Li Luogong (1917~~1992) was pen named Heisha Luo, and in his later years he was named Luo Gong. Graduated from Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, he is a famous Chinese calligraphy and painting seal engraver, art educator, and one of the founders of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. He studied in Japan and began to explore the "nationalization of oil painting" very early. However, in his artistic career, 1957 seemed to be a watershed. After this, he embarked on a very different path as a seal engraver and calligrapher. Mention Li Luogong, the painting industry peers can not help but sigh, for his unfinished painting industry. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Li Luogong's death, and this article was published in a special issue of The Paper's Art Review.
Mention Li Luogong, the painting industry peers can not help but sigh, for his unfinished painting industry. His oil paintings were once so exquisite, and his painting style was so superb, if it developed smoothly, I don't know what kind of situation it would reach.
Li Luogong in the 1940s
Born in 1917 in a poor family on the outskirts of Fuzhou, Li Luogong's father taught private schools and practiced medicine amateurishly, earning a small income to support the family. When he was thirteen years old, his father became ill with overwork and suffered from incurable diseases, and knowing that the limit was approaching, he committed suicide by throwing himself into the Minjiang River in order to save the cost of burial.
One of the street scenes, wood-panelled oil paint, 33.1x24cm, 1945
Lady portrait On canvas oil paint size unknown 1940s Lost in Japan
Incredibly, Li Luogong, whose family was in a difficult situation, was obsessed with the art of oil painting, which was expensive and difficult to make a living. Fortunately, the talent was outstanding, and with the help of noble people (such as Liu Haisu, principal of Shanghai Private Art College, Guan Liang, Ding Yanyong, Ni Yide, etc.), he avoided the doom of premature death. In August 1940, Li Luogong, who had just graduated from the American College, held a solo exhibition in the painting hall of Shanghai Daxin Company under the name of "Black Sand Luo", and the response was enthusiastic. Ni Yide, an avant-garde painter and famous left-wing writer and artist in the painting world, commented that "there is a force of composition, simple and heavy colors, and the hard brushstrokes of thick lines", which is a breakthrough in the slender, decadent and morbid painting style popular in the isolated island of Shanghai.
Shanghai Daxin Painting Hall "Black Sand Luo Solo Exhibition", from left: Li Luogong (Black Sand Luo), Wen Zhaotong, Ni Yide, Zao Wou-ki August 1, 1940
However, Li Luogong did not become a painting fighter, and under the appearance of the "Black Sand Luo" Yaoye, there was a sensitive and slender heart. He embraced Matisse's philosophy of art: painting is an art that is "balanced, pure, tranquil, and does not contain disturbing or depressing subjects"; "it seems to be a soothing, like a tranquilizer, or like a comfortable easy chair". Driven by this artistic ideal, in the autumn of 1941, with the financial support of a fellow countryman in Japan, Li Luo resolutely went east to Japan to study and was admitted to the graduate school of the Higher Arts Department of Nihon University. Dissatisfied with the dull teaching of the academy, he sought teachers outside the school and became the private sons of Yataro Noguchi, Shinichiro Inoku, and Katsuzo Satomi, who were masters of modern Japanese painting. In 1942 and 1943, Li Luogong was selected for two consecutive years for the "Independent Painting Exhibition" (equivalent to the French "Autumn Salon") that was highly regarded in Japan, which attracted the attention of the Japanese media. At the end of 1944, Li Luogong returned to China, and under the turbulent situation, he began to explore the "nationalization of oil painting".
Li Luogong sketched in Nara Park in the 1940s
Shanghai Xujiahui Road (Japan's thirteenth independent art exhibition work) is an unknown size copy of the 1940s
In Li Luogong's artistic career, 1957 seemed to be a watershed. Before that, he was a famous oil painter, after which he became a seal engraver and calligrapher. What caused this change was the "anti-rightist" movement of that year. Li Luogong was then the director and professor of the fine arts department of Hebei Normal University, and in the "Big Bang Dafang", out of the artistic feelings of "nationalization of oil painting", he criticized the rigid realist painting teaching system of the former Soviet Union, and as a result, he was put into another book, deprived of teaching positions, and delegated to the suburbs of Tianjin for labor reform, and his salary was reduced from more than 200 yuan to 30 yuan per month. That year, Li Luogong was just forty years old.
Li Luogong, Qi Baishi, and Li Ke were in Qi Baishi's home in 1949
Li Luogong made a self-portrait at his home on Xing'an Road in the 1950s
Although Li Luo later lamented that he was forced into the "square inch" of the seal carving, under the circumstances at that time, no matter from what angle of consideration, this turn was wise. After entering another book, the livelihood of a family of seven soon became a problem, food and clothing were still difficult to protect, where was the remaining money to support expensive oil paintings? Two years later, he returned to school, demoted and retained, worked in the data room, and his salary was transferred back to more than one hundred yuan, and Li Luogong did not touch the oil painting again, for a simple reason: his beloved painting style has been abandoned by the times. Moreover, in that era when the concept of hostility was highly developed, there were many traps of criticism everywhere, and perhaps only the unpopular seal carving was a place where worries could be relieved and the spirit could be pinned.
