Yu Wenjiang was born in 1963 in Yantai, Shandong. He is currently the vice president of the National Academy of Painting of China, the deputy director of the Art Committee, the first-class artist, the honorary president of the Ningxia Academy of Painting, an outstanding expert of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, a member of the National Major Theme Art Creation Art Committee of the China Artists Association, a researcher of the Calligraphy and Painting Institute of the Central Research Museum of Culture and History, a researcher of the Chinese Academy of Painting of the China Academy of Arts, a standing director of the Chinese Painting Society, a doctoral tutor of the School of Humanities and Arts of Macau University of Science and Technology, a visiting professor and master tutor of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.
Yu Wenjiang Ganquan 240cm× 200cm 2022
China is a multi-ethnic country, where various ethnic groups are distributed in different provinces and regions and have formed their own unique appearance and temperament. As a figure painter, when sketching in different places, you must pay attention to observe this subtle difference. Character painting and landscapes, flowers and birds are different, especially the gongbi characters, the image and details of the characters are very specific and rich, must be made to show every real, can touch the heart of the details. What is important for a successful figure work is the natural expression of real feelings, whether the painter's emotions are integrated into it, and whether the real feelings are painted. Beauty is diverse and widespread, and the real and beautiful figure requires the painter to really experience and understand the living environment of the depicted object. There must be a basis for creating, and this basis does not come from empty theories, nor from hearsay and ununderstood image images, but from the artist's own communication, understanding and resonance with the objects depicted. The aesthetics possessed by a figure painter must be elegant and not conventional. The most real and natural figures should be beautiful for the painter. For example, the fisherwomen in Hui'an, Fujian Province, have a rough face and hands throughout the year, have a healthy and natural vitality, and at the same time, their unique traditional costumes give them a simple and innocent beauty, which is created by different geographical environments and cultural customs, a regional and typical beauty. Maybe they are far less elegant and moving than the girls with delicate bodies and delicate faces, but this is a real beauty, a beauty of detail, a higher level of beauty.
Yu Wenjiang Spring Breeze Blows Through Kan Eryang Chinese Painting 195cm× 143cm 2021
Be sure to create through observation and thinking, the more you face the image you are familiar with, the more you don't get numb. When creating, under the premise of maintaining your own style, you should observe with your heart, and then think and express. To find out the individual differences through observation, we must first feel something in front of the characters, and then depict them. When expressing clothes, every line must have an ins and outs. The brush is different from the freehand, the lines of the brush are extremely rigorous and subtle, and it is difficult to express it through the freehand brush and ink, but the lines of the pen are still full of pen and ink charm. This requires finding pen and ink from the shape of the line, and the line should have a length, square circle, weight, priority, and change. How to form the folds of the clothes, how to turn, must be in the perceptual observation to rational thinking and induction, must be expressed on the basis of reality, do not be confused by some appearances, to use lines to express the deeper human structure under the clothes, all lines must be traced to the root, traced back to the source.
Yuwenjiang Nyik Damu of the Pamir Plateau 50cm × 50cm 2019
Yu Wenjiang Tajik Women Gulibalk 50cm×50cm 2019
The lines in the brush strokes should have pen and ink, and under the premise of perfecting the shape, we must have a deeper exploration and understanding of the traditional Chinese freehand and calligraphy techniques. Traditional Chinese expression techniques, such as rubbing, rubbing, dotting, dyeing, middle, side, reverse front, etc., must be reflected in the line drawing of gong pen strokes. Although the line drawing of the gong pen is rigorous, it is necessary to avoid depiction, and the line drawn is lifeless. It must contain pen and ink, just like calligraphy, the pen is simple and vigorous, and the gold and stone can be skeletonized. But before pen and ink, the shape is the most basic, and with a good modeling foundation, you can mention others. On the basis of a large number of sketches, read more good paintings, study good paintings, and integrate them into their own works through their own understanding and perception on the basis of reading and watching. As long as there is no problem in modeling, other aspects of pen and ink, image, and composition are problems of experience, as long as there is a cumulative amount, it will slowly improve in continuous thinking and practice. But if there is no solid foundation in modeling, the anatomy and structure of the characters are half-understood, no matter how much effort is put into the pen and ink and the picture, the painting will eventually look uncomfortable. More painting, slow writing, sketching and even silent writing, character anatomy books should be read more, more research, for Western oil painting and sculpture should also be widely involved, only on the basis of a large number of accumulation of wisdom, in order to achieve progress, breakthroughs.
Yu Wenjiang Kazakh Migration - Spring Ranch 190cm×367cm Selected works for the Belt and Road International Fine Arts Project 2020
Sometimes, in order to improve the composition of the picture, you can borrow other painting languages to express. Some subtle effects are not perfect with pen and ink, so it is feasible to use other ways to make texture and mottled feelings, which is the need of the picture and the service of the picture. In order to achieve the desired picture effect, a painter sometimes wants to "do whatever it takes", but don't simply use this method as a way to please. If the picture is for the sake of the picture, the texture for the sake of the texture, the technique itself loses its meaning. The quality of a painting is not evaluated in terms of local complexity, and the blind pursuit of superfluous things is a painter, not a painter. Painting is rational, pick up the pen to have a purpose, the structure of the work to go through perceptual observation and perception, but the picture management must go through rational thinking, there is no flattering way, even if there is, it is a work with a very short vitality, which cannot touch people's hearts. In the process of observation and thinking, do not follow the trend, do not blindly imitate and follow a certain painter and teacher, but clarify your own aesthetic propositions, in your own style, techniques, and according to your own mental process. As a painter, when you have both skills and abilities, you paint life experience and personal cultivation.
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