The ancient town of Lipu, which has traveled for thousands of years, is intertwined with ancient fishing culture and folk customs, giving birth to a rich local folk traditional art. The skillful People of Lipu casually paint scenes of life and labor on the walls and bows of boats, expressing their love for rural life, and this colorful folk painting is the painting of The farmers of Lipu.
In 2020, in order to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of folk art represented by the New Year paintings, the Collection of Art Exhibitions on the theme of "New Life, New Fashion, New Year Painting - Our Well-off Life" was launched by the Literature and Art Bureau of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, the First Bureau of the Central Civilization Office, the Public Service Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the China Artists Association, undertaken by the National Public Culture Development Center and the China Cultural Media Group, and implemented by the Cultural Center Association and the China Handicraft Network. Jiang Yong, then deputy director of the Lipu Cultural Station and chairman of the Lipu Farmers' Painting Professional Cooperative, signed up for the event and brought the peasant paintings created by Yin Fengmei.
Painting by a farmer in Lipu with local materials
"Inspiration from the Ship of Lipu" by Jiang Yong and Yin Fengmei
Jiang Yong told the craftsman that the peasant paintings are mainly based on the "three rural areas", and the People of Lipu have lived on fishing since ancient times, so the most common elements in the painting are boats, seas and fishermen. There are two famous intangible cultural heritage projects in Lipu, one is the Painting of The Farmers of Lipu and the other is the Drum of the Lipu Boat. The Yupu Boat Drum has a long history, full of fisherman flavor, has a strong vitality and appeal, and for various reasons, it has been on the verge of being lost. Thanks to the attention of the government and the efforts of all sectors of society, this skill has been reinterpreted.
In the peasant painting "Lipu Boat Inspiration", which he and Yin Fengmei co-created, the original style of this traditional culture is reproduced, and the fishing boat returns with a full load, and the fishermen express the joy of the harvest with the encouragement of the boat. "Through the form of The paintings of the farmers of Lipu, the magnificent momentum of the Lipu boats is expressed, and the two intangible cultural heritage skills are integrated together, so that more people can understand the traditional culture and attract more outstanding literary and art workers to join in the protection and inheritance." Jiang Yong said.
"Five Grains and Fengdeng" Author: Jiang Yong Yin Fengmei
Blooming fireworks, fiery red lanterns, dancing dragons, snow-capped fishing village huts, and crowds of people singing and dancing together constitute another peasant painting, "Five Grains and Fengdeng", which is colorful and extremely rendering, depicting a warm, harmonious and thriving scene of rural cultural life during the Spring Festival. "It rarely snows in the south, the people are looking forward to it, the snow roof on the house symbolizes the year of Ruixue Mega, and at the moment of the epidemic, everyone is yearning for lively festivals, hoping that this work can boost morale and convey our confidence in defeating the epidemic."
Traditional New Year painting condenses our thousands of years of farming culture, New Year painting is changing, China in the New Year painting is also changing, Jiang Yong has a different view on this: "New Year painting is getting farther and farther away from us, and now the old universities are teaching Chinese painting, calligraphy and drawing, but no one teaches New Year painting and peasant painting, which is really a pity." The national event 'New Life, New Fashion, New Year Painting' brings together outstanding New Year paintings from all over the world and re-displays traditional art works in front of the eyes of the people. ”
The folklore of the thousand-year-old town is reproduced
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, it mainly appeared in the form of "five heads and three religions, that is, folk wall heads (including buildings, beams, columns and roof ridges), bed heads, stove heads, boat heads, grave head paintings, and temples, monasteries, Taoist temples and other religious site paintings." Its performance content is also very rich, both natural objects and scenes of people's daily work. For example, the stove head painting and bedside painting have traditional objects such as the two-eyed stove, the three-eyed stove, and the wooden bed commonly used in the Lipu people; the boat head painting mostly reproduces the scenes of fishermen working in fishing boats and seas.
Since 1977, wang fucai, Wang Zhengjun and Mao Bingquan, three tutors of the former Zhenhai Cultural Center, have set up a painting club in Lipu and convened a group of workers to jointly create peasant paintings. He Youzhi, Hua Sanchuan and other well-known painters from Zhenhai came to guide in person, and the peasant paintings in Lipu gradually formed an artistic style with simple painting language and strong color contrast. The works were once exported to Southeast Asia and the United States, which can be described as a huge hit. With the dissolution of the painting society, peasant painting ushered in a silent 30 years.
12 years ago, Jiang Yong came to Lipu as the deputy director of the local cultural station, and by chance, he learned about the traditional art of Folk Painting in Lipu during his visit, which contains a wide range of contents, and peasant painting is one of them. As if by fate, Jiang Yong became deeply interested in it from first contact and immediately decided to dig it up again. After promotion and market-oriented operation, peasant painting has regained its glory and has the now well-known name - "Lipu Peasant Painting".
