Yang Borun was a painter of the late Qing Dynasty who was good at painting landscapes. Born in Shuxiangmendi, he studied painting from an early age and made a living selling paintings in middle age. Yang Borun's paintings have a characteristic, the composition is almost the same, the pen is almost unchanged, and only the change is emphasized in the use of color. Admiring his works, we can see the limitations and efforts of painters in the late Qing Dynasty.
Limitations, listening to it is not a word of praise, nor is it an advantage. If so, why should we appreciate his works? Because, almost all painters in the late Qing Dynasty were in this style. Dong Yuan's mountain, the northern Song Dynasty's tree, the Yuanren's Elegance, the Ming Dynasty's Wumen school of painting rhyme, and finally a painting of an old man with a staff across the bridge. The sameness and the same appearance are shortcomings and commonalities of that era.
Does it take effort to paint similar works? Of course, it is needed, and everyone hopes to be able to go to a higher level in creation. It can be seen from Yang Borun's paintings that he pays attention to the truth of details and also values the ink and ink. He attaches great importance to technique, but he is affected by the great environment, and over time he loses his personality.
Painters face various limitations in their creation, and sometimes the style is formed, and it is even more difficult to change it. For Yang Borun, there are two roads, one to meet the needs of life, and the other to meet the expression of personality. He chose the former, painting landscapes and water costs time, and he can only complete the creation quickly by reducing changes and emphasizing the charm.
Many modern painters have similar troubles to Yang Borun. It is often said that painting a batch of market-customized paintings can feed and wear warmth. However, hundreds of works were painted, and basically the road ahead was blocked. Especially those middle-aged painters, painters in transition, in the face of such troubles, it is really difficult to make up their minds.
Yang Borun painted like this has his reasons, but also his helplessness. He likes to dye the mountain with techniques such as slender cattle hair and cloaking, which also reveals his unwillingness. Don't want to give up the pursuit, through the showmanship to express that the pursuit is still there.
Yang Borun's painting of trees is very distinctive, and it will not overemphasize the arrogance of standing on top of the sky. The regular arrangement of the woods, the straight trunks, is deliberately painted this way at first glance. The painting method that does the opposite is exactly the same as the mountain peak in the square. At first glance, it lacks natural gas, but on closer inspection, it is rich in decorative beauty.
Yang Borun's color paintings are mainly small green landscape paintings and shallow landscape paintings, which shows his comprehensive ability. When he paints works with equal emphasis on color and ink, he is better than ink works. A good painter should be sensitive to color. However, there is very little discussion of color in traditional techniques, and Yang Borun can summarize this knowledge on his own, so that his works have a recognizable degree among the painters in the late Qing Dynasty.
The strong sense of color layering is the characteristic of Yang Borun. The color need not be rich, it does not have to be rich, but it must be detailed. With a sense of layering, there is a change in detail and authenticity. It can be seen that for a famous painter, there must be a unique skill to make people remember his characteristics.