The picture shows Yao Xiaoqian making lacquer paintings. Photo by Zhao Danmei
Zhongxin Network Shijiazhuang April 29 Title: Chinese young people promote the national style "out of the circle" traditional aesthetics to maintain their own heat
Author Zhao Danmei
Young dancers in green hair and high buns lightly stretch their sleeves to the beat of music, and express the artistic conception of the mountains and mountains in the painting... After the debut of the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" in the "2022 Spring Festival Gala" of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, it has aroused heated discussion at home and abroad, and has also made more people interested in its creative blueprint "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". At the same time that traditional Chinese aesthetics are "out of the circle", more people are beginning to pay attention to the cultural connotation behind "Chinese style".
If the inspiration of the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" comes from ancient Chinese landscape painting, then Chinese lacquer painting is a kind of painting born from lacquer art, both of which show the "aesthetics of oriental life" through the emotional connection between traditional culture and modern society.
The picture shows Yao Xiaoqian showing his lacquer art works. Photo by Zhao Danmei
"The earliest Chinese lacquer art can be traced back to the Neolithic Hemudu culture wooden tire vermilion lacquer bowl." Yao Xiaoqian, deputy director of the Lacquer Painting Art Committee of the Hebei Provincial Artists Association, said that China is a big country that produces and uses lacquer, and the ancient Chinese lacquerware process has appeared as early as the Neolithic Age, and the wooden tire lacquerware of the Xia Dynasty is not only used for daily life, but also for sacrifice, and is often used for Zhu and black colors.
After graduating from university in 2008, 25-year-old Yao Xiaoqian began to focus on lacquer painting with Qiao Shiguang, known as the "father of Chinese lacquer painting". "It coincided with the famous contemporary painter Mr. Wu Guanzhong asking Mr. Qiao to 'translate' his oil paintings into lacquer paintings, and I also participated, which also gave me a preliminary understanding of the transformation of traditional lacquer art into modern painting language."
According to Yao Xiaoqian, lacquer painting takes natural lacquer plucked from the sumac tree as the main material, uses simple colors, uses techniques such as inlaying and grinding to express rich texture and flowing subtle abstract beauty, bringing people a strong visual impact.
Although it is part of lacquer art, Yao Xiaoqian's lacquer paintings are more based on real life as the theme. "I use lacquer painting more as an artistic language to record what I see every day." On the wall of Yao Xiaoqian's studio hangs a portrait of a lady, which he has reproduced based on a photograph of his wife.
Lacquer paintings were not exhibited as independent paintings until the 1980s. "There were not many lacquer paintings in China in the past, but now as an independent painting genre, the most obvious change is that the proportion of lacquer paintings winning gold and silver awards in national exhibitions has increased." Yao Xiaoqian said that in recent years, some colleges and universities have opened lacquer painting majors, and lacquer painting cultural and creative products such as mobile phone cases and jewelry have also been welcomed by consumers, and the public's awareness of lacquer painting has been greatly improved.
The picture shows Yao Xiaoqian making lacquer paintings. Photo by Zhao Danmei
Not only lacquer painting, but now the national style culture is blooming everywhere, and behind this is the success of re-creation based on traditional culture.
"Post-90s" Jiang Youqi is an art teacher and a lover of rock painting, and began to teach herself rock painting a year ago. "The Dunhuang murals are representative of ancient rock painting, and I was inspired by the lotus sheep to start contacting rock paintings, and I felt that I should make chinese original things more novel."
Jiang Youqi's lotus sheep is a well-known "UP master" (referring to the person who uploads video audio files) on a video website, she added the traditional techniques of rock painting to modern language, and made a video of her own creative process and experience uploaded to the Internet, one of which is about drawing a group portrait of a contemporary national style female group, so far, the video website Bilibili alone has been played more than 7.46 million times.
Jiang Youqi said that Lian Yang had drawn the cover of the new book of Nan Pai San, the author of "Notes on the Tomb Robber", and created a rock color style propaganda poster for the characters in the mobile game "Glory of the King". "She is not simply reproducing or piling up the national style, but incorporating Chinese elements that contemporary young people like, which is what I admire." Jiang Youqi said that now, in addition to learning traditional rock painting, she herself has begun to try to add some of her favorite anime elements to her works.
In May 2021, Baidu and the People's Network Research Institute jointly released the "Baidu 2021 National Tide Pride Search Big Data", which showed that the popularity of searches related to "National Tide Culture" increased by 128% in the past decade. In addition, Bilibili statistics also show similar results: nearly 90% of national style enthusiasts are Gen Z. Young people have become the most enthusiastic group for the inheritance and revival of traditional culture.
"Nowadays, many young people have become the 'true love fans' of the national style, and I hope that through the efforts of our generation, traditional culture will enter the hearts of more young people." Jiang Youqi said. (End)