Recently, Yangcheng Evening News planned to launch a series of reports on "CulturalLy Strong And Thought-provoking Interviews", which received a warm response.
On this basis, we continue to deepen the field of fine arts, launch the "Lingnan Famous Artists Studio" media series reports, walk into the creation site of famous artists, and successively show the style of Guangdong famous artists.
The first batch of artists were Tang Xiaoming and Lin Yong, who had just won the Lifetime Achievement Award in Literature and Art, and Fan Bo and Lin Lan, who were young and middle-aged artists with moral and artistic double xin. Relevant reports were simultaneously presented in Yangcheng Evening News, Yangcheng Pie APP, "Lingnan on the Clouds" Cultural Expo, Yangcheng Evening News Learning Power Number, etc.
"Lingnan Art Master Studio"
Media series coverage
Text, video/ Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Huang Zhuhui intern Yang Rui
Photo/Courtesy of respondents
【Biography】
Tang Xiaoming, born in 1939 in Guilin, Guangxi, graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1964. He once served as a director of the China Artists Association, a director of the China Oil Painting Society, a member of the Guangdong Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature, and the chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Artists Association; he has been hired by the National Art Exhibition as a member of the selection and award committee for many times, and is the advocate and the most important participant in the preparation of the Guangdong Art Museum.
【Enter the studio】
As long as the studio has the tools to draw
Tang Xiaoming's studio is located in Room 504 on the fifth floor of the Guangdong Academy of Painting on Renmin North Road, with an area of about 30 square meters, which was assigned to him by the Guangdong Academy of Painting after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Oil paintings such as "Dr. Sun Yat-sen", "Full of Enthusiasm", "Let Wisdom Shine" and other masterpieces were born in this studio. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
The studio is relatively simple, with easels, drawing boards, paints and other painting tools; in addition, there are a variety of books, especially albums and biographies. At present, the studio has a collection of works exhibited in the "Inscribed Era - Tang Xiaoming Art Research Exhibition" held at the Guangdong Museum of Art in 2019.
In 1979, Tang Xiaoming created the oil painting "Let Wisdom Shine"
"When Xiaoming is engaged in creation, he is very devoted and will paint for several hours in a row. If I wasn't around urging him to rest and eat, he might keep drawing for more than a dozen hours. Tang Xiaoming's wife, He Shuci, told reporters that after Tang Xiaoming's legs and feet were not flexible, she could not leave and took a taxi to accompany him back to the studio to paint.
At noon, the two eat something in the studio and then continue to work. In 2011, Tang Xiaoming was able to return to the studio and paint a few Chinese paintings and oil paintings. For the last seven or eight years, he has not been able to return to the studio to create.
"Xiaoming has a habit of turning over a lot of text materials before creating a big work, drawing multiple small sketches first, and making sufficient preparations. For example, if he wants to draw a hand, he will find someone to pose for a hand and quickly draw a sketch by himself. He Shuci said that although he did not realize the value of these small sketches at that time, she still collected them all, "Later, when Xiao Ming held an exhibition, these small sketches came in handy." ”
In addition to the studio provided by the Guangdong Academy of Painting, Tang Xiaoming also had studios in the local area when he went to Zhuhai and Zhongshan for medical treatment and recuperation. In He Shuci's impression: "Xiaoming does not have high requirements for the hardware of the studio, as long as there are tools to paint for him." He's never had a big studio. When creating body paintings in Zhuhai, he even rented a rotten tail building to create. ”
【Art Talk】
Portrait subject matter as a "theme painting"
During his nine years of study at the Central and South American Secondary School and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Tang Xiaoming has carried out his hassle-free artistic exploration, which can be called his "golden age". Influenced by the "life is beauty" art concept, he is full of passionate love for life, which is reflected in his creation. "Rice Fragrant Season" and "The Road of Spring" are Tang Xiaoming's representative works at this stage.
In Tang Xiaoming's artistic career, the 1970s and 1980s were the heyday of his creation. "Never Truce", "Female Commissioner", "Humen Militia", "Full of Enthusiasm", "Let Wisdom Shine", "Dr. Sun Yat-sen"... These masterpieces are from this period.
The objects of these historical figure paintings include Lu Xun, militia, Bethune, Li Siguang, Sun Yat-sen, etc., all of which reflect the spirit of the times at that time.
Art critic Liang Jiang believes that Tang Xiaoming belongs to a paradigm in the Guangdong art world. Many of his works confirm the times and represent the trajectory of a paragraph and a society. The connotations of his work are very deep and accurate. "If we put these paintings back in that era now, they are a historical passage of our society, a spiritual history of society."