Guan Liang painting drama 1970s
Higashiyama Kuiyi 1980s
Li Luogong's seal carving is extraordinary, just two years, like a master, which is naturally due to his boy skills, but it may not be the same. In fact, as early as the period of decentralization, Li Luogong began to work hard, every night when people were quiet, regardless of the fatigue of the day, he sketched lines on the reverse side of the cigarette packing paper, conceived the rules, and played the knife when he returned home on Sunday. In 1961, in order to purchase Shoushan stone, Li Luogong made a special trip back to his hometown in Fujian, passing through Shanghai to stay and ask for help from the previous masters. Qian Jiantie looked at his seal and said, "Your seal can be confused with Qi Baishi." Wang Geyun pointed out to him: "The source and flow must be clearly understood in order to create an original grid." "The criticism of the two families complemented each other, and the point reached the end, which made Li Luogong Mao Suddenly open, such as winning the most precious treasure."
Willow leaf green poolside 1970s
The Central Plains Chase Deer in the 1970s
It turned out that Li Luo Gongzhiyin initially imitated Qi Baishi. Qi Weng's one-handed, strong and heroic courage made him fall for it. After being pointed out by the two masters, Li Luogong began to study the tradition, going back to the oracle bone, the golden text, the ancient hammer, the Qin and Han seals, and on this basis, the constituent elements of modern painting were integrated. Ding Bokui, a research expert on Li Luogong, believes that the Luo Gong seal carving in this period was developed on the basis of the Qin and Han seals, the scope was similar to that of the grass seal, focusing on the discussion of the seal method, composition, and golden stone flavor, "He drew on the composition balance, the golden section law, and the combination of virtual and real changes, rhythm rhythm and the opening and closing of the seal, and the combination of Zhu Bubai and other laws, boldly breaking through the traditional seal engraving method, and getting inspiration from Chinese freehand painting. (Ding Bokui's "Camel's Trail", published by Lijiang Publishing House in 1984) Along this path, Li Luogong's seal carving gradually entered a better state.
Liu HaisuYin 1979
Lu Yushao in the 1980s
Li Luogong's seal carving works in his mature period, the "taste of knives" of Jinshi and the "pictorial meaning" of pen and ink are integrated, which is interesting and very attractive. He integrated the modeling rules of Western modern painting into seal engraving, resulting in a simple and flexible "formal beauty" and "abstract beauty". Japanese seal engraver Mei Cozy believes that Li Luogong's seal carving is amazing at first sight, and the aftertaste is endless, and the pictographic nature of the text and the fusion of wind and objects are full of free and lively imagination, making people feel as if they are in the landscape of Guilin. (See Japan's "Seal Beauty" magazine, No. 2, 2002.) Indeed, Li Luogong's seal engraving has a distinct pictorial expressiveness, and when it is printed, it is a modern print, which is similar to the paintings of Miró and Paul Klee. In this sense, Li Luogong liberated seal engraving from the "subsidiary" status of calligraphy and painting, turning it into an independent visual art, which is of great significance.
At the beginning of the ten years of turmoil, like many cultural people, Li Luogong was criticized for fighting and closed the cowshed, because he had already become a "dead dog", but he did not suffer particularly. In the cowshed, Li Luogong still had itchy hands and secretly drew seals on the shredded pieces of paper, and the Red Guards found out and reprimanded them a few times. In 1969, Li Luogong was expelled from the college, and his wife was sent to Tanxia Commune in Lingchuan County, Guangxi Province, unable to arrange work, and after a little trouble, he entered the county cultural center and was responsible for supervising the reading room.
Li Luogong sketched by the Li River in the early 1970s
In the remote county town of Lingchuan, people are full of curiosity about this old man who is more than half a hundred years old and has been distributed at the foot of the imperial city thousands of miles away, saying that he is a rightist who takes off his hat, but his salary is higher than that of the county magistrate, he likes to write a strange word like a heavenly book, speaks a Minnan dialect that no one can understand, and among the luggage that is transported, there are more than a dozen wooden boxes and boxes, and the hemp rope is tightly bound, open one, is a stone, open another, or a stone, except that the stone is a book, there is nothing else. People laughed and shook their heads.
