The Year of the Tiger is approaching, and many paintings and dolls of "Tiger Heads and Tiger Brains" have appeared in the streets and alleys. The recently officially issued "Nong Yin Nian" special stamp (hereinafter referred to as the "Tiger Ticket") is the first "Tiger" element commodity that is popular in 2022, and there are philatelic enthusiasts everywhere queuing up to buy it. At the same time, the realistic tiger image in this set of tiger tickets is considered by some netizens to be a little thin, a little sad, and not powerful enough. What kind of tiger image do we need?
Author | Peach sauce
Edit | Cheng late
"This tiger is not a tiger"
The tiger stamp is the seventh set in the fourth round of Chinese zodiac stamps, and the creator of the painting is Feng Dazhong, a painter who is good at painting tigers. The relevant copywriting pointed out that the image of the tiger in this set of tiger tickets starts from the "real", "gets the nature of the tiger, and carefully interprets the beauty of the tiger".
The first depicts the image of a majestic mountain tiger, standing tall and ambitious; the second depicts a warm scene of a gentle tiger mother with two young tigers, implying the prosperity of children and grandchildren and a happy family.
The first special stamp of the Year of Nongyin
There is nothing wrong with the setting that the male tiger is "qi yu Xuan ang" and the female tiger has a gentle face. However, for the understanding of "Qi Yu Xuan Ang" and "Tiger Tiger Shengwei", people already have a established impression in their minds, and a slight discrepancy will cause unaccustomed and even uncomfortable.
The complaint against the tiger ticket focused on the lack of tiger might and not enough might — the male tiger was full of sadness, the female tiger's eyes were confused and sad, and the two little tigers had no aura. In short, this is a tiger with an emo face, a tiger with a question mark.
Feng Dazhong is a Chinese painter, most famous for his painter Brush Tiger, known as the "Tiger King". Some commentators believe that his paintings of tigers implicitly imply "do not win with sword-rattling lines and indulgent ink colors, but with exquisite brushwork and moon-like harmonic expressions."
It is indeed not easy for a painter who is accustomed to large-format creation and delicate depiction to complete the creation in such a small size as a stamp and convey the charm of the tiger. In response to the comment that "this tiger is not a tiger", Feng Dazhong responded that his painting of a tiger broke through its animal attributes and did an "anthropomorphic treatment", that is, borrowing the tiger metaphor.
King's Landing, Feng Dazhong
Feng Dazhong's response triggered a new wave of interpretation. Zhihu user "Xiaocao Qingqing" understood it as "painting the current situation of most men", and received more than 13,600 likes on Zhihu.com. On Weibo, some netizens said: "Don't be in a hurry to complain, look again, the more you look, the more you look like yourself..."
Some senior post fans believe that the tiger ticket has a good response in the circle, and after the official release, the audience has expanded significantly, that is, it is "out of the circle", and its interpretation is also controversial. Once someone says that it is "sad", with this preconceived impression to look closely, the more you look at it, the more you feel "sad", belonging to "three people into a tiger".
Real tigers just don't laugh
"It is really sad and sad, and it is not the same as the image of the tiger in everyone's cognition." A painter who now lives in Nanjing said this about Feng Dazhong's creation in an interview.
The Nanjing painter believes that in order to express tiger wei, there must always be a certain sense of volume and power, and the size of the stamp will affect the play; in addition, Feng Dazhong is good at working with the pen tiger, and the stamp is engraved and printed, and it is impossible to paint too fine when creating, so it is bound to lose some things.
Referring to the creative process that Feng Dazhong talked about in an interview with Xinhua Net, it can be seen that he did adjust it to adapt to the stamp design:
"The first stamp I originally designed for the tiger to look up, but on the stamp the tiger's head was too small, and then the angle of the head was lowered. The two tiger cubs of the second stamp are relatively close at first, which will appear to be structurally unbalanced on the stamp, leaving more white space on both sides, which also correspondingly extends the distance. I also changed the previous "exquisite" brushwork, but to simplify the details of the tiger's hair as much as possible, and strengthen the outline of the tiger with lines, so that the image of the tiger looks clearer and more three-dimensional. ”
Zhihu user "Sancao Century" believes that Feng Dazhong's xionghu is likely to have "turned over the painting" and failed to accurately express his ideas, for reasons similar to the views of the above-mentioned Nanjing painters: the artist is not quite accustomed to the size of the stamp.
The second special stamp of the Year of Nongyin
"Three Cao Century" found Feng Dazhong's previous work and Xu Beihong's painting of the lion as an example: Feng Dazhong's previous painting of the tiger, the expression looks very sad, but "the sense of volume is there, the sense of strength is full, it is 'King's Landing Mountain'." And this kind of melancholy just increases the artistry of the work, full of a sense of loneliness and firmness"; Xu Beihong's painting of the lion, "thin to thin, sad to sad, the posture of the king or the posture of the king". And the male tiger in the tiger ticket, the spirit is discharged, like a blackout climbing 16 floors to find your own instigation without a key.
