Text/Song to warmth
Many famous landscape painting masterpieces in history were created for political reasons.
"A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is the Chinese dream of Song Huizong.
01
Let's take a look at it first (hd larger image):
Who is the author?
Have you found that on the paper of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", there is no author inscription?
The word "Xi Meng" comes from the inscription of Cai Jing on the yellow Aya on the back of the volume:
"The three-year leap year of zhenghe was given on April 8. At the age of eighteen, Xi Meng was a disciple in painting, and was summoned to the forbidden Chinese library, and several paintings were dedicated, but they did not work. Knowing that his nature is teachable, he instructed him, and taught him the Dhamma himself, not more than half a year old, but in this way he tried to advance. Shangjiazhi, because he gave the subject Jing, said that the world's corporal was just doing it. ”
The text reads to the effect that:
Emperor Zhenghe gave me this picture in the third year, and Xi Meng was 18 years old.
He was an apprentice in a painting academy, but was later put into the library.
He had presented paintings to the emperor many times, but none of them were good.
The emperor saw that he was a talent and had something to build, so he personally instructed him and painted this painting in less than half a year.
The emperor was very appreciative and gave me the painting.
The surname "Xi Meng" Wang is currently only found in the paintings written by the great collector Liang Qing in the early Qing Dynasty and his friend Song Jie's "On Painting Sentences".
Song Xishiyun: "Xuanhe enshrined Wang Ximeng, and Tianzi personally passed on the penmanship." Entering the body and dying, the empty teaching intestines cut off the Taishi Jing. There is a note after that: "Xi Meng Tianzi is high and wonderful, and he has obtained the secret transmission of Emperor Huizong, and after years of making colored landscapes and rivers rolled into the imperial palace, he did not die a few years ago, and his relics were only this ear..."
As for the author's name, we only have these two "documents" to examine now, but how Liang Qingbiao and Song Jie examined it is unknown.
Because the third piece of information about Xi Meng's life has not yet been found, everyone calls this teenager "Wang Xi Meng" according to Liang Qingbiao.
02
From the Fifth Dynasty to the end of the Two Song Dynasties, painting developed rapidly, and at the same time led to changes in tools and materials.
Five generations ago, the most used by the ancients was natural ink - graphite.
The Song Dynasty improved the process of making pine tobacco ink, the output and quality have been greatly improved, and the expressiveness of calligraphy and painting has also been greatly enhanced.
In the Song Dynasty, double silk appeared, especially after the formation of the Northern Song Painting Academy, the meticulous and intricate painting style formed its fashion, so there were further requirements for drawing paper and silk.
On the basis of the Tang dynasty's production of cooked silk, the Song people added processes such as pounding, wax rolling, sizing, etc., and produced fine and flexible cooked silk and double silk silk.
Double silk is a group of two warp threads, there is a gap in the interval, the weft line is monofilament, the weft and warp are intertwined with one sink and two floats, and some people say that only two sinks and two floats are double silk.
The peak of the use of double silk was in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, but the silk of the Yuan and Ming dynasties was thicker than that of the Song Dynasty, and by the Qing Dynasty it became monofilament silk.
The whole picture of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is made of whole silk, and the material of the core and the back of the painting is the same, which is double silk.
The core of the painting maintains the straightness of the warp and weft wire under the action of thick coloring, and the material used in the core is slightly worse than that of the core.
In the later Ming and Qing dynasties, monofilament silk was used in the mounting part.
03
Chinese painting is fundamentally different from Western painting's way of observing color modeling, and its emphasis is on iselection.
Before the Ming Dynasty, Chinese painting hardly used "harmonic colors", but only used thick painted and cover-dyed composite colors.
The former from the pre-Qin to the Tang and Song dynasties is mostly found in painted utensils, stone pottery, walls, silk draperies and paper, thick coatings and mineral fine powder.
The latter is mostly found in Dunhuang hand scrolls and various types of paper silk paintings, such as using flower blue paste and light ink to make shadows and then cover dyeing.
"A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" grasps a broad and sublime artistic beauty as a whole, from the surface to the inside, opening and closing freely, the details show a strong sketching foundation, and the mountains and stones, the villagers, and the ships are related to each other.
On the whole, using the water surface and distant mountains, the relationship between the boat bridge and the labor of people is well connected to the whole volume without breaking the line, and the part echoes the whole very well, which is very rare in the long scrolls of later generations.
The green landscape actually reproduces the lush state of plants in mid-spring.
New shoots emerge on the floating soil of the hillside avalanche, and the sharp contrast between the meadow and the soil after the shoreline collapses, abound in nature.
The mountain stone part adopts the composite method of phids and unsophistication, which is a common way for painters of the two Song Dynasties to paint mountain stones.
Light ink draft, layer by layer dyeing, dot dyeing green, and then with light ink and flower blue hook, all kinds of landscapes are different from near and far.
Judging from the traces of the pen end, the painting technique is not very old, but it shows several characteristics:
First, the whole volume of Shanyin and Shanyang are dyed according to the structure of the mountain stone;
Second, in the steep and gentle area, the method in the painting is transformed;
Third, the full volume of mountain ridges, peaks, valleys, cliffs, and slopes is not imagined by patting the head, and the overall feeling is natural and smooth.
