【Scholar Talk】
Woodcut Qiankun Watermark Fanghua
——Talking about the development and evolution of watermark prints
Author: Zhang Xue, Deputy Research Librarian of Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Calligraphy and Painting [Provincial Art Museum].
Watermark prints are an art form that carries the spirit of traditional Chinese aesthetics. The mirror image pattern of the painting is painted or presented on the wooden board by a special method and engraved, and then the water-based pigment is applied to the carved wooden board, and then the paper covered with different dry humidity is rubbed to form a watermark print. Traditional watermark prints belong to the category of reproduction woodcut prints, which are mainly used to copy Chinese paintings for the purpose of printing and dissemination, and can maintain the style and style of the original Chinese paintings and even the effect of chaos.
He Zhilian Sixteen (print) Chen Qi
Nostalgia (print) Hao Boyi
Ashima (print) Huang Yongyu
Ten Bamboo Paintings and Calligraphy (Prints, Partial)
Dongfang Hong 75 (print) Yu Chengyou
Fog Man Jiangnan (print) Wang Mian
Autumn Poems (prints) Lian Zhuoqi
Although traditional watermark prints follow the basic logic of woodblock printmaking in principle, from the perspective of subject matter content and production process, its artistic appearance has a unique aesthetic interest. When the wood plate attached to the water-based pigment meets the Chinese rice paper, the blending of color and water penetrates, and the close superposition of the wood plank texture, woodcut pattern and flexible paper can transform into thousands of changes. Therefore, the production of traditional watermark prints is not a rigid assembly line operation, it requires the producer to accurately grasp the properties of printing tools and materials, the thickness of pigments, color differences, humidity of paper and environment, and the fast and slow rhythm and strength of the printing process to ensure the completion of the work, which is the secondary creation of the original Chinese painting.
The watermark prints of various periods in history have a unique appearance and aesthetic value that meet the needs of the times. Traditional watermark prints have laid an aesthetic tone rich in the traditional Chinese cultural atmosphere for the construction of China's modern watermark woodcut aesthetic system - both thick and vigorous, clear and clear "taste of knife and wood", but also rich in hazy and elegant, water-colored chic charm. Many painting notations, notes, illustrations of ancient books, woodblock prints, etc. in the annals of history have shown the unique charm of traditional watermark prints, especially the "Ten Bamboo Zhai Calligraphy and Painting Notation", "Ten Bamboo Zhai Notes", "Mustard Garden Painting Biography" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, etc. have developed traditional watermark prints from monochrome printing to color overprinting, and have pushed this unique traditional Chinese technique to maturity.
In the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, only a small number of novels or Fangzhi illustrations, woodblock new year paintings, notes, etc. were circulated in the street. In the 1930s and 1940s, Lu Xun, the mentor of the emerging woodcut movement, invited the Japanese painter Uchiyama Cargill to hold a woodcut workshop in Shanghai, and also co-edited the "Beiping Notes" with the well-known scholar Zheng Zhenduo, and initiated the reprinting of the "Ten Bamboo Notes". This allowed the emerging woodcut movement to intersect with traditional watermark prints. Compared with the mimeograph woodcuts that can be quickly and widely printed, although the number of watermark woodcut prints emerging in the emerging woodcut movement is small, some watermark woodcut masterpieces full of revolutionary realism aesthetic colors have also become the classics of the times, such as Wang Shikuo's "Transformation of Second-Rate Children", Jin Lang's "Territorial Photos" and Yan Han's watermark woodcut New Year painting "Victory in the War of Resistance and Military-Civilian Cooperation", etc., which are not bad for the enlightenment of China's modern watermark woodcut creation and exploration.
