Enthusiastic, open-minded, bold, with the simple, happy and upright character of northern Shaanxi people, this is The first impression that Feng Shanyun gave me.
Feng Shanyun is very talkative. His loud voice, clear thinking, rigorous logic, and accurate language make it difficult to connect him with an elderly man in his 70s.
Feng Shanyun
His personality is open and humorous, and he is full of love and pride in the culture and art he loves and the literary and artistic work he is engaged in.
He talked about art, culture, family affairs...
Grassroots literary and art workers who insist on life
In March 1949, Feng Shanyun was born in Fengjiayuan Village, Yanchuan County. From a young age, the harsh living environment has experienced his resolute character, and under the influence of his mother, he gradually fell in love with folk painting art. This version of the yellow earth is the thick soil of his art and gives him the source of creation.
He is grateful for this vast and thick land, and has a deep understanding of the Yellow River, the loess and even the people who live endlessly here, from the bones.
Cloth pile painting "Home"
From beginning to end, Feng Shanyun presented himself as a grassroots literary and art worker in northern Shaanxi.
He went from a rural teacher to a literary and artistic work, during which in addition to his own unremitting study and creation, he also had the wisdom of Bole. Mr. Jin Zhilin, who was still a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, went to Yan'an to join the team, met Feng Shanyun, a folk art lover in northern Shaanxi, and became his lifelong mentor.
Oil painting "Old Party Member"
Decades have passed, and Feng Shanyun still remembers Mr. Jin Zhilin's kindness, although that time is gone, but it has lasted for a long time, he recalled: "Since I met Mr. Jin in 1974, I have been studying with him. He was my lifelong mentor, my lifelong benefactor, and it was my husband who brought me on the road of art. ”
In 1980, Feng Shanyun was transferred to the Yanchuan County Cultural Center to work, became a grassroots literary and art worker, and embarked on the road of professional art. Here, Feng Shanyun has been doing this for decades.
How to do a good job as a grassroots literary and art worker, Feng Shanyun has never stopped thinking about this.
Printmaking "Kang tou Speaks Thousands of Miles Away"
Influenced by Jin Zhilin, Feng Shanyun took root in the land that nurtured him and deeply loved. He said: "Rural art, a little bit, a line of touched me a lot. As an art lover, especially a grassroots cultural and artistic worker, what I always want to express and show is the spirit of this land. With the guidance of the spirit, I have the belief to persevere, coupled with the guidance of Teacher Jin, let me further understand how to be a grassroots cultural worker - that is, to insist on life. ”
Feng Shanyun's artistic creation has never left this land from beginning to end, and he always believes that as a grassroots cultural and artistic worker, without real life experience and perception, there will be no sincere reproduction of the art of living, and only a fiery life can give art nourishment. Coming from life to life is the experience of life that makes it find its own way and method of expression in the perception of life.
Prints of "Water"
"Prints record an era"
In Feng Shanyun's artistic creation, he has experienced the transformation of prints, cloth paintings and oil paintings, and this transformation is not only Feng Shanyun's consideration of the actual situation, but also the sublimation of his artistic perception.
Feng Shanyun was first engaged in printmaking, and he also became famous for his printmaking in the local area. In his youth, the reason why Feng Shanyun focused on the creation of prints was that it was convenient for prints to be made of materials, and he could "take a piece of wood and a carving knife to express his life." "Second, prints are very grounded in his opinion.
Printmaking "Rare Things"
Experience is the most precious asset in life. As an artist with a sense of historical responsibility, Feng Shanyun's prints, from content to form, have always reflected the changes and progress of society - from the people's commune to the reform and opening up.
Printmaking "Jujube Forest Song"
"I recorded an era with prints." Feng Shanyun said.
Cloth pile painting "Footprints"
"The cloth pile painting shows the culture of this land"
As the saying goes, "In its place, seek its own government". After engaging in grass-roots literary and artistic work, Feng Shanyun had a deeper thinking about art. He realized that the real traditional culture is folk art, mass art, but "printmaking can only be created by me alone over there, and as a cloth pile painting of folk art, it has a deep mass foundation." I can organize a lot of folk art in our local area to engage in mass culture and art. That will bring our entire county together. This is the original intention of Feng Shanyun's transition from printmaking to cloth painting.
