Wang Anshi wrote in the "Drunken Pavilion": "The meaning of the drunken man is not in the wine, but also in the mountains and rivers." Landscape, in the Chinese cultural context, does not only refer to natural scenery, but also has its own special spiritual and cultural meaning. Between the mountains and rivers, the spiritual pursuit and philosophical destination of Chinese traditional knowledge molecules are carried. Wu Xiaopeng's works have distinct characteristics of traditional Chinese art, to be precise, with the meaning of Chinese ink literati painting. But more importantly, behind these images is his understanding of traditional Chinese philosophy. He draws on natural landscapes, but focuses more on the "drunken meaning" between landscapes and waters.
From the perspective of color processing, he gave up multicolor and chose black and white, which is not new in the photography world, but black and white photography mostly appears in some character documentary works to achieve its simple and unified artistic effect. In the face of natural things, dare to give up color, the most intense law of formal beauty in visual art, which reflects the aesthetic pursuit of Taoist philosophy. In Taoist thought, "black and white" is the color that allows the mind to be free. Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching says, "The five colors are dazzling." The colors of nature are colorful and chaotic, and such colors can be dizzying and disturb the concentration on the Tao. The black and white color is simple and simple, filtering out the visual factors that stimulate people's senses, which in turn will make people's minds single-minded and "meditate with the Tao". Under the support of this theory, the Song and Yuan dynasties, literati painting flourished, ink painting gradually replaced Danqing heavy color, and the beauty of black and white became Chinese important visual habits and aesthetic standards. Looking at these works under this concept, we seem to have lost the lively and noisy "birds and flowers", but suddenly entered a quiet and pure world, and natural things seem to operate silently under the action of the law of "Tao". The viewer's mind is purified at once, and immediately merges into the silent and vast natural forces of the landscape.
In terms of framing composition, he made careful trade-offs between the complex nature. In some works, the blackness of the stone, lined with the white of the waterfall, suddenly gives birth to a kind of pearl and jade splash-like illusion; in some works, only the top of the snow tree is exposed at the lower end, surrounded by two birds, and the rest of the place is all blank, absolutely similar to the cold and cold picture of the Eight Mountain People of the Qing Dynasty; in some works, the mountain peaks are faint and the white clouds are horizontal, showing the height of the mountains. This treatment of blank space is borrowed from the traditional ink painting composition of "counting white as black". And "counting white as black" is the embodiment of the Taoist idea of yin and yang complementing each other and living with each other. The white in the picture is not blank, but has a rich connotation, it can be air, it can be water, it can also be cloud, can give people a rich association. At the same time, white and black are mutually causal, constituting a contrast between virtual reality, strength and weakness, and concealment, making the picture rich but not stagnant, ethereal but not simple.
In terms of aesthetic pursuit, his works have the beauty of traditional "yi". Chinese art has always taken "elegance, magic, god and energy" as the standard for evaluating works, of which "Yipin" ranks first. Huang Xiufu's explanation of "Yipin" in the Northern Song Dynasty is: "The Yige of painting is the most difficult to be the best." Clumsy rules in the square circle, contempt for the study of painting, pen and simple shape, natural, moke model, out of intention." This indicates the derogatory meaning of human service, and the "pen and simple form" of "obtaining nature, mo can be a model, out of intention". Therefore, "Yi" is a spiritual realm that cannot be achieved by man, cannot be copied, and is natural and free, and it is also the realm of enlightenment of "quiet, bright and virtual" pursued in "Zhuangzi", and it is also the highest realm pursued by Chinese art - the ethereal and distant realm. Wu Xiaopeng's works are implicitly in line with these realms.
From the perspective of ultimate philosophical dependence, his works implicitly contain the concept of "Confucian complementarity" proposed by Mr. Li Zehou. Traditional Chinese culture has the characteristics of pluralistic symbiosis, tolerance and coordination. Confucian culture emphasizes human progress and deeds, and its core idea can be summarized in the Zhou Yi "Tianxingjian, a gentleman with self-improvement". Taoist culture, on the other hand, opposes human work and advocates human freedom of liberation. The two seem contradictory, but in fact they complement each other. Mr. Li Zehou believes that "Confucianism and Taoism complement each other" is a unified ideological system of duality and opposition. Confucian culture is conducive to the development and progress of mankind, and Taoist culture is a useful supplement to Confucian culture, with a religious depressive effect similar to That of Christianity. Chinese Jin is guided by "Tianxingjian, gentlemen are self-reliant", and retreat is guided by "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, leisurely seeing the South Mountain", and Confucianism and Taoism complement each other, constituting a healthy and complete state of mind.