Oil painting "Never Cease"
In the autumn of 1970, Tang Xiaoming was seconded back to Guangzhou from the literary and art cadre school of the Yingde Tea Farm, and under the command of the Guangdong Provincial Literary and Art Office, he was engaged in firefighting team-style work. In the same year, the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Guangdong Province rushed to resume the exhibition display. According to the content arrangement, there should be a photo of Lu Xun in his later years, but it has never been found suitable.
The museum thought that it could paint an oil painting instead, and this task fell to Tang Xiaoming. He himself happened to be interested in the subject of Lu Xun for a long time, so he looked around for materials and pictures to brew creations.
At that time, a photo of Lu Xun in his later years could be found, with a gaunt face, which did not meet the requirements of the display, and it was very difficult to reshape the image. Tang Xiaoming can only ponder and compare through many photos, and find Lu Xun's brilliance through text materials.
Tang Xiaoming locked himself in a bucket room, repeatedly changed, and finally spent more than ten days drawing a sketch. The picture highlights Lu Xun, who is still writing a book during his illness— a blanket on his lap and a pillow behind his back, and the alarm clock, medicine bottle, and thick book manuscripts that appear in the painting are all determined by many deliberations.
The image of Lu Xun in the center of the picture is firm and deep, and his eyes are as sharp as his essays, highlighting the fighter characteristics of "horizontal eyebrows and cold pairs".
The sketch was finalized, and Tang Xiaoming spent another week or so to complete the oil painting "Never Truce". He deliberately softened the contrast between light and shadow, creating "cold, gray" tones that were rare at the time.
Tang Xiaoming recalled: "At that time, some departments made a request that this work 'want to be red or bright', so as to set off the revolutionary atmosphere. And I think that painting this subject has nothing to do with 'red light', Lu Xun in this kind of illness, work and fighting situation, there can be no 'red light'. ”
Oil painting "Full of Enthusiasm"
Soon, the province prepared a painting exhibition, for which Tang Xiaoming successively completed the oil paintings "Female Committee Member" and "Humen Militia". "Female Commissioner" and "Humen Militia", plus three oil paintings of "Never Truce", were selected for the same national art exhibition.
"At that time, many of the selected works were created in the name of the collective, and I personally selected three, and I was jokingly called the 'singles champion'." Tang Xiaoming said happily, "After playing this, I began to have a little fame in the art world. ”
He said that although he was more interested in portrait painting, he was not interested in portrait painting in the original sense, but in the "theme painting" of portrait subjects.
Li Jinkun, vice chairman of the China Artists Association and chairman of the Guangdong Federation of Literary and Art Circles, believes that the 1960s and 1970s, including the period close to the 1980s, was a very important time for Tang Xiaoming to study and create. His important works such as "Never Cease War" and "Full of Enthusiasm", or a series of works from the earlier student era, all have the atmosphere of life in Chinese society at that time, which laid his very important academic position in the oil painting industry at that time.
"The art journey is long, the quest is also long"
Although he is more than eighty years old, Tang Xiaoming is still in good spirits and has a clear thinking.
Speaking of art, Tang Xiaoming said: "I don't think I have much talent, and I do things in a similar way of asceticism. The way of art is common, in fact, at the philosophical level, it should be said that it is the same. 'The road is long and the road is long, I will go up and down and seek', I am still at such a stage, the art journey is long, the quest is also long.
Let me continue on the road that I cannot finish and cannot walk, and work wholeheartedly and only on the canvas. It's not necessarily necessary to produce any brilliant results, and the things I make are not necessarily useful, but I just need to enter the atmosphere of artistic creation and be in the process of creation. ”
For winning the third Guangdong Literature and Art Lifetime Achievement Award, Tang Xiaoming is full of gratitude. He said: "In addition to my efforts, this award also has the meticulous help of my wife and the guidance and help of teachers and friends in the society." Without the combination of these factors, I might not have achieved anything. ”
Tang Xiaoming has intersected with Yangcheng Evening News many times. He remembers that he once wrote some short art treatises, which were published in yangcheng evening newspapers and other newspapers. In 2007, he was also selected as one of the "Fifty Contemporary Lingnan Cultural Celebrities" sponsored by Yangcheng Evening News.
"The Yangcheng Evening News has a very mass base in the Guangzhou area, is vivid and flexible, and has a relatively wide range of information." At the end of the interview, Tang Xiaoming wished that the Yangcheng Evening News would, as always, be more energetic and creative, and win the love of more readers.
March 20, 2022 Yangcheng Evening News A6
Chief planner: Du Chuangui Lin Haili
Overall Coordinator: Sun Aiqun Chen Qiaosheng
Executive Coordinator: Deng Qiong, Wu Xiaopan, Zhu Shaojie
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Wu Xiaopan
Edit | Zhu Shaojie