Cloth pile painting "Mother-in-law Han"
In Feng Shanyun's artistic creation, the largest proportion and the highest achievement are the cloth stack paintings. "What can really reflect my ideological realm and consciousness is my cloth pile painting, which I use to show the culture of this land, show the majestic history of the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi and the thick Yellow River culture."
Cloth Painting "Dialogue of the Mountain"
Cloth pile painting "Wukong"
"Gratitude for this land with oil painting"
"Gratitude is the greatest human nature."
In recent years, Feng Shanyun often went to the countryside to see and walk around.
Once, on the banks of the Yellow River, he met an old woman in her nineties. They chatted for an afternoon, and during the conversation, the old lady expressed her gratitude, satisfaction and happiness to society, to the countryside, and to life now.
Oil painting "Shimoda"
Feng Shanyun said that at this moment, he truly understood the meaning of the poem "Spring River Plumbing Duck Prophet". It turns out that even the old women in the countryside are a book, and in their deep and shallow wrinkles, in addition to the vicissitudes of the years, there is also a sense of life. This conversation deeply touched him and strengthened his determination to record his life in oil painting.
"I want to use oil paintings to thank this society." Feng Shanyun said.
Oil painting "Folks"
In Feng Shanyun's view, farmers are the real wise. They are pure, simple, industrious, and even if they bend their backs to the sky facing the loess, they still love the land.
However, with the development of society, this image of the real farmer in the farming era is slowly disappearing. Feng Shanyun worries that perhaps in a few years' time, it will be difficult to find such a pure farmer.
I'm going to record them with the pen in my hand. Keep the back of the peasant era on the yellow soil. Urgently, with a strong sense of mission, Feng Shanyun picked up the paintbrush in his hand and painted the most authentic image of the old farmers in northern Shaanxi. It was not just a portrait of him personally, but a portrait of the times.
"This may not be a work of art, but I use the most real feelings, the most real paintings to record life." In the future, if someone studies the peasants of this land, as can be seen from my paintings, then it will be very real material. ”
Culture is the carrier of convictions
While engaging in creation, Feng Shanyun also attaches great importance to the establishment of family style and family rules. In his view, family culture is the foundation of national culture, and cultural self-confidence and cultural innovation are extended from the family. Family culture constitutes a rich and varied social culture.
Oil painting "Lunch"
For Feng Shanyun, culture is not a certain category, but teaches people how to behave and how to survive, and culture is only a carrier.
Feng Shanyun's family takes folk art culture as the carrier, through the carrier, shows the thoughts and consciousness of everyone in the family, gathers into a belief, and finally forms a family culture of hard work, inspiration and benevolence.
"Small family" extended to "everyone", Feng Shanyun realized from many years of grass-roots literary and artistic work that culture and art is not a matter for one person, and everyone collects firewood and flames, only by improving everyone's cultural awareness and blending family culture with each other can it become the vertical extension and horizontal expansion of culture.
Cloth pile painting "Dream"
As an art with unique local characteristics in northern Shaanxi, almost everyone can do it. Feng Shanyun then used the folk art carrier of cloth pile painting to gather local people who love cloth pile painting and make cloth pile painting together, and work with them to promote local culture, and then transform this culture into a spiritual consensus - to find the direction and hope of life in artistic creation.
Oil painting "Back of the Ear"
"Years of cultural work have made me understand that culture is not to show and publicize to a certain extent, but to cultivate oneself and the family." Any culture and art has its own unique carrier. We want to make real culture, real art, come closer to our lives. Through continuation and inheritance, more good traditional habits and family moral norms become the norms of life, and are harmoniously and uniformly integrated into the philosophy of living in the world. This is the insight that Feng Shanyun has obtained from many years of engaging in artistic creation, and it is also his artistic pursuit and expectation.
Oil painting "Bull Market"
Feng Shanyun passed away on March 26, 2022, and only remembers him with this article.