□ Zhang Zhipeng
Mr. Xu Xingjian is a friend I have known for a short time.
Saying that I am a "friend" is actually a high climb. In terms of age, he was my predecessor. In terms of qualifications, he is an accomplished senior art designer, researcher, painter and calligrapher, the director and chief designer of China Home Textile Product Design Center, the special designer of the Swedish NCS Natural Color Association in China, a visiting professor of Jinan University and other colleges, an editorial board member of the Encyclopedia of China (Third Edition), an advisor of the Jinan Artists Association, an expert enjoying special allowances from the State Council, and a top professional and technical talent in Shandong Province. In 2017, he also won the Lifetime Achievement Award of China Textile Art and Design. On origin, he was after celebrities. His father was Mr. Xu Beiwen, a famous cultural scholar in Jinan.
Such a "big man", how dare I pretend to be a friend?
But he was indeed my friend. After we were introduced to us by Mr. Song Suiliang, a famous literary critic and professor at Shandong Normal University, one day, he was invited to visit the Hanshe with Mr. Zhou Changfeng, a scholar of Jinan culture, and not only gave me several calligraphy collections and albums from him and Mr. Beiwen, but also gave me a precious manuscript of Elder Xu. That was the preface that Xu Lao wrote for the "Lovely Jinan" series of books. This move surprised me a lot, and I could only explain it with Mr. Xingjian's "courtesy and foolishness". What would such a person call a friend if he did not call him a friend? In my eyes, friend is the highest title of one person to another person, because the mountains and rivers are flowing, and it is difficult to find a voice, "life is enough to know oneself." Although the word is now used a little more overuse, it has lost its original meaning in many cases.
Actually, I know something about Mr. Xingjian. This stemmed from his father, Mr. Xu Beiwen, which was the biggest aura that hung over his head. In Jinan, anyone who loves culture, learns culture, and studies culture, if they don't know Mr. Xu Beiwen, it will definitely be a joke. Of course, if Mr. Xingjian has no strengths, it is also in vain to have a father who is more famous than Mr. Xu Beiwen. He is known as the father's power, and it is also the result of his long-term solid efforts and deep cultivation.
Mr. Xingjian was two years older than my father and was born in 1943, when the war was raging. Since then, it has experienced the founding of New China and successive political movements. He is the son of a celebrity, and he has to accept the glory and suffering that celebrities bring to him. In his adolescence, it was a time when his father suffered all kinds of tribulations. According to the "Annals of Xu Beiwen" compiled by his daughter Xu Chunna, Mr. Xu Beiwen, who has always insisted on keeping diaries, left very few diaries from 1949 to 1955 and from 1957 to 1976. Xu Chunna said that "there are those lost in sports, and there is a period of time when I have not written a diary for fear of being checked." The impact of this harsh environment on Mr. Beiwen is enormous, as is the impact on Mr. Xu Xingjian. But as Xu Chunna said, Mr. Beiwen "experienced the baptism of war, the persecution of several political movements, poverty and hunger in his youth, but he still loved life, loved his family, and loved all the beauty of nature." In the predicament, he never gave up the pursuit of learning and the love of life", which enabled him to glow with exuberant vitality after the reform and opening up.
This may have a greater impact on Mr. Xingjian, but also more internal and lasting, constituting the "internal force" of his life. Without this "internal force", a person's life will lack endurance and resilience, and it is likely to be destroyed by weakness in adversity, or by strength. Therefore, as far as a person is concerned, the "internal force" of life is indispensable. With this "internal force", he can survive all suffering, at least not destroyed or knocked down. Then, when Mr. Beiwen named him "Xingjian", did he have such an expectation? I didn't ask Mr. Xingjian, but I know that the ancients had the famous sentence "Tianxingjian, a gentleman is unremitting in self-improvement", and Mr. Beiwen should have named his beloved son from this meaning, right?
Judging from Mr. Xingjian's experience, he really deserves this name. As early as 1959, after graduating from junior high school, he could not continue his studies, so he entered the Jinan Towel Factory. He was sixteen years old. Because Mr. Beiwen was previously implicated in the anti-Hu Feng movement in 1955, he was later classified as a "rightist" and was sent to work in a forest nursery by a teacher from the Jinan Teachers' Training College. It was not until after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee that he was completely rehabilitated and returned to work at the Jinan Teachers' Training College. The fate of the father determines the fate of the son to some extent; the father's education and "internal strength" have also brought a profound impact on the son. Therefore, in jinan towel factory, Mr. Xingjian, whether he is a car driver or a plate maker, has not left his studies and given up his hobbies, he studied art hard with stoic perseverance, and gradually changed the trajectory of his life by relying on his art expertise. In 1966, Mr. Xingjian, who had been in the factory for seven years, was transferred to the pattern design studio to engage in design work, and since then he has formed an indissoluble relationship with home textile design, and has gradually become a leader in this field. We can see his position and influence in the home textile design industry from his large number of titles. His deeds have also been selected into the "Chinese Self-Study Talents Collection", "Chinese Workers Self-Taught Talent Dictionary", "Chinese Contemporary Arts and Crafts Celebrity Dictionary".
