What kind of Chinese beauty is loved by everyone at different levels?
This long-standing and difficult problem can be drawn from the Chinese beauty portrayed by Zhang Yimou.
First of all, I didn't say that Zhang Yimou couldn't do it before, before the Winter Olympics, there was indeed controversy, until the big victory at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, the last big victory was the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
It is actually very instructive to get the crowd, it not only shows the ability of the creator, but more importantly, it reflects the current state of public aesthetics.
A triumph of traditional aesthetics and academics
The first is tradition. This tradition includes traditional materials, traditional design methods.
When I watched the live broadcast before, I had a strong feeling, very academic, very traditional aesthetic concept (please note that what is said here is the concept, that is, the way of design).
We can use the theory in the British art historian Gombrich's "Sense of Order: A Psychological Study of Decorative Arts" to analyze it.
1. Simple order
Our perception favors simple structures, straight lines, circles, and other simple orders. - Gombrich
Almost all of the Gaozan pictures use extremely common traditional materials, Chinese knots, pine trees, willow branches, snowflakes are not traditional materials, but they also belong to the most common materials related to ice and snow, that is, "old terriers".
Engaged in design, now who dares to use the "old terrier"? I want to use something that has a sense of trend or something new.
Putting aside the final effect, just talking about the material itself, if ten years ago, this kind of material proposal was difficult to pass in many activities or competitions, because it was too common and too uninvited, just like the small commodities exclusively provided by the old streets and alleys around the world.
The picture is from the official micro of the People's Daily
In the past two years, because of the overall cultural self-confidence, these old terriers have regained some vitality, and from a visual point of view, they basically tend to either trend or "Song Dynasty".
Zhang Yimou's "customary" materials at the opening and closing of the Winter Olympics all appear in a very simple geometric form, which is a simple order favored by perception from the perspective of decorative psychology. Not absolutely, of course, but universal.
For a large event, there is only a simple order, no matter how beautiful, it cannot last that long.
2. Disruption and remodeling of simple order
So we see that all these common materials appear in the picture of technological beauty:
It conforms to the aesthetic category that is acceptable to the public, but it is not in people's visual experience.
It is the interruptions in the order that draw attention and produce visual or auditory prominences that are often interesting in decorative and musical forms. - Gombrich
For example, the five rings broke through the ice;
The Ming Dynasty painting style of the Welcome Pine painting is composed of fireworks;
The well-known "folded willow" wicker is fluorescent;
Snowflake stands represent a combination of small snowflakes for each country, and so on.
The picture change of each explosive point is a process of "step by step complexity", the original rhythm is suspended and then enters a new rhythm, and the layers of people's surprises are plucked out, such as the Chinese knot on the closing ceremony, first the children's ice car traces form the Chinese knot, and then the red ribbon in all directions forms a huge three-dimensional Chinese knot, surrounding the outside of the snowflake platform.
Each familiar material contains accidents to reshape this otherwise simple interruption of order, "which draws attention and produces visual or auditory prominences that are often interesting in decorative and musical forms."
The most familiar stranger, the accident in the routine, may be the successful element of popular aesthetics.
This point may be reflected in Zhang Yimou's early photography, but the bamboo photographed by Ming Ming has the effect of ink painting.
Zhang Yimou's early photography
3. Literary
What makes this accident more full is that the picture contains literature, which has a certain degree of popularity, so that many viewers can receive the relevant meaning of the brain while the eyes get the picture, just as the ice-breaking, welcome pine, etc. mentioned earlier, it is easier for us to understand the deep meaning of beauty.
Not only the opening and closing ceremonies, but also the gold piers and gold Rongrong obtained by the award-winning athletes, the circle of gold patterns is actually the pine bamboo plum of the three friends of the year, this kind of literature is the Chinese romance that netizens are talking about.
The picture is from Wu Dajing's Weibo
4. The return of the academy's aesthetic
Whether it is the establishment of a sense of order or the expression of literature, it relies on the precision of individual patterns, and from the perspective of decorative arts, the widely praised material design belongs to the academic aesthetic.