After the founding of New China, watermark woodcut ushered in a new development situation. In order to promote national art, the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts have sent teachers to Rongbaozhai to learn the watermark of the plate. Li Hua, who was in charge of the teaching of printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts at that time, advocated attaching importance to the study of traditional watermark printmaking. Zhang Yangxi, then head of the printmaking department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, insisted on opening a Chinese painting class in the printmaking department. These initiatives led china's modern watermark woodcuts to find the right direction of artistic development at a time of rise. At that time, Li Pingfan, a printmaker who returned to Japan, was invited to promote the Japanese woodblock watermark production method in various places, and the traditional Chinese watermark printmaking technique QinSer and Ming, shaping the prototype of modern Chinese watermark woodcut. "Su Calamus Flower" is one of the works that Li Pingfan's practice of daily watermark printmaking techniques is one of the works, and it is a masterpiece of flower-themed watermark woodblock prints at that time. The shape of the calamus in the picture is simple, and the method of adding color to the black contour line is not adopted in the watermark woodcut creation of the time. The art historian Qi Fengge once introduced the technical characteristics of this work in the "History of Modern Chinese Printmaking": "In order to make the color print even and thick, the painter also mixed some thin paste in the paint and ink color..." After that, Wu Fan, a printmaker who studied watermark woodcut with Li Pingfan, stood out in the printmaking industry with his work "Dandelion". The freehand character shapes and large areas of white space in "Dandelion" give people the impression of ancient notation, and the unique transparent and elegant color of the watermark woodcut adds a bit of gentle texture and Qingning artistic conception to this work. In the 1950s and 1960s, the representative works of watermark woodcut prints also included Gu Yuan's "Jade Belt Bridge", Huang Yongyu's "Ashima" and "Blowing Harmonica", and ink paintings created by Wu Junfa, Huang Pimo, Zhang Xinyu and Zhu Qinbao of the Jiangsu watermark woodcut genre. The creation of Chinese watermark woodblock prints in this period advocated poetic lyrical expression, and there are many excellent examples.
In the early 1980s, Heilongjiang prints gradually derived a regional style watermark woodcut system suitable for creation under the dry climate conditions in the north, representing Hao Boyi's "Nostalgia" and "Hometown Night". In the mid-1980s, the printmaker Chen Qi integrated the spirit of traditional Chinese art with modern visual elements, making his works different from the style of the previous Jiangsu printmaking genre and taking on a new look. Chen Qi's works are purely based on plain ink, and rarely use the change of knife method to shape the image, but use multi-level plate overprinting to express the texture and volume of the object, bringing people a new modern visual experience. As one of the representative figures of Anhui printmaking, printmaker Ying Tianqi loves the texture beauty of special materials, innovates and tries the integration of wood chips, paper chips, sand grains and other materials in the production of watermark woodblock prints, and creates a series of works of "Xidi Village" with a thick historical texture. In the 1990s, printmakers paid more attention to the research and development of new materials and new techniques for watermark woodcuts and the shaping of personal artistic language, and they constantly created new aesthetic forms of watermark woodcuts, and were committed to expanding the aesthetic dimensions of modern Chinese watermark woodcuts from many aspects.
In the twenty-first century, the creation of watermark woodblock prints can be described as vigorous and full of flowers. Printmakers either pay attention to the development of the times, or focus on ordinary life, or through the poetic expression of scenery, they explore topics such as the fusion of traditional and modern, Eastern and Western cultures. Many new works full of vitality and creativity are eye-catching. Yu Chengyou's "Dongfang Hong 75" and You Yu's "Heterotopia" use the objects rich in the sense of age to present the development process of New China, creating an appreciation atmosphere for contemporary audiences to contrast the past and present. Wang Hongjun's "Warm City" shows the ordinary scenes of life with ingenious composition, presenting the unique urban landscape and joie de vivre of northern China. In Kwong Minghui's "Sharing Era", the scene of high-rise buildings and high-speed rail passing through the graphics of the folded express carton is a vivid portrayal of the rapid development of the city in the new era. In addition, works such as Lian Zhuoqi's "Poems of Autumn" and Cheng Guoliang's "Bamboo Realm Series" are based on the fresh and elegant expression language of traditional watermark prints, and integrate modern design patterns into them to explore the new integration of ancient and modern styles.
How to make ancient art forms shine in the new era is a problem faced by contemporary watermark woodblock printmakers. As Chen Qi wrote in his book The Concept and Technique of Chinese Watermark Woodcut: "Printmaking is an art form that was born in China... Artists who use watermark woodcuts as the creative medium return to tradition, and then start from tradition, or draw on modernist artistic concepts and visual forms, or use contemporary social image resources, or theoretical breakthroughs based on the ontological language of printmaking to expand and innovate contemporary watermark woodcuts. "With the development of the times, a variety of contemporary art concepts and constantly innovating media technologies are infiltrating the creation of watermark woodblock prints, and gradually entering a new stage of development. Chinese watermark prints can be expected in the future, let us wait and see.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-04-03 06 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily