Liu Sifen: Freedom Poetry and painting have no boundaries

Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Sun Lei

Photo / Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhu Shaojie Literature and Art

(Excluded from drawings)

Liu Sifen was born in 1944 in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province. Writer, calligrapher, and generalist. He has made achievements in the fields of novel writing, academic research, and fine art calligraphy.

He once served as the deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, the chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature, and the president of the Guangdong Academy of Painting. In 2015, he was awarded the second Guangdong Literature and Art Lifetime Achievement Award.

Walk into the studio

◎ Outline dot dye everything from the heart

"I don't have a dedicated studio, this is my home." Liu Sifen turned the second floor of his home into a studio, which integrates a studio, a study, and a parlor, pushing the door in, and the cultural atmosphere comes to the face.

A series of bookcases, filled with long cases of paper, ink and pencil, several mahogany chairs, a set of tea sets, and a "work wall" that opens seven meters... Liu Sifen said that he moved in against this wall, "long enough and wide, can engage in relatively large creations."

The 1.36-meter-high and 14-meter-long "Dust Map" was completed in sections on this wall. The work is produced in the form of a traditional long scroll, which not only has the charm of traditional landscape painting, but also has a strong characteristics of the times, and is one of the representative works of Liu Sifen's painting subject after the transformation of the subject from the character to the landscape.

Now on the wall are Liu Sifen's new works: the Chinese painting "Peach Blossoms on the New Year", "A Nap", and a six-foot couplet "Ten Thousand Waters Floating in the Sky, a Thousand Sails Falling in the Middle".

He used four words to describe his state in the studio: freedom. In his opinion, these four words are also the best state of artistic creation. The first floor is the living room, the interest comes, Liu Sifen went to the second floor to draw a few strokes, outline the dot dye, interesting.

Mr. Liu Sifen, who is nearly eighty years old, laughed and said that at this age, there is no need to set goals or tasks for yourself, everything is from the heart. Whether it is painting, calligraphy or writing, for him, he has long been integrated with life. "For an artist, life, creation, and thinking are one, a way of life."

During the interval between interviews, he also made tea for the reporters. There is a large coffee table in the middle of the studio, immersed in traditional culture for many years, he will often invite young people to sit down, taste tea and chat, learn about young people's new ideas, new ideas, and what they are writing and drawing.

Liu Sifen picked up his mobile phone and told reporters that he now gradually reads fewer newspapers and magazines, more through the mobile phone to read the news, to understand the social dynamics, "I do not reject new ideas, new technologies, the right to speak of the times is often in the hands of new people, we do not always linger on the past things." ”

◎ Shangcheng literati "multi-habitat" tradition

"I'm a man of letters." Liu Sifen calls himself "BatTang", intends to bat between birds and beasts, claiming that he is neither a pure painter nor a pure writer, but a multi-faceted and cross-border cultural person, wandering in different realms of poetry, calligraphy and painting.

Liu Sifen's achievements are inseparable from the nourishment and edification of family learning. His father, Liu Yisheng, is a famous modern classical literature expert, the origin of family learning, Liu Sifen has been fascinated by literature and art since childhood, especially love classical poetry and painting. In high school, he lived with his father, had a desk for each person, and read relatively. Mr. Liu Yisheng once had a poem describing this scene: "Crazy poetry is eager to sky, and there are sons such as Si Wanran." Occasionally rubbing my eyes to the sides, I was clearly in front of the lamp. ”

Liu Sifen said that his father's influence on him was not a direct teaching, but a kind of learning atmosphere, a silent example of leading by example. From poetry, writing, painting, calligraphy to academic research, he explored on his own.

As far as painting is concerned, he only learns by observing and browsing, never learning from a single person, and paying more attention to the brush of personal sensibility. Liu Sifen's works have distinct personalities and full of literary atmosphere, and Mr. Wang Zhaomin has a comment on him that he has "elegant pen and ink, elegant style". As a generalist literati, he not only inherits the multi-habitat tradition of ancient literati, but also has a conscious modern consciousness, so that his works not only inherit the fine tradition of ancient literati painting, but also exude a strong modern atmosphere. He is known as an outstanding representative of contemporary literati painting.

"The future will surely open an era of 'generalists', and many of the current 'professionals' will return to the state of 'amateurism'." Liu Sifen said that the essence of poetry, calligraphy and painting is closely integrated, and they will penetrate and inspire each other, only in this way can art lead to a broader world.

◎ Poetry into "White Door Willow"

Published in 1984-1998, the long historical novel "Baimen Liu" is about to launch the most recent edition, and in addition to the 22 illustrations by Liu Sifen himself, the new edition also adds two important sequels to the novella "Breaking the Cocoon" and "The Tomb Door Is Deeper and More Obstructive Houmen".

"White Gate Willow" is a long historical novel written by Liu Sifen with 16 years of painstaking efforts, which is divided into three parts: "Sunset Herbs", "Autumn Dew Dangerous City" and "Chicken Wind and Rain". To date, 11 versions have been published.

Liu Sifen took out the earliest hardcover version of the trilogy from the study and said: "At that time, there was no computer, it was all handwritten, hundreds of words a day, and it was very happy to be able to write thousands of words one day." He is very particular about the language of the novel, and writes "White Door Willow" with the same attitude as writing poetry, and there are frequent poems, letters, and storytelling books written for the ancients in the book, which are condensed and elegant, enough to mess with the truth. It can be said that "everywhere there is a cultural poetic soul, flowing with a strong poetic color".

"If the writer's writing language is not up to par, and the basic expression cannot be accurate and vivid, how can he write a good work?" Liu Sifen said that he also had a wish, that is, to make the vernacular elegant. "In order for the vernacular to reach the same aesthetic height as the ancient text, it is necessary to increase the study of traditional culture, especially the study of ancient poetry."

Looking at "Baimen Liu" today, Liu Sifen insists on using historical materialism to examine history, not only breaking through the traditional concept of rise and fall, the concept of a villain and a gentleman, and the concept of talent and beauty, but also focusing on the process of the birth of china's early democratic thought, and interpreting the history of ideas in the form of a novel.

"White Gate Willow" won the 4th Mao Dun Literature Award, and is the only literary work in Guangdong Province to receive this honor so far. When asked when Guangdong will be able to produce another "Mao Award" work, Liu Sifen said that he is still full of confidence in Guangdong literature, "Guangdong has a wealth of creative materials, a good environment and atmosphere, all we need is patience, good works will always appear." ”