The most typical is the snowflake table.
Very stable, traditional pattern design, if you look at the line draft alone, it is not amazing, but the classic is attractive, which is quite in line with the design ideas of the older generation of Chinese art artists, but it is lighter.
Wen Lianchang, "Changes in Flowers", 1979
A few years ago, the local academic aesthetic was not purely positive, and was once considered stereotyped and old-fashioned (a stereotype in itself).
This time, this visual creation that meets traditional standards and is full of typical traditional art training has won the public's attention, and behind it is the shaping and influence of the era background on the public aesthetic.
In recent years, we can see the visual creation from the society, one general direction is the tide, the other is the "ins style", these two styles are accompanied by the further "hunting" of the punch card aesthetic, which is relatively rough and popular in design.
It is precisely the popularity of this rough thing that makes people eager to see change in the depths of their hearts, and a solid foundation of traditional aesthetics is the basis of this change.
Division of labor for the modern
Beyond tradition, there is the outstanding modernity.
Zhang Yimou's division of labor in the two directions of tradition and modernity is really wonderful, modern with technology expression, the part of technology on the one hand is used to present the picture, as mentioned earlier, the five rings are ice-breaking out, the Ming Dynasty painting style of the welcome pine picture is composed of fireworks, "folding willow love" wicker is fluorescent, etc., unexpected design combination; on the other hand, from a visual point of view, modernity is more inclined to use a sense of space, a sense of the future.
Traditional + space, Henan Satellite TV has also done a similar structure before, very well received, obviously this structure can be accepted by the public. For example, the story outline of the "Qixi Fantastic Tour" praised by netizens is that in 2035, female astronaut Tang Xiaotian borrowed the power of science and technology to return to Luoyang, the "divine capital" of the Tang Dynasty, of which part of the picture of "Dragon Gate King Kong" has the meaning of a bit of space effect, but the traditional part of Henan Satellite TV is more "up and down for five thousand years", emphasizing the audiovisual "sense of explosion".
Screenshot of Dragon Gate King Kong
The visual effect of the Winter Olympics, especially the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, is very space-like, with a sense of space with Chinese intentions.
Compared with the god's work "Space Odyssey 2001", this sense of space can be very reflected.
Above: Paralympic Closing Bottom: A Space Odyssey 2001
Space-style beauty has a grand and timeless temperament, but the difference is that whether it is a real space image or a drama such as "Space Odyssey 2001", the picture showed does not have the preference of human emotions, and will have a slight cold temperament, Zhang Yimou's sense of space contains human emotional intentions, human breath, more romantic.
This is probably also the best response to those who once called him only "earthy" and only "satisfying the curiosity of Westerners".
Express remembrance with hope
After the Winter Olympics, Zhang Yimou posted an article on Zhihu, in which he mentioned that since the Rio Olympics, there will be a "memorial link" to commemorate the deceased.
He wrote:
"South Korea chose to present it in a funeral-like format, and the Tokyo Olympics showed Japan's 'material mourning culture'. So how does Chinese express death? How to extract the Chinese concept of life and death in Chinese culture? I think what is different from other countries in China is that we have the optimism and upward mobility of Chinese for those who have passed away and for their lives. Chinese a phrase often said to the deceased is called "all the way to good", our concept of life is like this, while commemorating the deceased and remembering the deceased, we often dry our tears, and the living people still have to live well.
So we chose the image of 'folding willows to send affection'. Everyone held a glowing 'wicker' and walked slowly toward the middle in the music of "Farewell", and countless green lights rose like monuments. We specifically turn the light green, which means life, hope and growth, we don't have much sadness, more of a deep memorial. The hope of green rises again, everything has to look forward, it is a completely different feeling."
Many times good design needs to measure the environment, and in an environment where it is difficult for people to get rid of anxiety and panic, raising hope may be more suitable for most people than emphasizing grief.
Understanding these should be able to understand the needs of popular aesthetics in the present.
Tradition + modernity is really an eternal pursuit, but how to express it depends on the personal level.
A little thought, no guarantee.
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