According to the introduction of "Three Cao Century", to express the sense of power of the "Shangshan Tiger", the tiger's body shape needs to be twisted, and the classic shape has a back shadow to kill, a frontal head flick to kill, etc., which are reflected in Feng Dazhong's previous works. And Feng Dazhong's creation can be called "a straight line of face climbing photo", this shape "is not often painted, not good to draw, the probability of overturning soared".
I know the evaluation of the user "Sancao Century" on the special stamp of "Nongyin Year"
A designer confirmed that the set of tiger tickets has been repeatedly modified: "The original design of the tiger has a high head, a strong posture, a slightly open mouth, and a domineering posture; after many rounds of expert review, it has been repeatedly modified, demonstrated, and modified." The "Mountain Tiger" finally presented on the first stamp highlights the restrained temperament, rather than the domineering exposed. ”
Weibo user "xiaohui1953" believes that Feng Dazhong's work is not the arrogance of the mountain tiger and the fierceness of the mountain tiger that everyone is accustomed to, but "very peaceful, very realistic, and perfect.". Like realistic oil paintings, Gongbi emphasizes the realistic image, while the tiger does not laugh, only a fierce or calm expression. A grinning tiger can only be an artistic exaggeration of freehand, comics or cartoons.
The Year of the Tiger is actually the Year of the Cat
Tiger stamps are not the first set of zodiac stamps to spark a hot debate. In 2012, the special stamp of the Year of the Dragon (i.e. the "Dragon Stamp") was accused of being "domineering and exposed" and was not suitable for use as a symbol of auspicious Zodiac stamps. At that time, its designer Chen Shaohua responded that as a representative of The Chinese Mythical Beast, the dragon in the dragon ticket should not be too gentle and cute, and "a strong and powerful, majestic and confident dragon form is a suitable choice."
The I Ching says that "the cloud is from the dragon, the wind is from the tiger", and like the dragon, the tiger is also a traditional cultural symbol with strong imagery. Therefore, dragon and tiger stamps have always attracted much attention in zodiac stamps. People's expectations of them are no longer just "aesthetic" and "artistic", but also have other value expectations attached, and even make them a bellwether for public emotions. This was true of the Dragon Ticket 10 years ago, and it is also true of the Tiger Ticket today.
Special stamps for the Year of the Rising Sun
A report in the Beijing Youth Daily argued that the tiger ticket did not reflect the wild nature of the tiger as the "king of mountains and forests" and "may be a true reflection of the author's situation of the tiger in reality." The reason is that it is difficult to see wild tigers, and the tigers drawn through the observation of captive tigers have more or less lost the majesty of wild tigers. The significance of this set of tiger tickets is that it conveys the message of further protecting tigers.
This interpretation is indeed a bit "overflowing". However, the report also reminds us that not only is it difficult to see wild tigers, but even captive tigers are difficult to see, so most of the tigers in our cognition are virtual tigers in the Internet world or in the form of images, or in the form of cartoons, or in the form of memes. They are best the cute orange cat plus version, round, cute, and anthropomorphic expression, just like the fat tiger in the pen of Uncle @Fujima, which is respected by netizens.
There is a saying that the fewer tigers in nature, the more human the imaginary tigers are. After all, the image of "tiger roaring west wind and fierce" is too pre-modern and too martial, and in the increasingly cute online world, the form of the tiger is exaggerated into a big cat with a big head, big eyes, a big mouth and a smile, a small body, and short legs. It is also true that some people call the Year of the Tiger the "Year of the Cat", as the writer Yu Qiao said, "The Year of the Tiger is the Year of the Cat, and there will be a lot of cute and cute gadgets."
Silly music is also fun
Since it has been said that the Year of the Tiger is the Year of the Cat, there is at least one reason for the unpopularity of tiger tickets, that is, it has not grown on the aesthetic points of contemporary young people.
Chinese painting, especially Gongbi painting, is very young and not contemporary, and some people even call Chinese painting "the art of the elderly" - or it should be said that contemporary people no longer have the ability and state of mind to read Chinese painting.
In fact, since 1980, when China Post issued the "Gengshen Year", that is, the "monkey stamp" of the first round of zodiac stamps, the design of zodiac stamps in the past 42 years has sought more god-likeness rather than shape, and the animal images depicted have a certain exaggeration or abstract technique. After people are accustomed to this strong design style, they will feel uncomfortable when they see the realistic style of tiger tickets.
Feng Yuan, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and honorary chairman of the China Artists Association, said in an interview with the media: "The zodiac (stamps) should pursue vivid, interesting and cute, and paint spirituality. ”
Another reason for people's expectations of tiger tickets may be related to the current mood: after two years of being trapped in the epidemic, people hope that 2022 will bring tigers and tigers to life. So, they need a living image to boost confidence.
Even like the 2010 tiger ticket "Year of Gengyin", it is good to directly present a cartoon 3D tiger with two hands and a forked waist, although it looks a little silly, but that kind of stupidity is after all full of fun.
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Author 丨 Peach Sauce
Editor 丨Cheng late
Proofreading | Huang Siyun