Qilu Evening News Qilu one-point trainee reporter Wang Zhongyu
On February 4, 2022, the 24th Winter Olympic Games opened in Beijing. On the eve of the opening ceremony, The Olympic maniac Zhang Dagong held an exhibition of "The Covenant of Ice and Snow - The Olympics in Art" at his Olympic Collection Museum. As early as the day of the announcement of the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Zhang Dagong personally designed and painted two kites containing ice piers and snow melting images, which are now stored in his Olympic Museum.
On February 4, in Zhang Dagong's Olympic Collection Museum, two kites painted with ice piers and melting snow were particularly eye-catching. "As a Weifang person, I carry a kite everywhere I go," Zhang Dagong said, "on the day the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games were announced, I personally designed and painted these two kites."
Zhang Dagong is called an Olympic maniac because he began his journey to promote the Olympic Games from the day he successfully bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. On July 31, 2015, when Beijing successfully bid for the Winter Olympics, Zhang Dagong, who was at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts at the time, drew a map of China and the world, made simple preparations, and embarked on his journey to promote the Winter Olympics. So far, he has traveled all over the country, all over the world, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Frankfurt and other countries and regions have left his footprints.
While traveling to Berlin, Germany, in 2017, Zhang Dagong stumbled upon a local collector who was holding a valuable book about the Winter Olympics. He approached the collector and expressed his strong desire to buy the book, and finally bought it from the collector for more than two thousand euros, totaling nearly 20,000 yuan. According to Zhang Dagong, this may be the earliest book in China to record the Winter Olympics, and it is also exhibited in this exhibition.
From the three eastern provinces to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, from the Central Plains to the southeast coast, Zhang Dagong carried a picture scroll and dragged his luggage all over the motherland. In the sparsely populated northwest region, with nearly 100 kilograms of luggage walking for tens of kilometers can not find a place to stay, enthusiastic citizens riding motorcycles to carry him home to spend the night; in Zhanjiang, Guangdong, Zhang Dagong road fees are exhausted, a big sister invited him to go to his home to spend the night, the eldest sister's family lives on the sixth floor without an elevator, Zhang Dagong and the eldest sister returned to the sixth floor many times to carry all the luggage up; when exhibiting collections in a square in Guangxi Beibu Bay, there was a windy weather, some of the exhibits were blown away by the wind, and the masses in the square spontaneously helped Zhang Dagong to find the exhibits back. These are all good memories in Zhang Dagong's mind, "I can feel the enthusiasm of the local people everywhere I go, and I am very happy to have their support." ”
Zhang Dagong said that there are not only beautiful moments on the journey, but also many sad moments. "Many times the travel expenses are insufficient, so I paint portraits along the way to earn travel expenses, and my relatives and friends at home also help me sell some collections or paintings to make up for the travel expenses."
As one of the torchbearers of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Zhang Dagong deeply felt his responsibility and mission to promote the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Zhang Dagong said, "As the world's first city of two Olympics, Beijing hosted the 24th Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, and as a Chinese I am very proud." He created a series of paintings with Zhao Bingyu, a painter at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, from the first Olympic Games in Athens, Greece to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in 1896, drawing a total of 32 oil paintings in the host cities and venues of the previous Summer Olympic Games, and from the first Chamonix Winter Olympics in France in 1924 to the 24th Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, a total of 24 oil paintings were painted.
The series of paintings was planned by Zhang Dagong, invited young painter Zhao Bingyu to complete the creation in three years, and the summer and winter Olympic games works took ten years to complete, all exhibited in weifang Zhang Dagong Olympic Collection Museum. In addition, 363 portraits of previous Chinese Olympic champions were exhibited, which were created by Zhao Bingyu of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts over a period of four years, and 30 squares of winter Olympic sports icon seal engraving works were carved by Tang Ming, a young sichuan seal engraver.
In order to promote the city of the Two Olympics in Beijing, Zhang Dagong also specially painted a series of paintings of the "City of the Two Olympics", which includes Beijing's iconic attractions such as the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven and the Venues of Olympic Events such as the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, with a total of 24 pairs.
Many of the works contain Zhang Dagong's love and blessings for the Olympic Games, and the most eye-catching in the exhibition is the two kites containing the image of the ice pier and the snow rongrong. For these two works, Zhang Dagong also said: "Every time I go to a place, I will fly it with the local people to pass on our blessings for the Beijing Winter Olympics." I hope that like this kite, I will go higher and farther on the road to promoting the Olympic Games. ”