Chinese painting is currently in an era of a hundred flowers, but the state of a hundred flowers does not mean that a classic will be produced. How to define Chinese painting is a question that should be seriously explored in today's Chinese painting circles. Now the concept of Chinese painting is blurred, many painters use Western painting methods and techniques to transform Chinese painting, and Chinese painting has moved towards the road of craftsmanship and production. Chinese painting should have boundaries, and should be supported by theoretical and technical means to define and distinguish it from other kinds of painting. What is the constant of Chinese painting from theory to technology remains to be thought out by theorists and painters.
Chinese painting should first have the support of cultural background and humanistic concepts, and at the same time have a certain technical means to reflect. Leaving aside its cultural background, from the technical means of Chinese painting, first of all, the calligraphy pen, coupled with the golden stone atmosphere added after the late Qing Dynasty, this model belongs to the category of Chinese painting, otherwise it is like the Western watercolor painted by many painters with Chinese painting materials, whether it is technique or aesthetic consciousness is a Western painting mode. Chinese painting must have its pedigree. As I have said in other articles, Chinese painting should be "pure blood". During my time abroad, I traveled to major museums in North America and Europe, and seriously studied Western painting, especially after the Impressionists. The dry brushstrokes in Monet's paintings are similar to the "flying white" of Chinese calligraphy, and the composition and even shape of Chagall's paintings also show the freedom and vividness in Oriental painting. After art reaches a very high level, the realm is universal. The emergence of various genres of Western painting is a completely subversive revolution, which is never mixed with any inheritance concepts and traces, which is determined by the Humanistic background and thinking mode of the West. The development of Chinese painting and Western painting is completely different, from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing to the present, Chinese painting is a process of inheritance, just like China's philosophical concepts, aesthetic habits, and social forms are the overall advancement. Therefore, Chinese painting should have a bloodline inheritance, and any foreign culture forcibly grafting it will make it deformed.
The way of thinking of Western artists is completely different from that of Easterners, because they only focus on highlighting the real society and the essence of human life, pay attention to the current humanistic performance, indifferent to history, they believe that the page has been turned over, history can not affect real life, only focus on the present. Orientals pay attention to historical background and cultural inheritance. The difference between these two East and West is also reflected in the art of the same obvious differences. For what is Chinese painting, first of all, it should be defined from the ideological connotation to the means of expression, and secondly, it should have pure Chinese blood.
After living abroad for about ten years, after returning to China, I found that Chinese oil paintings have become Chinese Gongbi heavy color paintings, and Chinese Gongbi heavy color paintings have become oil paintings, which is related to our teaching system for several years. The development status of Chinese painting is directly related to the education system of Chinese painting for many years. Xu Beihong introduced the Western education system to China, and made great contributions to China's art education, especially for oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, etc., and also laid the leading position of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the national art academies. However, in the teaching of Chinese painting, the use of Western models to transform Chinese painting, blindly focusing on sketching and modeling, neglecting the study of the essence of traditional Chinese painting. Because the essence of Chinese painting is not to reproduce reality. Now, from the perspective of the teaching of the Academy of Fine Arts, especially the painting of Chinese objects, it is basically improved according to Western painting, and this improvement has deviated from the fundamentals of Chinese painting.
Chinese painting is not based on sketching as a means of training, nor is it based on the reproduction of reality as the ultimate expression, it pursues a confession of the soul, rather than imitation in the state of nature. At present, Western-style teaching still continues in the teaching of major art colleges across the country, however, modern Western painting teaching has already undergone major changes, paying more attention to the student's ontological feelings, not copying the training of nature's long-term basic skills, but focusing on developing students' feelings and personalities. Therefore, whether the students trained under this system can promote Chinese painting in the future will also be greatly reduced. In addition, the teaching of Chinese painting is premature, which limits the development space of students and limits the individuality of students.
At present, there is a very strange phenomenon in domestic higher art colleges, and almost the vast majority of candidates do not apply for the Chinese painting major, but are eager for the Western painting major. Most of the people accepted by the Chinese painting department are famous for their oil painting majors, but has Chinese painting really gone to the end of the road? Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the oil painting major has always occupied the boss seat of major art colleges. And does Chinese oil painting really represent China's national art? I don't think so. Based on more than ten years of study and life experience abroad, I thought that local Chinese was not suitable for studying Western oil painting.
There are four reasons for this: the first is the difference between the ethnography of the East and the West. Orientals with black hair, dark eyes, and yellow skin are a monochromatic human body. Westerners are different, and God has given it a rich color relationship, with different colors of hair, different colors of eyes, and rich skin with cold and warm changes, so that in the forms issued by foreign government departments, another table of hair color and eye color is set aside, and they are born with color in this world. The second is geographical differences. If you have an international flight experience, when the plane flies over Europe or North America, you see a colorful picture, and the pure color is indescribable. When we look at our own land from the porthole, it is the smoke that affects a single hue. At first people thought it was industrial pollution, but it was not, it was a specific color in this particular part of the earth. Although it does not have the colorful colors of European townships and towns, nor the purity and beauty of North America, it is really like the smoke and rain of the Northern Song Dynasty painters, and like the dripping ink of the Yuan ming literati painters. The third is the difference in social forms. Chinese society has always developed in an orderly manner, while Western society advocates asserting individuality. These two social forms cannot affect the creative life of the artist. Fourth, there are rich collections of Western art treasures in large, medium, and small cities abroad, and children grow up reciting the original works of the masters from an early age, and the cultivation of color and shape is almost innate.