Create a farmer's painting town
In 2016, Jiang Yong led the establishment of the Lipu Farmers' Painting Professional Cooperative, which continuously cultivated new inheritors and enthusiasts through the form of transmission, help and belt, and absorbed more than 20 creative backbones, including his sister Jiang Chen, to join it. "To popularize peasant paintings, we must first have authors, and only 20 people cannot popularize them." Faced with the situation of lack of talents, Jiang Yong thought to himself, without authors, then I will teach you one by one, there is no interest, then I will find a way to cultivate everyone's interest.
"Anti-epidemic Couple" Author: Jiang Chen
In his spare time, Jiang Yong would gather creative backbones and villagers to study and study together, and when he met enthusiasts who had no foundation in painting, he would patiently guide and encourage them. He also opened the Lipu Folk Painting Creation And Inheritance Base in Lipu Central School, Seventeen Fang Village, Huiyuan Community, Ren'ai Middle School and other places, and established the Lipu Peasant Painting Art Museum.
In order to stimulate everyone's interest in learning, he made full use of his identity as a leader to organize a peasant painting competition in the township. "It's not difficult to paint, it's not difficult to paint peasant paintings, you can't paint landscape paintings for a year, and you can win awards if you paint peasant paintings for a year." Under Jiang Yong's "flickering", more and more villagers joined the peasant painting study, and the scene where villagers gathered in groups of three or five to play cards and play mahjong disappeared, and more and more people went to the studio to learn creation.
"Flying Dreams" By Jiang Yong
In order to support the creation of paintings by farmers in Lipu, the government allocates a certain amount of funds to the cooperative every year, and he uses these funds to give bonuses to the winning authors of the competition, and buys painting paper, paint, etc. for everyone to use, encouraging them to continue to create. Many of the students around him have become famous painters and professors of the Academy of Fine Arts, but he is not envious at all, he calls himself a "teacher in the countryside" and is willing to stick to this position.
The maturity and growth of the peasant painting creation team is the embodiment of the self-confidence of folk culture. Now, Lipu Town has set up a new team to develop more than 300 peasant painting enthusiasts, including primary school students, elderly people, farmers, teachers, etc., covering a wide range.
Peasant paintings come to life
Today's peasant painting has long since broken through the tradition and become "everywhere can be painted, and everything can be used to paint." In 2014, the cultural station organized the backbone of painting to go to Shanghai Jinshan, Zhejiang Zhoushan and other places to investigate, Jiang Yong found that the peasant paintings in these two places are not limited to traditional media such as walls and painting paper, Jiang Yong was inspired, and also had the idea of making similar products.
The cultural station first began to test the water from daily necessities, drew peasant paintings on daily necessities such as backpacks and sandals, and produced a batch of products, which were loved by the people. However, problems such as long hand-painting time and high creative pressure also arise, and the product cannot be mass-produced, and the benefit cannot be guaranteed.
In 2016, at an exhibition of intangible cultural heritage works, he found that someone sold mobile phone cases that could copy photos, and his thinking was instantly opened: "Peasant paintings can also be copied and refurbished to mobile phone cases." ”
In order to reduce production costs, Jiang Yong traveled all over the town to produce producers, and finally reached a cooperation with a craft shop in Camel Street. In March, the first samples were rushed out, and seeing the colorful peasant paintings printed on mobile phone cases, pillows, and teacups, Jiang Yong was full of joy, and the transformation of peasant paintings finally took the first step.
The aroma of wine is not afraid of the deep alley, and today's Pengpu peasant paintings have gone out of the town. In 2019, three generations of peasant painting enthusiasts from the old, young and young gathered in the Seventeenth Room Prayer Square to hand-paint peasant paintings reflecting the new style of the countryside. 70 drawing boards were put together into a huge peasant painting of 38×16 meters, which was a tribute to the 70th anniversary of New China. This scene was also recorded in the CCTV "News Network" program report "Beautiful Dress to Welcome the National Day and Send Deep Blessings to the Motherland".
In the same year, the largest celebration in Daegu, South Korea, the "Daegu Art Festival", was invited by the Korean side, and the Ningbo City Organized Literary and Art Exchange Team to participate in this event, and Jiang Yong followed him, bringing with him the paintings of farmers in Lipu and more than 30 cultural and creative products. Visitors were amazed by the bold and realistic style of The paintings of farmers in Lipu, and the traditional Chinese culture and rural culture once again received international attention.
Years of hard work have made the paintings of farmers in Lipu become the "golden business card" of local rural revitalization and integrated development of culture and tourism. "We, The Farmers of Lipu, are applying for provincial intangible cultural heritage qualifications, and I am very pleased to see the revitalization of the rural skills of this fault for 30 years." Jiang Yong said with confidence.
Text: Wu Yuting
Image: Courtesy of the interviewee
Editor: Wu Yuting
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