Therefore, the landscape that implies the Taoist spirit has an important role in relaxing and relieving the shackles of the mind, and appreciating the landscape is the self-regulating behavior of Chinese under the busy life and mental pressure. Under this purpose, the status of the subject and object is equal and harmonious, "the unity of heaven and man", and the landscape and people are communicative. At the same time, the landscape carries the spiritual world of the subject, carries the subject's expectations for the natural life of the universe, and even becomes another form of existence of the subject. As Zong Bing of the Southern Dynasty said in the "Preface to Painting Landscapes and Rivers", "The landscape is flattering in shape", as well as Li Bai's poem: "Looking at each other without tiredness, only Jingting Mountain", and Su Shi's sigh: "I see how feminine Qingshan is, and so do I see Qingshan".
Photography with real connotation is not a superficial imitation and imitation of the objective, not a pleasing eye, but a "flattering way", using its own spiritual world to map the objective world, breaking the shackles of objectivity on subjectivity, highlighting its own personality cultivation, liberating its own nature, and finally seeing the author's vivid life in the work. This is the true meaning of "between mountains and rivers".
Text: Tian Rongjun
Encounter the Dialogue between Mind and Nature - Wu Xiaopeng Art Exhibition
Exhibition address: Jingtang Library, Xinhui District, Jiangmen City
Exhibition dates: January 21 to February 17, 2022
About the Author
Wu Xiaopeng is an independent photographer and curator. He is a member of the China Photographers Association, a member of the Guangdong Photographers Association, and an advisor to the Zhuhai Photographers Association. Graduated from Nanjing University of the Arts, majoring in arts and crafts design, he founded Zhuhai Lange Planning Co., Ltd. in 1998, Lange Film Art Institute in 2013, and graduated from the "Senior Seminar for Chinese Culture Going Out visual art curators of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles" in 2017.
In 2012, he served as the visual director of Zhuhai "Meaning" magazine, served as the academic advisor of the Macao Salon Film Art Association, and was invited to serve as a jury member of the Macao International Photography Exhibition for seven consecutive years; in 2015, he was awarded the title of "Top Ten Photographers in Guangdong Province"; in 2014 and 2018, he won the Zhuhai Outstanding Advertising Creative Award; in 2018, he won the 60th Anniversary Contribution Award of guangdong Photographers Association; in 2019, he was awarded the title of "Contemporary Outstanding Contribution Photographer" at the First Huaguang Photography Biennale; and in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Zhuhai Photography Award", in 2020, he was hired as "Honorary Curator" by Dongjianghu Photography Art Museum of China Photography Exhibition Center, in 2020, he was selected into the 3rd "Chinese National Image Photography Biennale" and won the Gold Collection Award; in 2020, he was awarded the title of "Best Navigator" by Zhuhai Cultural Industry Association; in 2021, he was awarded the "Outstanding Advertising Founder" Award of Zhuhai Advertising Association; and in 2021, he was awarded the title of "Annual Leader" of Zhuhai Cultural Industry Association In 2021, he won the "Golden Road Award", the highest photography award of the Chinese Art Photography Society under the Ministry of Culture.
Major Photographic Publications:
In 2004, Wu Xiaopeng's photographic collection "One Glance at the Dam" was published by China Photography Publishing House;
In 2011, wu Xiaopeng's photographic works were published by Shaanxi People's Fine Arts Publishing House, "Retrospective -Longzhou Shehuo Images"; (In the same year, the album won the 2011 "Golden-winged Bird" Award of the 3rd Dali International Film Association and the Excellent Photography Album Award of Phoenix Satellite TV at the 11th China Pingyao International Photography Exhibition.) ）
In 2014, the reading of the picture published by the Publishing House of Reading Pictures Publishing House "Scenes on the Pilgrimage road to the west";
In 2016, the china book publishing house published the collection of works of "A Hundred Years of Overseas Chinese School";
In 2019, "Retrospective - Longzhou Shehuo Image" was selected for the 3rd Tianfu Honggu International Photography Festival "Image Village - 100 Chinese Photography Books" exhibition.
The image pictures of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Project of "Retrospective Looking - Longzhou Shehuo Images" photographed and edited by him were published on the cover and special column of China Photography, an authoritative chinese image magazine in February 2021, and were interviewed and reported on 12 pages.