In the history of art, Gong Xian's paintings are said to be "thick", mainly referring to the blackness of their ink color. His black is not black pressure, but thicker than bold, thicker than pure, thicker than beautiful. In the thick, it always gives people a sense of emptiness and dreaminess, Gong Xian said that "the principle of painting is all in the void", he knows the magic of ethereality, but it is not to give up the real pursuit of ethereality, but to pay more attention to how to find the meaning of formal expression between virtual and real. This is also based on his understanding of the essence of tradition. Gong Xian was deeply influenced by Li Cheng, Mi Fu, and the "Yuan Sijia", and had a careful understanding of "Ni Huang" all the way, and also paid attention to the Ni Yunlin style that the "Xin'an School" regarded as the highest model, but Gong Xian did not regard the style as the precursor of creation, but sought to grasp the essence of Yunlin art. The xiao sparseness and elegance of the yunlin became gaogu senxiu in his place; the quietness of the yunlin became ethereal in the thick black in his pen. Gong Xian, like other innovative painters of his generation, is comprehending Yunlin in his own way.
This article attempts to explore the connotation of the most characteristic "black" in Gong Xian's formal language, suggesting three reference angles: bold, beautiful, and ethereal. It is hoped that the discussion of the innovative topics commonly involved in the art of the remnants of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties can be put into practice.
bold and unconstrained
Gong Xian's "Landscape and Water Album" composed a year before his death said: "It is difficult to paint, and it is especially difficult to know painting." There are many painters in the world, and there are a few painters! "It's both a sigh and a challenge. In his later paintings, he often mentioned "the painting of Lin so-and-so", which was actually the phrase "I use my method", and once confidently said that "there is no ancient person before, and there is no one who comes after". For such a painter who was regarded as a relentless pursuit of personal style at that time, he had a strong sense of self in his heart, and he needed such bold words. And this boldness is also reflected in his paintings, which is a dreamy and magnificent momentum. Although from the perspective of his life, his pen and ink processing is gradually maturing, and the writing of scenes is circling between complexity and simplicity, but the arrogance runs through the whole process. This boldness is sometimes embodied in a dreamlike churning, and sometimes it is an inner ethereal and ethereal, but it is an expression of the realm. With the sublimation of the emotions of the remnants in his later years and the search for the meaning of life, his paintings are more full of philosophical implications. This experience, because it places on the eternal inquiry of life, contains a transcendent meaning in tranquility. Extravagance is undoubtedly the most in line with this transcendent feeling.
Qing Gongxian's "Landscape Album"
The Landscape Tongjing Screen (三条) is in the Palace Museum and is probably a work by Gong Xian in the 1760s. The whole width is filled with a majestic atmosphere of peaks flowing for thousands of miles and standing in the clouds, the solidity of trees, mountains and stones and the sense of towering volume of peaks, with the magnificent momentum of the obvious panorama of the Northern Song Dynasty. As he said to himself, when he painted landscapes, there was no landscape of Fan Kuan, Li Cheng, and Guo Xi in his heart, nor did he have a realistic landscape, but he painted a feeling. In the stirring of the psychic apparition, everything flows. Alpine waterfalls have their momentum, cold forest mountain stones have their solidity, white clouds have their haunting, and huts have their tranquility. Moreover, in the background of the peaks, these different moods are not suppressed, but flutter, enveloping the entire space.
At the end of the 1760s, there were some changes in Gong Xian's painting style, in addition to the imposing and majestic road, there was also a relatively simple road, and Gong Xian's "Landscape Album" collected by the Kunlun Hall in Japan belonged to this road painting style. This set of albums has eleven pages, written from the midwinter of Ding Wei (1667) to the early summer of Pengshen (1668). The method is flexible and changeable, and the boldness of the emblem is reflected in it. Although the length has become smaller, it has the same bold momentum in the vertical and horizontal swing. What he developed was not the dry and cold appearance of Ni Zhan's style, but his inner Charm of Xiao Shan and Ease. At this time, he tried to outline the bold, flexible and casual lines of Huizhou painters, and then gently applied light ink to dye, simple and natural, but without losing the law, with a light and ethereal effect. These works are simple and simple, and although they are not known for their majestic momentum, they highlight the inner beauty and luster. The gloomy and muddy weather, the simple and pure charm, the great momentum, the small and the small subtle, these two winds are consistent in the experience of life. The text of the album tells Gong Xian's understanding of the Nanzong Zhengyi represented by "Ni Huang": "Although painters have the difference between Ni, Huang, Dong, and Ju, they must all have their own teachers, and their close work is different, and the valuable points that can be passed on have not been incompatible. If it can be compatible with the ancients, it is not necessary to refer to what is 'Dong and Ju' and what is 'Ni and Huang'. Today's people are beautiful in their names and traces, and so are the philistines. But people know that the text is not like Shen, Shen is not like the text, or is the reason why the knowledge of the text is that he has peeked into the mystery of Shen Zhitang? The reason why Shen is Shen has already received the essence of the Tang and Song dynasties. ”
The Nanzong Zhengyi represented by "Dong, Huang, Ni, Shen, and Wen" is a school that transcends the Fadu, and its preciousness lies in the expression of the meteorological realm beyond the pen and ink. Settling on the form and transcending the form, the beauty of painting lies not in the form factor itself, but in the expression of the life form. In the fundamental theory of realizing the realm of life, there is no past, no present, no pen, no ink, and no ni and no yellow. Therefore, "in harmony with the ancients" is the unity of the realm, which is beyond all formal laws. This is the essence of traditional painting theory and art.
