Shan Guodong was in the courtyard of the studio
On the afternoon of August 9, 2016, I conducted an interview with Shan Guodong.
Below, Shan Guodong is referred to as Shan, and Yang Meng is referred to as sheep.
Sheep: Why did you come to the North?
Single: Because the ideal in my mind is to engage in painting creation, the salary of the teacher at that time could not support the material cost of oil painting.
With ideals in mind, he came to Beijing in 1991 to investigate, and unexpectedly found that he could sell paintings here, which was something he did not dare to expect in his hometown. I found out that a foreign company was recruiting painters, so I came to take the test.
Sheep: What was the result?
Single: The income after work is not bad, but in Beijing, it is necessary to rely on high costs to survive, so there was a lot of pressure at that time.
Just painting, it took about five years. Desperately trying to earn money to buy a house, I finally bought a house in 1999. Before, it had been renting a house.
During this period, there was not much creation, and at that time, it was a last resort, and I could only put survival first.
Painter Shan Guodong in the fish pond of the studio
Sheep: Tell us about your creative journey after buying a house?
Shan: When I arrived in Beijing, I found that the artistic standard here is generally very high. After stabilizing, like a hungry northwest wolf, I watched the exhibition everywhere, and I made a lot of friends.
After that, the time is divided into two parts. Part of it is devoted to artistic creation; The other part takes orders and makes ends meet.
Later, he got several opportunities to go abroad, and together with Yang Feiyun, president of the National Oil Painting Institute, and Chen Danqing, he observed and inspected, and his eyes were wide open.
Since then, the breakthrough has been great, and in the meantime, a large number of world-famous paintings have been copied. Looking back at the previous copying, they are all low-end paintings, and I am ashamed.
The butterfly effect appeared, and it befriended a variety of painters, modern and contemporary painters, all kinds of all-encompassing.
SHEEP: Talk deeply?
The lotus pond of Shan Guodong Art Museum
Shan: In my bones, I retain more traditional things, like realistic things, my hometown is in Weiyuan, Longdong, close to Tibetan areas. There, it is the source of the Wei River. I'm familiar with it, and I'm particularly interested in Tibetan subjects.
At that time, modern and contemporary paintings were very popular and the price was very high. This was the first choice I faced on the road to painting.
I have been painting traditional painting for more than 20 years, my realism skills are strong, and my intuition tells me that I can't follow the trend and the soles of my feet should be solid, because your works must always withstand the test of history. What comes into mind can only be used as a revelation. Time proved that my judgment at the time was correct.
Engaging in art is not a matter of years or decades, but a hundred years or even hundreds of years later, I want to find the root of artistic life...
Sheep: Well told! Time is always a touchstone for testing the artistic vitality of paintings.
Single: While creating oil paintings, I have come into contact with many Chinese painters. Because I painted Chinese painting before I went to college, I have a special affection for Chinese painting.
More than ten years ago, around 2000, I started painting Chinese painting. At that time, the first came to relax themselves for adjustment, and the second was mainly to give people away. My foundation in Chinese painting itself is relatively solid, and the foundation of calligraphy is also passable. Here I would like to mention in particular Mo Xiaosong of the Beijing Academy of Painting, he is my hometown, there are only a few gongbi paintings in China, and we have been creating together for more than ten years, and the relationship is familiar. He paints Chinese paintings, and I paint oil paintings and Chinese paintings, so he has more influence on me. With the influence of many factors such as age and experience, in the process of combing, I was deeply aware that I had to reposition my painting path.
Yang Meng and Lin Xi, painter Liang Jianping at the Shan Guodong Art Museum
Sheep: Maximize your potential and find a path that suits you?
Shan: Yes, I found that Chinese painting is more acceptable to the people around it because it is traditional Chinese culture, which is easier to communicate and more understandable to them.
To sum up, I have been painting Chinese painting for seven or eight years, so my interest in Chinese painting is getting stronger and stronger.
In particular, I held a Chinese painting exhibition in Gansu in 2003 and held it very successfully! It gave me a glimpse of my own room for development. I have fully demonstrated the unique qualities of oil painting, which has a refreshing feeling and is well received by the audience!
The sense of color, shape and structure of the painting jumps into the picture like a vivid cunning rabbit.
In fact, my oil painting, the technique in my bones is not new, but it produces unexpected artistic effects when it is expressed. These are purely unintentional. So, I'm glad I'm in for my transformation.
From this, I realized that most oil painters and Chinese painters do not have the experience of transposition, so there is an insurmountable generation gap between them. Thus, oil painters do not understand Chinese painting, and Chinese painters do not understand oil painting. Between each other, it is impossible to cross, like two strange passers-by.
In my understanding, in fact, there are many similarities between art. Although Mr. Xu Beihong said that Chinese and Western painting should be combined, the theory does not work. I wonder if the main crux of the problem is this?
Shan Guodong Chinese painting landscape series
Sheep: Your transformation, giving birth to new cognition, is very rare!
Single: Painting oil painting is very slow and laborious. Painting a nude woman costs one hundred and fifty yuan a day, and a painting takes a whole month to complete. The must remain motionless. As soon as you move, the sense of painting will run away, and you have to find the sense of painting again, often making you reluctant.
On the contrary, it will be easier to draw a model with clothes, and you can have time and space to adjust.
Shan Guodong Art Museum Moon Season Garden
The circle I knew in Beijing was constantly expanding, and the way of selling paintings was gradually opening up.
My experience is that at all times, we must firmly grasp the quality of this pass.
Rodin said: "It is not the lack of beauty in life, but the lack of eyes to find beauty." ”
The premise of my creation is that I must be interested and feel the subject matter I paint. In terms of aesthetic orientation, the truth and beauty are extended to the combination of tradition and life.
Sheep: Tell us about your perception of oil painting?
Single: Chinese oil painting, in a hundred years to re-learn from Europe, this lesson, must be made up. We are going to study the classic works of all the masters since the European Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, as well as Rembrandt, Rubens and so on.
Because Chinese oil painting was originally inherited from the Soviet Union, and they were still at the third-rate level, our initial starting point was not high.
What's more, Chinese oil painting was already in a state of discontinuity during the Cultural Revolution.
Chinese oil painting has no direct teacher, and even those who paint oil painting have not really understood its context. After the Renaissance, the realistic spirit of oil painting, its color, shape, composition, etc., are worth revisiting. Looking back at the history of Soviet art, the paintings are all praise themes, only from the level of propaganda to learn, so they themselves did not learn the real essence, they learned only the skin, not to mention us...
Shan Guodong Chinese Painting "Red Jiangshan" (Partial) 60x360(CM)
Yang: Tell me about your views on Chinese painting?
Single: Chinese painting, but also from the Tang and Song Dynasties to trace, especially from the Song painting to review, revisit the classics, and re-recognize the current Chinese painting: tradition, innovation, artistic conception, aesthetics, techniques and other orientations, how to combine?
Without tradition, Chinese painting cannot be talked about...
In the context of the current world culture, no matter how innovative and breakthrough you make, chinese culture must return to the history of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, where is its tower.
In order to make the painting new, Chinese painting and calligraphy must be traced back to the traditional aspect.
We must find the combination of European classics and Chinese culture, so that there can be new breakthroughs and developments.
SHEEP: Talk about your direction?
Single: In terms of materials, oil paintings are still in the western Tibetan areas, their souls are pure, their lives are closed, and they feel warm.
Chinese painting finds the root pulse from the Buddha and the Tao, and in the face of the impetuous fast pace of the moment, it is more like touching the pure field in the depths of the soul, and touching the pulse that can be felt in the depths of the soul.
Shan Guodong's oil painting "Holy Mountain" Specification: 70X200 (CM)
Focus on Chinese painting, the first is cultural familiarity; The second is high recognition; The third is that there are too many rules and frames for oil painting.
To be honest, my oil painting skills should be very solid, thanks to my university major, but also thanks to my copying accumulation after observing and inspecting Europe, it is not easy to achieve this level. But I couldn't find a breakthrough in oil painting, I didn't have a sense of crossing, I couldn't break the record.
As for Chinese painting, I have a sense of crossing, and when I enter the creative state, I feel that I am crossing with ease and ease. The effect of the picture has both traditional connotations and novelty, and the oil painting is full of nutrients, and I have the pleasure of breaking records.
In the future, I have been positioned on the road of Chinese painting, and I am very interested in Buddha and Tao, they are very mysterious, they make me yearn for infinity.
I want to go into tradition and break through tradition. I have incorporated the qualities of Western painting, but my feelings are still not clearly conveyed.
The self-cultivation of Buddha and Tao can make people calm down and return to their natural state, and there is also a spiritual realm that is beyond ordinary people and nothingness buried in it...
Six
Shi Chengzhi's advice, your painting path, so that I reflect in my mind Xu Beihong, Liu Haisu, Lin Fengmian, Wu Zuoren, Wu Guanzhong and other oil painters engaged in Chinese painting scenes.
Especially Wu Guanzhong, he painted the water town of Jiangnan in a high and simple, beautiful and beautiful style, quite a hui-style architectural style. The style is prominent and the texture is bright.
There is also Zhang Daqian, who copied Dunhuang for three years, and his painting style suddenly changed and his color was open; He traveled to South America and Europe, and his painting style changed greatly, and the color landscape was remote.
Will the unique precipitation of Western paintings, organic integration, enlightenment, absorption, undertaking, and melting be a direction?
Towards the broad and profound vein of Chinese culture, sub-sutra collections, Dao Buddha realm, Buddha Zen Dao Immortal, Miao Fei can speak...
The heart of fist and fist, the love of the naked child, the natural grafting of Western painting and Chinese painting, looking forward to your dacheng ...
The interview was held on the afternoon of August 9, 2016
Finishing with August 9th evening to 10th morning, 2016
It was completed on the afternoon of August 10, 2016
It was finalized on the evening of August 10, 2016
About author:Yang Meng, member of Shaanxi Writers Association, senior poet, novelist, art critic. Living in Xixian New District, he is now a professional writer.
Writer Sheep Dream