▲ "Memories of Jiangnan" program screen
Recently, the CCTV documentary "China in fine arts" was launched, each episode uses 12 minutes to tell the story of a painting and a painter, explaining the artistic value of paintings with the "perfect encounter" of art and technology, and showing the cultural connotation and humanistic character behind the works. On April 3rd, in the CCTV "Classic Yong Chuan • Great Beauty of China" program, "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" was shocked and reproduced with the help of science and technology, echoing the "Remembrance of Jiangnan" program of the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Tiger, and the audience seemed to be in the painting and touring the magnificent mountains and rivers. On the Douyin platform, Yang Fan, a young art teacher at Capital Normal University, launched the "Yang Fan Speaks Art" in the form of humor and humor, launching a simplified version of the art class, which accumulated more than 1.4 million fans in less than 10 months...
Paintings that were originally silent in art museums around the world and waiting to be viewed, under the new means of communication, jumped out of the limitations of physical space and created a different visual perception. What is the positive significance of the integration of science and technology and art to promote the popularization of aesthetic education? How to avoid the simple pursuit of popularity in the visual innovation of art themes?
▲ Footage of the documentary "China in fine arts"
01
Technology blessing: from static to dynamic
"Fuchun Mountain Residence Map" is one of the top ten famous paintings in China, however, few people know that the painting contains 8 vivid figures. How to use modern technology to make the characters in the painting "come alive"? The Spring Festival Gala program "Memories of Jiangnan" in the Year of the Tiger "awakens" this famous painting that has been circulated for more than 600 years through the whole process of film and television production, under the blessing of "CG special effects + optical dynamic capture" and other technologies, the characters in the painting appear one by one in order, while listening, the audience seems to "jump" ancient and modern, and "meet" the people in the painting under the lens.
The biggest difficulty of the "Remembrance of Jiangnan" program is to restore the "Fuchun Mountain Residence Map". In cooperation with the artists of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the program group split the "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" into nearly 150 Chinese painting elements by 5 Chinese painting artists, and after three-dimensional modeling and restoration, a pure three-dimensional "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" was formed. The hand-painting of each element ensures that the mountains, stones, and water trees of each scene are different. To restore the blank space and artistic sense of Chinese painting in the three-dimensional landscape, it is necessary to think about and grasp the scale between three-dimensional painting and Chinese painting. In the film and television process, the processing of colors and the rendering of three-dimensional art also pursue the restoration of Chinese painting art, rather than the sense of reality and three-dimensional sense pursued in general film and television. In the end, "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" "came alive" in front of the audience's eyes.
▲ Wan Song Smoke Mist (Chinese painting) 132.5 ×66.5 cm Huang Binhong Collection of the National Art Museum of China
In "China in Fine Arts", Qi Baishi's famous painting "Shrimp" is decomposed into small details, and the cruising shrimp are given a sense of dynamics, as if they are freely shuttling through the pond, so that the audience also seems to follow into the "world of water and grass". Huang Binhong's ink painting "Wansong Smoke Mist" also carried out a three-dimensional visual presentation, Huangshan Qixiu and water light, starlight into one, the picture will be the exquisite details of the work magnified at the same time, but also in the picture in the painting at the same time to show the position of this part in the overall painting, so that the audience can better appreciate the painter's intentions. The program also uses 4K high-definition photography, ultra-macro photography, aerial photography, time-lapse photography, and even underwater photography, etc., using a variety of lens languages with a faster editing rhythm, making the natural presentation full of realism.
Wu Weishan, member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the China Artists Association, and director of the National Art Museum of China, commented: "'China in Fine Arts' uses the latest television technology to make static images "come alive", and in the interaction of sound, light and commentary, "live" a unique world of beauty, so that the audience can gradually appreciate the weather and charm of the works with the movement of the picture, so that the fine art works have gained new life in the era of science and technology and digitalization. ”
02
Human temperature: from high cold to kind
In addition to the use of high technology, these programs can brilliantly and effectively popularize seemingly cold art works to the audience, and also because they fully consider "acceptability" from the perspective of the audience. "China in fine arts" is short and concise, each episode is 12 minutes, not only to popularize painting techniques to the audience in a straightforward and simple way, to explain the "good things" of painting, but also not from the big panorama of art history, but from the small perspective of the painter's personal life story, taking the audience to "experience" the creation process of the work and the artist's artistic life. The Spring Festival Gala program "Remembering Jiangnan" invited well-known drama actors and young singers to play the characters in the painting, and the magnificent interpretation of the scene perfectly integrated the Song lyrics, famous paintings and songs, and the "fisherman, woodcutter, walker, reader" created a transcendent landscape and water realm, and also immersed the audience in the artistic conception of landscape painting.
Excellent television programs can spread art classics more widely, and in fact, art museums at all levels, which are important bases for aesthetic education, have been innovating ways and methods to carry out solid popularization work. The 2020-2021 National Art Museum Outstanding Projects announced a few days ago include 10 outstanding public education projects and 10 outstanding public education nomination projects. In these projects, we can see the museum's diversified initiatives in popularizing aesthetic education and its respective highlights. Among them, Jinling Art Museum was selected as an excellent exhibition project "Audience is also an Artist", exhibiting the works of ordinary audiences who love art, calling on every ordinary person to continue to maintain enthusiasm for art and ripple on art. The National Art Museum of China has a variety of exhibition forms such as live tours and online live broadcasts, and expands the influence of the exhibition through cooperation with various news media live broadcast clients. For example, last year, the National Art Museum of China cooperated with the "Big Hand Holding Small Hand" column group of the Sports Youth Center of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, inviting more than 30 enthusiastic young audiences to enter the exhibition hall together, and through on-site and online tours, curator Wu Weishan and host Ju Ping led the children, holding hands and small hands, telling the spirit of the widow cattle, pioneering cattle and old cattle.
Using new technologies to popularize aesthetic education, the audience coverage ability of short video platforms cannot be ignored. Yang Fan, an art teacher and painter at Capital Normal University, opened the Douyin account "Yang Fan Talks About Art", from explaining the past and present life of Japanese ukiyo-e painting to exploring the historical background of famous European court paintings, from teaching the painting techniques of "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" to analyzing the art highlights of the opening ceremony of this year's Beijing Winter Olympics. In Yang Fan's view, the biggest advantage of using short video platforms to disseminate knowledge is flattening and extensiveness, if he still wants to create the mystery of art or brag about an artist, it will completely erase the characteristics of the platform. "Ordinary people may not have to learn more about art history, but we should know what beauty is and how to appreciate it." In order to let more people have access to art and make art a part of life, you must put the starting point lower, try to follow the communication laws of the Internet, and try to eliminate the obstacles to communication. He said.
03
Thought infiltration: from ignorance to self-confidence
The works are the concrete embodiment of the painter's spiritual world, carrying the painter's lifelong ideals and profound emotions. In "China in Fine Arts", it can be seen that the painter Qi Baishi came to Beijing from the countryside of his hometown, and when his home country was in danger, he turned his deep love for the countryside into the angry eyes of King Kong, who rose up from the shooting. He painted "crabs" to satirize the aggressors' domineering behavior; he painted "cold birds" to encourage the people to face adversity and not die in spirit. He said: "It is precisely because I love my hometown, love the charming and rich mountains and rivers of my motherland, and love all the living life on the earth, I have spent my life's energy to paint the feelings of an ordinary Chinese in paintings and writing in poems." ”
Feng Yuan, deputy director of the Central Museum of Culture and History and honorary chairman of the China Artists Association, commented in the program: "Qi Baishi loves life and loves the people of his hometown, is a master of art with superb skills and profound learning, and he strives to make his works liked by more people. So many people like his work, which reflects his people's nature. We can read from his work the soul of a lovely, very simple artist. ”
In this documentary, we can also see how Fu Baoshi was worried and indignant in Chongqing during the war, expressing his chest with "bouldering", and how in the 1960s, he led the creative team to carry out a 23,000-mile grand tour sketch, showing the great rivers and mountains of the motherland with a paintbrush. When he stood in front of the majestic mountains of Mount Hua, his heart was full of pride and longing, and he finally created the pioneering work of a new generation of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Landscape Painting, "To Be Detailed and The Picture of the Jiangshan Mountains". Fu Baoshi said: "The spirit of Chinese painting is the greatest expression of the Chinese national spirit. ”
Huang Binhong wrote in "Folk Studies of Chinese Painting": "Art is the crystallization of spiritual civilization, and the current disease of the world is also the reason for the decline of spiritual civilization. "He insists on finding the power of soothing and rebuilding in the poetic spirit of oriental pen and ink, firmly believes that pen and ink is the expression of national character, and he summarizes and describes the wonderful essence of pen and ink in 4 words: hun, thick, hua, and nourishing." Mofa shows the personality characteristics of Chinese culture and Chinese cosmology. "Wansong Smoke Mist" shows the timeless and enduring form of traditional culture, and after more than half a century, we look at it more and more, and its value is more and more revealed, and such a confidence in oriental culture is more and more recognized by us today. Yu Yang, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, said.
In the 1950s, traditional painting was not valued by students, and Pan Tianshou, as a teacher, was worried. Inspired by Chairman Mao's poems describing magnificent mountains and rivers, he went to Yandang Mountain to sketch. In 1962, Pan Tianshou created "Remembering the Flowers of Yandang Mountain", which is huge in scale, hard in rock and vigorous in wildflowers, passing on the majestic weather of Yandang Mountain to every viewer. He uses traditional landscapes, flowers and birds to show a new realm, and reflects the change of spiritual temperament and self-confidence in national culture in his paintings.
These works, and their creators, vividly illustrate cultural traditions and cultural self-confidence. As Kang Zhen, a professor at Beijing Normal University, commented on "Remembering Jiangnan": "The program embodies the spirit of classical Chinese, with the help of high technology, so that the characters in the painting come out of the painting and return to the painting." General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that writers and artists should be able to show the beauty of Chinese history, the beauty of mountains and rivers, and the beauty of culture, only in this way can our cultural self-confidence be truly implemented in everyone's heart. ”
In the offline art museum aesthetic education activities, Hubei Art Museum plans to carry out public education activities such as "the times have my heart to pass on", "100 artists send a message to 'art after the wave'", "little volunteer guide", "red road accompanies you" immersive experience of red classics, etc., fully excavating the red theme elements in the exhibition, so that the audience can feel the special red cultural charm. Zhejiang Art Museum, together with a number of units in Zhejiang Province, held the "Time Machine Art Plan, I have an agreement with 2035", "The Party is Sunshine, I Am the Flower" Radio Live Broadcast Room and the Provincial Art Teacher Patriotic Aesthetic Education Resource Sharing Platform, "I See I Remember" Public Security Heroic Model Portrait Activity, etc., connecting art with contemporary life, showing the exemplary power of the times, and focusing on cultivating the cultural self-confidence of young people.
A netizen said in a message to the "Yang Fan Talks About Art" account: "Before, I only knew Picasso and Zhang Daqian, while listening to crosstalk and understanding art history, I understood the beauty of Chinese landscape painting better." "Let the United States touch the heartstrings of more people, which is the original intention of the popularization of aesthetic education."
April 24, 2022 China Culture Daily
The first edition featured a special report
"The Transmission and Relay of Beauty"
Editor-in-charge: Chen Xiaoyue