Qing Gong Xian's "Color Map of mountains across the stream" collected by the Palace Museum
In Gong Xian's heart, Ni Zhan's paintings are regarded as representatives of this essence. In his subsequent artistic career, it can be said that he was seeking a collection of visual expressions, such as the hazy "Mijia Landscape", the solidity of Li Chenghanlin, the roughness of Shen Zhou's brushwork, etc., to find a connection with the meaning of Ni Zhan's landscape. But Gong Xian is Gong Xian, just like Shen Zhou, whom he admires, these efforts are all aimed at being able to experience Ni Zhan in a unique way of self, establishing and developing this traditional literati painting trait while also achieving his independent appearance. For example, Shi Tao inscribed on Gong Xian's painting: "Ni and Huang Shengmian are Junkai." Gong Xian's "I use my method" in his later years, that is, to express his feelings for life with a thick ink method, and to break all the pen and ink into a law, in order to get the rhyme of pen and ink. So, in his world, if I use my Fa, my Fa cannot be, I cannot be the Fa. In this regard, he is very similar to Shi Tao. As a result, this distinctive artistic path will also push the understanding of the essence of the literati represented by Ni Zhan to a new realm.
In 1686, Gong Xian went to SheXian to cooperate with Mei Qing in meizhuang tu, which was perhaps the only direct meeting between Gong Xian and Mei Qing. Gong Xian was deeply influenced by Mei Qing's freehand painting style, and it was Xuancheng who let Gong Xian experience and develop Ni Zhan with the road of boldness, but in his later years Gong Xian obviously surpassed his predecessors and took a big step forward in the interpretation of ni Zhen's art. He gave Ni Zhan a new interpretation of his cold silence, and he wanted to show not only the arrogance of ink, but also the boldness of life feelings. For example, the inscription of "Meizhuang Tu" is "Qunfeng Qi Pouring Wine Glass" (Gong Xian's own title), "The bottom of the pen in the chest is strange and indulgent, and the swing is like a decisive river running" (Huang Yuanzhi title).
The essence of Ni Zhan's art is precisely the principle of life in the connotation of Chinese art. Whether it is Ni Zhan's coldness, or Shi Tao's thickness, or Gong Xian's blackness, there is a momentum of a thousand miles, giving people a strong spiritual shock. This is not an external sense of force, but a presentation of the inner strength of life. From this point of view, the potential of Chinese art is the rhythm of life that sinks back and forth. Bold or gentle, each style comes from the rhythm of the mind itself. The dissipation of Chinese art is not the ethereal nature of the external form, but the thickness of the road can also be reached. In the expression of the eternal realm of life, the ethereal spirit of half a thousand art is precisely the magic between the virtual and the real. It is not to find another way to seek ethereal spirit from thick black, but to transcend the virtual reality, to transcend the thickness, and to express the inner beauty of life.
Fair
In the history of Ming and Qing painting, Gong Xian's landscapes were often criticized for their deep brush and ink and lack of charm. This question involves his unique understanding of the problem of pen and ink.