Li Luogong with Liu Haisu and Guan Liang in Guilin in 1978
Li Luogong and Guan Liang create oil paintings at the Ronghu Hotel in Guilin in 1978
Saion lost his horse, and he knew that it was not a blessing. At the county cultural center, Li Luogong is responsible for managing a reading room of about 50 square meters, sending and receiving villain books, literary and art periodicals, etc., living very easily, and there are many leisures at his disposal. According to Li Yousan (Li Luogong's son), at that time they lived in a fifteen-square-meter dormitory in the Cultural Center, and Li Luogong worked in the reading room during the day. After two drinks in the evening, or to cure the seal, or to wave, has been busy until late at night, such as a few years, the reputation gradually rises, more and more people come to the door to ask for calligraphy, Li Luogong never refuses, there is a response.
Regarding this period of time, the memories of the painter Wang Yuliang can be used as a reference -
In 1973, I went to the south to sketch, and in a pavilion hall built on the mountain at Yangshuo North Ferry In Guangxi, I saw a strange style of grass seal hanging on the wall and another banner with two bright red giant seals on both sides and attached to the text, and the text of the text was also a grass seal, which made me like it very much. After inquiring, I learned that the author, Li Luogong, was working at the nearby Lingchuan County Cultural Center, so he went to visit. The Lingchuan County Cultural Center is a low brick house by rail, and outside the door is a courtyard with bricks scattered, like a temporary open-air movie screening field, with weeds on the wall, which looks desolate, and the rumbling of trains passing through. The old man was in charge of a newspaper room, and there were several small cards on the reading table, on which were written the words "Don't tear up the books and newspapers" and "Quiet study", and the fonts were between the seals, and they could be seen from Li Luogong's handwriting. I had a fever in my head, and I really wanted to take these little cards and collect them. During this visit, I asked the old man for the four cursive characters of "karma is good at diligence", which I regard as a treasure and have been treasured until now.
In the eight years of Lingchuan, Li Luogong was at ease with the encounter, immersed in the exploration of seal carving and calligraphy, and forgot his worries, which was called leisure. During this period, there was also a flying disaster, which almost killed him, and it must be remembered here.
What caused this disaster was a piece of cursive seal calligraphy created by Li Luogong based on Chairman Mao's poem "Butterfly Love Flower Answer Li Shuyi". In the atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s, Chairman Mao's poetry was the safest and most artistic subject, and almost everyone in the field of calligraphy and painting did it. However, Li Luogong took Chairman Mao's poem remembering his deceased wife and comrade-in-arms Yang Kaihui as the object of writing, but he was emotionally moved, felt it, and accumulated many years of achievements. What I never expected was that such a work would also hit the rocks, stir up terrifying waves, and almost drown him.
Mao Zedong Butterfly Love Flower (brick rubbing) on paper, 41x67.5cm, 1960s
In the autumn of 1973, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade organized an exhibition to Japan to collect works nationwide, and among the works selected by the Guangxi side was Li Luogong's calligraphy and cursive seal "Butterfly Love Flower", which was discovered and reported in time by the cronies in charge of fine arts under the "Gang of Four" when it was submitted for approval. For a time, black clouds overwhelmed the city, and the royal scribes brandished sticks and convicted them of "distorting and scandalizing Chairman Mao's poems with hieroglyphs", as evidenced by the word "rain" that "tears flew down as a pouring rain", in which more than twenty ink dots were deformed and exaggerated and went down with the trend, which were said to be "slanderous Chinese people have been crying under the rule of the Communist Party for more than twenty years." Hearing this verdict, Li Luogong was shocked and his blood pressure rose to 240 mm. Fortunately, there were many leading cadres in the autonomous region who understood things, and among them were Li Luogong's seal lovers, so they adopted the method of coping, and in the end, the big things were turned into small things, and they could not do anything wrong.
Li River Smoke and Rain 1980s
Li Luogong's calligraphy and cursive seal breaks through the artistic norms of traditional seals, and integrates the "formal beauty" of modern painting with the "pictographic beauty" of primitive Chinese characters and the "ink rhyme" of Chinese painting, creating a modern calligraphy form full of painting interest and although ancient and new, which has been highly praised by peers in the painting industry. Liu Haisu believes that this is a kind of "return to the ancestors" art experiment that integrates ancient and modern times; Zhang Tong believes that Li Luogong's grass seal pays attention to "bone method with pen" and ink color changes, and is rich in musical melody and rhythm. Despite this, neither master advocated imitation by later generations, and Zhang Tong warned young and middle-aged art apprentices: "Do not copy and imitate him from the form, but go your own way." The meaning of this is deep, and people of insight can understand it by themselves.
