Feng Dazhong is famous for painting tigers, and his tigers are majestic, mighty and gentle, generous and likable.
Write about the spirit and the breath in the chest
——I feel the sketches of Feng Dazhong
Feng Dazhong is famous for painting tigers, and his tigers are majestic, mighty and gentle, generous and likable. His landscape paintings combine long hills, brush and ink and realm, and the blend of scenes has long been appreciated by people. People have long heard of his diligence and hard work in artistic creative labor, but they do not know the details of it. Recently, I have had the opportunity to read many of his sketches, including those depicting tigers, landscapes, flowers and birds; and some direct sketches. There are also improvisational writings that imitate the penmanship of predecessors. These works have a sketchy nature, but the works have forged their own ingenuity, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are excellent creations. After reading these works, I deeply feel that the reason why Feng Dazhong has achieved such a high level of achievement in art is inseparable from his long-term adherence to the path of ancients and teachers. He persevered in reading the two big books of the ancients and nature, realized his life experience, understood the principle of artistic creation, comprehensively improved his self-cultivation, perfected his artistic skills, and climbed the peak of art.
Autumn Waters / 152×310 cm / Color on paper / 1995
The creation of Chinese painting has always emphasized the need to learn from the representative works of the ancients and copy the predecessors, because the stylized and highly refined pen and ink language of Chinese painting is the crystallization of the labor and wisdom of the masters of the past, which are vividly reflected in specific works. Copying these classic works is the only way to learn the skills and spirit of Chinese painting, and in the stage of learning painting, a large number of ancient works have been observed and copied, taking them as models, combined with sketching, and groping for the direction of progress. Even after becoming famous, he still insisted on learning from the ancients. Among the works I read this time, many of them are imitations of the ancients' brushwork, most of which are imitations of the eight. Why did Dazhong do this? I thought it was to perfect the pen and ink language. The brush and ink of traditional literati painting are not only techniques and techniques, but also the carrier of traditional cultural spirit and artists' personal feelings. In the 20th century art academies in mainland China, while attaching importance to training students' objective object modeling ability, they often neglected the teaching of pen and ink language, forming a lack of traditional cultural spirit in Chinese painting creation, and even a fault phenomenon. Dazhong repeatedly imitated the ancients with a purpose, which is based on the understanding that tradition is the treasure house of art that cannot be learned, and it is necessary to continuously study, repeatedly chew and digest in order to obtain its essentials.
Playing the Tiger / 96×180 cm / Color on paper / 1988
Dazhong is not mechanically imitating tradition, nor is it following its predecessors step by step in pen and ink. He understood the teachings of his predecessors, "Painting cannot pick up the predecessors, but must obtain the wishes of the predecessors" (Qing. Bian Shou Folk Language). He loves to copy the Bada Shanren, and many of his works are imitated by this freehand master, but he uses the method of "yilin", that is, the ancients said that "to learn its meaning without teaching its traces" (Ming. Tang Zhiqi's "Painting Things in Small Words"). He experienced how to convey the "divine qi" of objective objects and express his subjective feelings through pen and ink.
"Spring and Autumn" / 192×200 cm / Color on paper / 1999
In the works of imitating predecessors, Da Zhong does not seek the same brush strokes as the original, but in his own creation, he pursues to express his independent spirit on the basis of the experience of his predecessors and under the premise of the "heart" of the ancients. There is no shortage of tiger painters in the history of Chinese art, and Dazhong dares to be independent and become a family of its own, giving the image of the tiger a new spiritual connotation and a new cultural meaning, which shows his courage and courage. In the creation of landscapes, flowers and birds, he also learned from various families, but did not fall behind the customs of his predecessors, and strived to find another way. The reason is that, as mentioned earlier, while he was a teacher of the ancients, he did not forget the creation of the teacher, he was loyal to nature, and took nature as his teacher.
First Snow / 192×500 cm / Color on paper / 2004
Childhood / 192×501 cm / Color on paper / 2006
The principle of taking nature as a teacher is expressed in two ways in the specific artist's practice: direct sketching, and comprehensively feeling the beauty and power of nature. It should be said that these two methods are the basic skills that a painter must have. Traditional types of Chinese and Western artists also pay attention to the cultivation and training of these two basic skills, but Western artists pay more attention to sketching, and Chinese artists emphasize comprehensive feelings. In the past hundred years, an important measure in the innovation of Chinese painting has been the adoption of sketching methods to strengthen the living atmosphere of the works. Dazhong's achievements in painting benefited both from the study of tradition and the practice of sketching. Reading a large number of his sketches, you can see his devout attitude towards nature. There are two types of sketches, one is to strive to imitate objective objects, to bend their shapes and gods, as a means of collecting creative materials, such as trees, water, stones, flowers and plants, birds and beasts; the other is of a creative nature, while respecting objective nature and seriously exploring their external and inner beauty, they dare to carry out subjective artistic exaggeration and refinement. Regarding the former method of sketching, many famous artists often dismiss it, in fact, the study of objective nature, including the portrayal of some specific objective pictograms, is what artists always need to adhere to. Many of Leonardo da Vinci's sketches show that he attached great importance to the meticulous modeling of objective objects throughout his life; when Li Kejian was old, he also tirelessly sketched against the trees and studied their shapes... The reason why Da Zhong's tiger is so real and vivid, in addition to his careful study of tiger dissection, familiar with the skeleton and muscle tissue, but also thanks to his tireless detailed observation of its dynamics, looks and serious sketching. He sometimes draws while recording details of his attention in writing to strengthen the memory. People often only see the confident swing of the tiger in the middle of the painting, and do not see how much sweat and energy he has spent behind this! (Shao Dazhen, famous art critic and editor-in-chief of Art Research)
Painter Profile
Feng Dazhong, born in 1949 in Liaoning, is the owner of Fuhu Caotang. He is a deputy to the 10th, 11th and 12th National People's Congress, the former president of the China Gongbi Painting Society, the deputy director of the Chinese Painting Art Committee of the China Artists Association, the vice president of the Chinese Painting Society, the director of the China Artists Association, the vice chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Artists Association, the national first-class artist, and an expert enjoying special allowances from the State Council.
Feng Dazhong's works "Awakening" and "Mother and Son" were selected into the "Complete Collection of Chinese Art"; his works "Awakening" and "Frightening Dream" were selected into the "China Centennial Painting Exhibition" and "China Centennial Painting Collection"; 18 works were collected by the National Art Museum of China, and dozens of works were collected by important art museums, professional institutions and collectors at home and abroad.