In summary, the local Chinese learning oil painting can be said to be innately insufficient, coupled with years of backward art education, so that students have lost their artistic nature and lost in a unified mechanical teaching. One day, when they go abroad to see the works of Western masters, they will really feel that this kind of teaching has damaged their eyes. Students who study Chinese painting have the opportunity to contact the authentic works of ancient Chinese masters, and see the inheritance of successive generations of artists, starting from the concept of painting itself, whether it is from the race, environment, and works are unified. It can have a deep understanding of local art and a keen judgment of Western art, even if it changes oil paintings, it can also open a new sky, such as Liu Haisu, Guan Liang's oil paintings, which now seem to be the peak of Chinese oil paintings.
From ancient times to the present, we are talking about pen and ink, what is pen and ink? I think Chinese painting has two levels of appreciation, the first is the objects it represents, such as landscapes, flowers, birds, people, etc., the content of your picture and what you want to express. The second is the abstract form of pen and ink fun, which is like a cell, only when it matures and fissions, thus producing a perfect individual. These two dimensions are interdependent and cannot be separated. Without pen and ink, or just playing with pen and ink, Chinese painting would be a kind of naturalistic painting, or an abstract painting, which would be far from the essence of Chinese painting.
Chinese painting pays attention to the expression of emotions, which is a kind of humanistic painting, and the simple reproduction of reality and abstract symbols is not the pursuit direction of Chinese painting. However, this kind of humanistic painting requires a strong artistic means and technical support, which is also the tempering of Chinese pen and ink. Going up the river is the study and forging of Chinese calligraphy, so without the accumulation of Chinese calligraphy, there is no Chinese painting. For thousands of years, calligraphy has almost become the rule of the development of Chinese painting, and deviating from this point, Chinese painting has lost its soul. Chinese calligraphy has had a great influence and contribution to world civilization. Its inherent practical function, abstract form and the personality of the writer have formed a concept like "waving, wind moving, and heartbeat", and its development and change from ancient times to the present have directly affected the painting styles of different historical periods. From this point of view, eating through Chinese calligraphy is the only way to enter Chinese painting.
The ancient Chinese said that "calligraphy and painting have the same origin", but in my opinion, books are the source and paintings are streams. The state of calligraphy in different periods reflects the painting style of different periods. The art of Chinese calligraphy is a glorious and brilliant treasure in the palace of art in the whole world, and it can compete with the art of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. "Calligraphy and painting are of the same origin" I think is "the same origin of calligraphy and painting with pens". This rich expressive property is irreplaceable by any other painting material. However, the techniques and skills of Chinese have been kept secret in history, and their inheritance has been greatly hindered, so that they have become extinct, and calligraphy is also the same, as can be seen in the terms of the method of writing alone.
If you look at the large number of calligraphy texts that survive today, Wei Jin did not discuss the method of writing before, but after Wei jin, there were many opinions and disagreements. From Su Dongpo's "no fixed method of writing" to Zhao Mengliang's "it is not easy to use the pen for eternity", the controversy of many great calligraphers is actually the lost private secret of art. What's more, in order to learn Cai Yong's penmanship, Zhong Xuan actually dug up Cai Yong's grave, is this kind of private writing really so important? The answer is yes. Just imagine, Wang Xizhi died at the age of 59, Wang Xianzhi was also destined to return to Huangquan at the age of 43, and their works have been unmatched for more than a thousand years, and some of the calligraphers in later generations are double or even triple their age. I don't believe in genius, there are talented people in the Jiangshan generation, but the two kings can not be surpassed in the end, this is the technical level of the private secret, not the talent of the second king. The unique method of writing in the Two Kings period should enable learners to quickly reach the height of the Two Kings In a short period of time. It seems that we Chinese not so fond of our own art culture, and often abandon it casually, probably too easily.
Artist Profile
Song Weiyuan
Famous calligrapher and painter, art educator, poet. Graduated from the Chinese Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and stayed on to teach, thanks to the careful teaching of Ye Qianyu and many other artistic predecessors. Landscapes, flowers and birds, characters, calligraphy, seal carving, poetry, ancient calligraphy and painting appraisal have a very high degree of achievement, and fine study of guqin, Peking opera. Who's Who in the World at the University of Cambridge, UK. He has traveled overseas for ten years, conducted in-depth research on Western art, and at the same time profoundly sorted out and explored the artistic practices and artistic ideas of many chinese painting predecessor artists who emigrated overseas. It confirms the accurate positioning of Chinese painting in the field of world art. The "Theory of Chinese Painting Pedigree" put forward by him has a huge impact on today's art world and has far-reaching historical significance. He is well-known in the field of Chinese painting education, and the "Art Huangpu" art education he founded is of great significance to the revival and promotion of traditional Chinese painting. He was a visiting professor at Chinese Min University, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, and a visiting professor at Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.