Northern Song Dynasty Anon. "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll", ink and pencil on paper, 31.5x679.5 cm, collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
"Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" is a work with representative characteristics in the stage of the transformation of the appearance of gongbi painting to freehand painting style in the Southern Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty advocated science and diversified cultural levels, and under the background of the influence of realism as the mainstream aesthetic view, a realistic art style based on the expression of natural beauty was produced.
The whole volume depicts more than 50 kinds of flowers in all seasons, including plum blossoms, camellias, peonies, lilies, peonies, begonias, xuanhua, laughing, peach, peach, peach, pear, caryophyllus, poppy, broken bowl flower, gardenia, huilan, lotus, lotus, cockscomb flower, indigo flower, hibiscus, lentil flower, stone garlic flower, osmanthus flower, chrysanthemum, shandan, morning glory, hyacinth flower, hollyhock, okra, okra, etc. The flowers are dotted with birds, dragonflies, butterflies, bees, grasshoppers, small fish, etc., which are quite natural and interesting.
The flowers and animals in the picture are outlined with thin lines, and the thick and light ink is multi-layered blending, and the delicate state and layer of the flowers, the veins, turns, bumps and bumps of the pages are depicted very carefully. The whole picture is made of fine penmanship, ink is used to seek richness in simplicity, and change is sought in unity, so that the picture is rich in elegant beauty. The painting method of the plum blossom in the first paragraph of the picture volume is close to the southern Song Dynasty Yang Blameless style and has changed.
This technique had a certain influence on the ink pen flowers of Qian Xuan, Wang Yuan, and Zhao Zheng in the Yuan Dynasty, as well as the ink flowers of later literati. In the painting, there are many seals such as "The Treasure of the Qianlong Imperial Collection", "The Fine Seal of Sanxitang", "The Treasure of the Jiaqing Imperial Collection", and "The Treasure of the Xuantong Imperial Collection". There is no author's money seal, once collected by the Qingnei Province, and the "Three Editions of Shiqu Baodi" was written by Gong.
This picture scroll should be a fragment, not complete, according to expert research: "From plum blossoms, camellia paintings to okra, it seems that it should be flowers of the four seasons, but the lack of winter flowers and trees, it seems that the original painting is longer than now, and later cut off the last section, so there is no even a word."
The whole volume of "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" is rigorous in shape, using ink instead of color, whether it is sketching and rubbing, or dot dyeing and batching silk, it strives to reflect the figurative and realistic modeling concept of the object and the aesthetic consciousness for the purpose of expressing natural beauty. The depiction of the objects is vivid, quite natural interest and vitality, fully reflecting the fundamental characteristics of the ancient Chinese painting tradition of realism. This feature is to depict the structural characteristics of the object as the essence of the point of entry, after a long period of observation and understanding, the connotation of the object is summarized, summarized, through the depiction of the physical characteristics refined, and then reproduced.
This volume as a whole continues the traditional painting method of the Northern Song Dynasty court, but also integrates the aesthetic characteristics of literati painting, and the modeling language has obvious characteristics of the times. The Song Dynasty was a peak of Chinese realistic painting art and also represented the mature stage of Chinese realistic painting. After the Song Dynasty, due to the turbulent changes in society, the artist's sense of expression of his subjective spiritual world was greatly strengthened, and the concept of freehand thought became the mainstream of painting.
After the Northern Song Dynasty, literati painting rose day by day, and the development of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties reached its peak. The Southern Song Dynasty can be regarded as a transitional period from Gongbi painting to the rise of literati painting, and this period of Gongbi painting presented a neat and realistic decorative and flat painting style. The "truth" and "natural beauty" pursued by the Song people should not only be faithful to the objective objects in the portrayal of the appearance, but also in the depiction of various colors. It is also necessary to achieve the realm of vividness and vividness. This "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" is different from the "rich and magnificent" appearance of the Huang family, and also different from the ink color characteristics of the literati ink freehand paintings, but the righteousness also has the basic characteristics of both, with the line outlining the shape, the ink color is thick and faint, which not only continues the fine portrayal of the Song people's sketches, the painting characteristics of the natural and gentle court courtyard body painting, and the righteousness reflects the five colors of ink and the timeless and implicit meaning of the literati painting. It can be seen that the "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" is the representative work of this transition period.