Of course, his interest is not only in home textile design, he also has a wider range of hobbies and higher pursuits. In his spare time, he also studied oil painting, gouache, Chinese painting, calligraphy, and later specialized in Chinese painting, mainly flowers and birds, and was good at landscapes, and achieved impressive results. The most prominent feature of his Chinese paintings is the "foundation" of practical art, especially pattern design, and has a solid and profound basic skill of line. This is fundamentally different from those "innovative" painters who like to wave their hands and drop their brushes with ink masses and color blocks. As far as Chinese painting is concerned, the line is undoubtedly the foundation of the foundation, and the so-called "calligraphy and painting homology" is probably mainly from the disposition of them all paying attention to the line.
Because of the emphasis on line, we see that his flowers, even the peonies known for their grace and magnificence, are different from those of accustomed works. In Mr. Xingjian's pen, they are almost all out of the long and short strips and black and white colors, without the color of red and purple, and the charm and charm. Even a little dyeing, but also the finishing touch, flexible and natural. In a social state and artistic environment where the "vulgar" wind is pervasive, adhering to the tradition and origin of Chinese painting, rather than catering to the tastes of the market and the public, requires great courage and determination in itself. This is a kind of character that is plain on the outside but warm on the inside, a firmness and determination that seems to be indisputable from the world but resolutely resists the customs. Such a painter, he will not paint for anyone, his brush only to his own heart, to express his own feelings. Therefore, his peony is the "flower soul wind bone", and the plum blossom is the "snow soul ice soul". Everything in nature has its own distinct personality in his pen, showing a rare air of transparency and pride. Yuanren Wang Mian once had a poem "MoMei": "My family washes the pond head tree, and the flowers bloom light ink marks." Don't let people praise the color, just leave the air full of dryness. "This is the spirit of the plum blossom, the high grid of the poet. I think it is also very appropriate to use it on Mr. Xingjian.
I recently read my brother Mr. Geng Jie'er's "Memoirs of Xu Gong Peony", which read: "Xingjian Gongyun, I want to invigorate my spirit with the line. "Xu Gong Peony, with the line polymorphism, the old state of wireless depiction; dan powder is light, and the new yan of the five colors is like a colorful one." It's really what connoisseurs see. Mr. Jie'er also said: "There are different kinds of painters, one is customary, and the other is extraordinary. It should be known that the hand of the painter is related to the heart, and the so-called non-force can be obtained. The world only knows that diligence can make up for clumsiness, but it does not know that it cannot make up for the heart, and the heart has its own heart to nourish itself. This is also just as Mr. Song Suiliang said in the "Preface to Xu Xingjian's Album": "The painting is good, or because the painter is good." The ancients said, 'Painter, wen zhi ji also'. Chinese painting pays attention to the accumulation of history and culture. Therefore, poetry, calligraphy, and gold stones are supplemented, covenanted, and regulated, so that they are immersed in the profound cultural heritage, and they become a great instrument by getting rid of their tacky, violent, and petty atmosphere. Mr. Xu Xingjian was born in a generation of scholars, and his father, Mr. Beiwen, was a contemporary Confucian of Qilu, but unfortunately he suffered many hardships, resulting in xingjian teenagers being closed and tired, preparing for hardships, and relying on self-study to become the first-class art designer in the country. This kind of suffering and tempering has achieved his humanitarian mind. The enterprising responsibility of Confucianism, the tranquility of Taoism, and the compassion and tolerance of Buddhism all have it all in him. ”
Mr. Song Suiliang also pointed out that Mr. Xingjian's "experience and talent have enabled him to still have a broad space in painting and calligraphy." This album may just be a new starting point." Yes, a true artist always thinks of every day as a new starting point. Although Mr. Xingjian is eighty years old, he is still energetic and full of vitality, especially the "big heart" that he loves life, nature and art, and is still beating, giving him the vitality of life and the desire for art.