This kind of weather was rare after the Song Dynasty.
Such a huge production must be a drumbeat to maintain a sense of unity and consistency.
04
Historian Chen Yinke said: "The culture of the Chinese nation has evolved over thousands of years and was created in the Tianshui Dynasty. ”
From the Xia Shang Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty, Chinese society has continued for more than 3,000 years, and the Northern Song Dynasty is an era of succession.
After experiencing the prosperity of the Han and Tang Dynasties and the Xiao Ser of the northern ethnic minorities going south, the Song people hoped to fully understand the relationship between the world, society, nature and people, and the results of this speculation were fully reflected in all aspects of the Northern Song society.
Through speculation, the Northern Song Dynasty had a concept of surpassing its predecessors in the level of understanding of nature, and a clear understanding of its own ability to transform nature.
These are reflected in landscape painting, creating the overall characteristics of grand composition, rigorous brushwork, high and clear artistic conception, and producing a sublime artistic beauty, which stems from the worship and reverence for nature.
Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty was a highly artistic emperor, and he liked to use Tang poetry propositions, especially liked to "rise up" with sentences with deep meaning, so that the painters of the academy could paint poetically.
Cai Jing's text says:
“... A number of paintings were dedicated, but not much work. Knowing that its nature is teachable, he will teach it, and teach it himself...".
So what is "sex" in "knowing its sex teachable"?
The Northern Song Dynasty Xianyou Fengting Cai clan was a prominent family, and the brothers Cai Jing and Cai Bian pushed the family's prestige to the highest peak.
If Cai Jing had not been labeled a "traitor" by later generations (of course, he was indeed adulterous), the Su, Huang, Mi, and Cai Cai of the Song Si family that the later generations would have determined would not have been his uncle Cai Xiang.
One of the important reasons why Cai Jing was appreciated by Emperor Huizong of Song was that he was good at elevating the matter of squandering pleasure to the level of theory:
"Shi Chengping has been long, and the people are overflowing, and the Capital Advocate is Fengheng Yudazhi, and regards the property of officials and lords as dung, and the accumulated treasures of the dynasty are swept away."
The so-called "Fengheng Yuda" of Fengheng: from the "I Ching" Feng gua, Kong Yingda Shuo: "Wealth is great, so it is called abundance; deda is everywhere, wealth is omnipotent, no obstacles, called Heng, so it is called Fengheng." Later used to denote Fuhou Shunda;
And Yu Da: "If the saint moves smoothly, the punishment will be clear and the people will obey, and the righteousness of Yu will be great." "What originally meant a peaceful scene of rich and happy people later became a great joy and a great achievement, and extravagant squandering."
With the theoretical blessing of "the head of the group of classics", Song Huizong naturally had no burden and let go of his hands and feet.
Cai Jing also became an official and knighted, and embarked on the peak of his life.
05
Can the Northern Song Dynasty afford to be "prosperous and prosperous"?
From the perspective of our future generations, at least on the artistic level, the Northern Song Dynasty can afford it.
The techniques of Song painting strive to be true, refined and fine, the scale strives to be large, complete and complex, and the color of this painting strives to be magnificent.
For example, the Furong Jinji Diagram, the Ruihe Diagram, the Xianglong Stone Diagram, etc. now hanging in the name of Emperor Huizong of Song, as well as the pictures depicted by other court painters in the Forbidden Garden, are all good, as well as the flower and bird paintings that can serve as biological maps, all of which are Song people showing their prosperous feelings.
The painting academy was founded by Emperor Huizong of Song himself by taking advantage of his position, and the top painters of the Northern Song Dynasty were almost all among them.
Wang Ximeng was deeply appreciated by the emperor with the age of weak crown, and it can be seen that he is not a generalist.
From the realistic pursuit of details in Northern Song Painting, from the natural teaching method and strong sketching skills shown in "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", Song Huizong saw that Wang Ximeng had something to create, that is, he saw in him the ideological and character foundations needed to depict the prosperous picture of "Fengheng Yuda".
In contrast to the public's imagination of the artist's charm and freedom, painting and calligraphy are definitely a chore.
We can see on the picture that under the spiritual pursuit of "Fengheng Yuda" set off by the overall gorgeous colors, the details inspire the truth, but the application of "brushwork" is childish compared to other painters of the same generation, but full of vitality.
This kind of vitality shows the pursuit of art.
The success or failure of artistic expression often lies in the "inability".
06
Chen Danqing said: "I clearly saw a beautiful teenager, he can't be old, he must be eighteen years old." A few years younger, a few years older, there will be no "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". ”
If Wang Ximeng is less than eighteen years old, he may not have fully mastered the technique; if he paints again at the age of twenty or thirty, he may die before he finishes painting.
Through the picture, we seem to be able to see a teenager, heroic, not like a painter, but like a young hero.
Born in Shihan Yu Lin Lang, he first rode with Yuyang.
He who knows not to suffer from the side court, let him die like a chivalrous bone.
He finished writing a thousand miles and turned away, leaving a blurry and clear back for the world...
Simon, there will never be a second one in this world.