In the early 1990s, when I was studying in Japan, I saw Li Luogong's calligraphy in a gallery in Tokyo, and my eyes lit up, and I happened to have a print of Miro hanging next to me. At that time, he had no idea that Li Luogong was a private art college student in Shanghai, a famous oil painter, who studied in Japan in the early 1940s and whose works were twice selected for the "Independent Painting Exhibition" in Japan. After many years, whenever I think about this, I always feel afraid, both for myself and for my predecessors. In the 20th century China, where the wind and thunder stirred and surged forward, a group of painters with pure interests and advanced painting styles could not paint according to their own wishes, twisting and turning, and the side branches were obliquely out, producing strange artistic fruits and could not be classified. Among them, Li Luogong can be regarded as a typical case. The "painting in the book" of the grass seal, together with Miró's painting, on the brush and ink lines, can be said to be no less inferior, or even above it. It has to be admitted that there are still important differences between the two, if the former is dancing with shackles, the latter is a free creation.
Li Luogong was born in the new work Turtle Despite His Birthday from 1978 to the early 1980s
Henry Matisse completed works in progress
Juan Miró The Woman Listening to Music Oil Paint 129.5x161 .6cm
After the end of the ten years of turmoil, as the social order returned to normal, a heart affair began to haunt Li Luogong. Friends around him urged him to regain his brush and resume his oil painting creation, which had been interrupted for many years. His mentor Liu Haisu brought him back the best oil paint from Europe, and his son Li Yousan sent him japan's most advanced easel from Tokyo, and Li Luogong himself was eager to try it, and said: He has actually been painting in his heart.
Time flies, and several years have passed, and Li Luogong has not appealed to the canvas for the pictures in his heart. People's expectations were disappointed, so they began to explain the reasons, such as painting skills have been abandoned for many years, it is not easy to regain; old age and frailty, lack of energy, and so on. In addition, there is another theory, which the author thinks is more valuable: in the early 1980s, when the painter Zao Wou-Ki returned to France to visit his relatives, Li Luogong looked at his album, was quite shocked, was silent for a long time, and dispelled the idea of resuming oil painting.
Li Luogong as a Street View of Harbin (Shi Guocai) 1945-1946 The original work was lost in Harbin
Black Sand Luo Self-Portrait Pen on Paper 15× 20.5cm 1940s
Zao Wou-Ki was a classmate of Li Luogong in the Era of Shanghai Art College, and in 1940 Li Luogong and he successively held a personal exhibition in the painting hall of the Shanghai Daxin Company, because of economic constraints, the frame used for Li Luogong's painting exhibition was still borrowed by Zao Wou-ki. The two are like-minded, and the painting style is also close. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Zao Wou-Ki studied in France at his own expense, immersed himself in Paris, the capital of world art, immersed himself for many years, explored an oriental style of abstract expressionism, became an important member of the "Paris School", and is now a world-renowned art master.
Writing this, I can't help but think of Li Luogong's discovery and cultivation of Li River painting boy Assi in his later years. Assi is the child of a colleague at the Lingchuan County Cultural Center, born in 1973, living in a wall with Li Luogong. After getting along with Li Luogong day and night, little Assi began to graffiti to learn to paint, making rapid progress, which made Li Luogong very happy, sparing no effort to guide and care, and not to let the fragile art prodigy be polluted in any way. In the winter of 1976, the Finnish Ministry of Culture solicited papers from China for the Helsinki International Children's Painting Exhibition held the following year, and upon learning of this news, Li Luogong selected ten paintings from Assi's paintings and sent them to the relevant departments in Guangxi, but they were unexpectedly returned, on the grounds that Assi did not have a household registration. Therefore, Li Luogong took a long vacation, personally took the painting to the north, and asked for the support of his old friends in the painting industry, li keyan, Zhang Tong, Huang Yongyu in Beijing, Guan Liang, Zhu Qizhan and other famous artists in Shanghai, who saw Assi's paintings and waved inscriptions, and gave them high praise. Assi finally made an exception to get the qualification to participate in the exhibition, his work shocked the judges, won the gold medal of the International Children's Painting Competition, and since then his reputation has risen, until it attracted the attention of David Hockney, the "Godfather of British Art" and the international painting master, in 1981, during his trip to China, he made a special trip to Guilin to find this talented painter who was more than forty years younger than himself, and gave painting paints.
The above story sounds like a legend. Time has passed, will similar stories happen again? The author is not sure, but what is certain is that Li Luogong's move has gone beyond the scope of "loving talent" and "knowing talent", and more contains the artistic obsession of "taking children as teachers", that is to say, in the yearning for the free flying of "childlike heart", Li Luogong's own painting ideal is pinned.
……
Li Luogong meets Shengzang in the studio of his late teacher, September 29, 1983
The painting soul is leisurely, and the true feelings are attached. A capitalized painter, a sincere artist, picking flowers and smiling, overlooking the sky of 20th-century Chinese art.
This article is hereby commemorated to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Li Luogong.
The Qingming Period of the Year of Nongyin