of the shackles and establish a personal appearance on this basis. Qi Baishi once said that he especially liked cursive writing, especially Xu Qingteng's dashing words and paintings, but he was still writing calligraphy. When Cui Zifan talked about his creative experience, he said, "There are many things in the large freehand seal book, there are many things in the landscape painting book, and there are many things in the small freehand line book. Grass-based, without seals, easy to float kitsch. If you can combine grass and seals, you will be both thick and simple, and dashing and dexterous."
With books into paintings, the homologous modeling concept of calligraphy and painting makes the capitalization get rid of the shackles of figurative portrayal at the level of "shape-likeness", and the pen and ink have an independent sense of beauty that exists separately from the object. The expression of charm and artistic conception in creation must depend on the refinement and practice of pen and ink ability, so the freehand painter should rely on each other for the depiction and independence of brush and ink, make mutual appearances, support each other, and condense together, and use them smoothly at the moment of sending pen and ink, in addition to having skilled pen and ink kung fu, but also have a unique creative state.
3 Undressing if there is no one around
The creative state of capitalization is often natural and free. "Zhuangzi" tells the mental state of artistic creation: "Song Yuanjun will draw pictures, all history will come, and stand up; licking pen and ink, half outside." There is a history of those who arrive later, who are not inclined, who are not willing to stand, and who are therefore abandoned. If the minister sees it, he will untie his clothes and fold it. Jun Yue: "But it is the true painter also." Yun Nantian of the Qing Dynasty further explained: "Painting must have a disfigurement plate, if there is no one's intention, and then the machine is in hand, the vitality is in disarray, not bound by the first craftsman, but swimming outside the Law." The painter mobilizes his intuition, in one go, pursues the improvisation in creation, and is often "the pen to send the intention, the intention to send the pen, the opportunity for the pen to send the intention, that is, the author does not know why it is so." Therefore, the abundant emotions and free mental state when creating are quite important. The causal rhythm between pen and ink, the articulation of lines and lines, the concession of ink and ink, and the echo of each stroke are all related, implied, and determined by each other.
The same is true of calligraphy and painting, and Cai Yong of the Han Dynasty also said: "Bookworms, scatter also." If you want the book, you will first scatter it, let it go, and then you will book it. If you are forced by things, although the mountain rabbit is not good, it cannot be good. "In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xu often wrote books after getting drunk, or used his hair to ink, such as crazy, the world called "Zhang Qian"; one of the four families of the Song Dynasty, Mi Fushi, was called "Rice Crazy"; Liang Kai of the Southern Song Dynasty was also called "Liang Crazy"; Xu Wei's temperament in the Ming Dynasty was even more arrogant and indulgent, and he was imprisoned several times, and he tasted the bitterness of life because of his uninhibited talent. Artists often integrate extreme life situations, maverick personalities and spontaneous expressions, which are inherently unencumbered mental freedom and extremely ostentatious personality propositions, and are the self-consciousness and self-confidence of personality. Art is valued in innovation and development, and one of the important internal factors of successful innovation is the emphasis and persistence of personality. Shi Tao of the Qing Dynasty said that "even if you are like a certain family, you also eat the remnants of a certain family, what do you think of me...", with an independent artistic personality, you can be bold and fearless in artistic expression, do not fall on the hoof, and reveal your true disposition and express it frankly on top of the detached skeleton.
What does the tradition of Chinese painting mean for the present and the future? Shi Tao said: "Pen and ink should be contemporary." "If the artistic tradition is not willing to be the old paper in the museum, it must become a vibrant legal vein." The inheritance and development of freehand requires that generations of painters not only have an overall understanding and grasp of The Chinese cultural and artistic tradition, have a deep understanding and understanding of the objective world and life situation, but also have the creativity to express these understandings in a unique artistic way, so as to combine artistic tradition with the pulse of the times, and combine with individual destiny, and create a new look. In the face of the art of endlessness, Chinese painters in the new era must be full of cultural consciousness and national mission, willing to go deep into the countryside, search for Qifeng, unremitting exploration and tempering, and with their own artistic practice to embark on a broader path that embodies the times, then the pulse of Chinese painting in the past thousand years will surely flourish and flourish.
(Author: Sun Di, Vice Dean and Associate Professor, School of Fine Arts, Capital Normal University)
Source: Guangming Daily