This scroll continues the leading idea of the Song Dynasty's painting of "reasoning" and "judging things", and the flowers of the four seasons depicted in the volume are fine and dense, simple in imagery, and beautiful in posture, which are outlined and boneless shaping forms. In terms of modeling, it follows the law of realistic depiction of natural objects, and makes the means of expression reach a precise degree through meticulous observation. In the picture, various flower forms are tilted and reversed, and the postures are different. The lateral veins of the main tendon of the leaf are clearly explained, and the herbs and woody branches are portrayed in a clear and tender way. The stretching, bending, half-machine, and front and back of the petals and leaves can all find changes in the growing posture and can seek unity in a picture. For example, at the beginning of the picture, the most eye-catching cluster of peonies in bloom, the size of the four flower heads, the primary and secondary arrangements are very clever, the flowers bloom perfectly, from the buds to the flowers that are about to wither, are arranged in the same time period. In terms of position, the leftmost flower that has just bloomed occupies the main position, and the surrounding environment is close to leaving blank, which highlights its graceful posture more and more. Because its shape is too round, a reversed leaf is placed behind it at the upper end, and the line of the petiole is interspersed below to split the individual petals, forming a neat and scattered contrast with the full shape on the left. In the middle is a flower with buds ready to bloom, just stretched out a few petals on the periphery, the flower buds are still tightly wrapped inside, in different sizes, dense positive and negative leaves against the background of more graceful. A nearby inverted leaf semi-obscures the bulging bud that has just exposed the flower head, breaking the rigidity of the picture, and it is the connection of this flower bud that makes the two flower heads a unified whole. On the right, an elongated leaf is a flower head that is about to wither, and the drooping petals are staggered to highlight the full heart. It can be seen that the author's familiarity with the morphological structure of objects and images and the accurate understanding of the appearance of flowers and leaves are carefully distinguished from the life states of flowers at different stages.
As the two volumes unfold slowly, a large expanse of vibrant lotus flowers appears, showing the entire life stage of the lotus flowers from flower buds to lotus ponies. The posture of the five lotus leaves is also different, consisting of rolls and shu, staggering forward and reverse, and the rhythm is beautiful. Duckweed swimming fish are interspersed between the two lotus flowers, creating a natural environment in which species live alternately. The depiction of the details of the petals is also not revealed, and the petal sizes are staggered to form a very irregular shape with different areas, and the lines in the petals are curved and interlaced, dense and orderly, and the front and back are clear. It can be seen that the flower and bird painters of the Song Dynasty pursued authenticity and natural beauty in visual aesthetics, and pursued the charm of natural life in the realm. This kind of truth is not only reflected in the true depiction of form and color, but also in the portrayal of the expression, but also in the portrayal of the objective object, in order to obtain the natural beauty of the "wonderful and true" of the flower and bird god. Put a kind of affirmation of worldly life. The realistic view of life is embedded in works full of life interest, which is the immortal artistic feature of song dynasty flower and bird painting.
Song Dynasty flower and bird paintings reached a high level in the pursuit of realism and style. Nowadays, with the vigorous development of high technology, through mobile phone shooting and some network pictures, to obtain some fragmentary flower and bird material information, or observe sketching some artificially cultivated plants and flowers in scenic spots, and overemphasize the production process in the drawing process, which will lead to the brush flower and bird painting more and more away from its painterliness. The painter should grasp the image, artistic conception and atmosphere of flowers and birds through meticulous handwriting, express their vitality and interest with the help of the infinite rich natural world, and convey the subjective emotions of the author. On the basis of inheriting tradition, it emphasizes both objective truth and subjective creation, combines reproduction with performance, and analyzes and studies everything in nature with new concepts and new ideas to create a new picture artistic conception that conforms to the characteristics of the times.
Brief introduction
Chen Haifeng, from 1981 to 1993, worked as a senior art editor at Ma'anshan Daily, and published thousands of inscriptions, illustrations, mastheads, sketches and cartoons for more than a decade.
From 1994 to 2021, he was the chairman and secretary of Anhui Ocean Wind Culture Media Co., Ltd., a first-class advertising enterprise and a listed company on the New Third Board, the president of Ma'anshan Advertising Association, the vice president of Anhui Advertising Association, and the executive director of China Advertising Association.
He is currently studying in the Advanced Research Class of China Academy of Art.
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