From the aesthetic concept, Gong Xian advocates the mutual transformation and integration of formal factors. In the "Lesson Painting Draft", he explains in detail the dualistic aesthetic relationships of "Xiong-Xiu", "Dry-Run", "Rigid-Soft", "Odd-An", etc., so that his "thick and charming" ideas and the artistic concept of "black" are integrated in a mutual dialectical relationship. He placed special emphasis on the "run" of pen and ink. Between dry and wet, dry and wet, he advocated the fusion of dry and moist. Between the empty scene and the real scene, the transformation of reality and emptiness is also advocated. In the contrast between black and white, the pursuit of beyond black and white "run" taste. He had this idea: "He who writes, enjoys wealth." Pen withers, poor food. Dry and moist, noble. "Connecting the dryness of pen and ink with people, and thinking that the dryness and moisture are integrated, it can best reflect the spiritual temperament of Qingtong." Empty scenery is easy, real scene is difficult. The empty scene should be cold, and the real scene should be loose. Cold is not thin, cold and thin is said to be oligo. There are thousands of hills and valleys and those who are still cold are still quiet. There is a stone and a wood, and the troublemaker pen is also rough and evil. Pen and ink are simple and self-cooling. "The difficulty of painting real scenes lies in the word "pine". It is not simply a simple exchange of complexity and simplicity, thickness and lightness, but in the consideration of the pen-ink relationship of "wanting to connect and not connecting", we seek a wonderful rhyme that transcends these formal relationships. This is his unique creation in terms of aesthetic form, but it is actually the realm of pen and ink. For example, Zhou Lianggong on his paintings: "Cheng Qingxi on painting is allowed by the few people in his neighborhood, and the unique topic is half a thousand painting clouds: paintings have complexity and subtraction, but on pen and ink, not on the realm." The people of the Northern Song Dynasty have thousands of hills and valleys, and none of them have been reduced. Yuanren dead trees and thin stones, none of which are not complicated. Whoever understands this solution, its half a thousand? ”
Qing Gong Xian's "Mountain Hermitage Map" RongBao Zhaizang
Gong Xian's discussion of painting emphasizes the transitional relationship in form, not looking for beauty in the dry mallet, or finding softness in the rigidity, as people at the time criticized him: "Gong Banqian painted trees to take yan straight, and painted mountains to see the skin." On the contrary, the essence of the semi-thousand treatise painting is the relative relationship that transcends form. As he said: "Use Ni to reduce the pine of yellow, to bring yellow in Ni, ni in yellow, the pen to start old, the ink to start thick and run." He uses pen and ink to say "Xiurun", not to say pen and ink, but how to implement the Xiurunze of the life realm to the question of pen and ink. Therefore, his beauty is not a fusion of Ni's Xiao Sparse simplicity and Huang's recklessness, but goes beyond pen and ink to express his attachment to the eternal life realm, and at the same time implements the life weather to the pen and ink performance of "qi is thick and thick, and the color is suitable for cangxiu". The blackness of his ink method actually transcends black and white, transcends pen and ink, and transforms art form into a form with a rhyme of life, so that the pursuit and expression of his life realm is implemented in pen and ink.
Qing Gongxian's "Landscape Album"
This aesthetic concept directly affects Gong Xian's choice of pen and ink. The "method of accumulating ink" runs throughout his life, especially in his later years to the point of pure fire. The Palace Museum's "Landscape Album" composed by Gong Xian in 1675 is a set of twenty-open albums, although the canvas is small, but it is a fine work of ink accumulation. On the first page of "Linxi Village", Gong Xian's self-titled "Linda Rice" is a comprehension of the charm of "Mi's Landscape", the so-called "more smoke clouds cover the trees, do not take the details, it seems to be enough". Half a thousand are concerned about the meaning of the landscape highlighted by the "Mijia Landscape", and the so-called "meaning" is not a god that transcends the shape, but transcends the form of the god, beyond the pen and ink. With the intention of life and the intention of the landscape, it is in line with the original life state of the landscape. At this foothold, half a thousand is the same as "two meters", the difference is only the specific performance path. "Mi's Cloud Mountain" adopts the method of "breaking ink", and the mountain trees and clouds are mostly drawn in thick ink, and they are made over and over again, which is more light and casual. And Gong Xian's so-called seven times of accumulation of "accumulated ink" makes the clouds more cloudy due to the smudging. The density of the trees and the change of the yin and yang levels, as well as the casualness of the pen, are in harmony with the wetness of the whole picture.
Qing Gongxian's "Landscape Album"
In his later years, Gong Xian paid more attention to the grasp of the inner charm of the landscape in his interpretation of tradition, and "thick" and "xiurun" were the most refined summaries of this. Then, when it comes to pen and ink, Gong Xian once put forward the view that "the pen begins to be old and the beginning is beautiful, and the ink begins to be thick and moist", that is, his method of accumulating ink. "Showy and old, thick and moist", words and ink, but not all in pen and ink. In Gong Xian's view, the magic rhyme of painting is between Xiu Lao and between thick and moist. It is not a preference to find a light meaning from the thick, but beyond the thick, the thick is the light, and the thick can also show the light rhyme. In the realm of life, there is no old age and no show, no thickness and no moistness, no interest and no death, abandoning all pen and ink methods, only to get the rhyme of pen and ink, that is, the rhyme of landscape and water. In terms of pen and ink form, the accumulation of ink of half a thousand is the pen and ink of knowledge, which is exactly what half a thousand want to avoid.
Qing Gongxian's "Landscape Album"
The paintings of the half-thousand-year-old age show this way of brush and ink. His pen is concise and smooth, the pen power is casual and not light, the vigor is not lost, and on the ink color, the dyeing of many times does not drown the layers, but has a sense of freshness. This is the method of half a thousand pen and ink. In the history of painting, we have been told that Half a Thousand found a way out from the Song people's ink accumulation method to change the problem of ink weight and loss of level that the Yuan, Ming, and Qing painters could not solve by "breaking ink". The linear thinking of time history on which this technique is based is exactly what half a thousand want to abandon and break through, which is the basis of the law of half a thousand. What he wants to solve is not how to make the pen and ink thick and beautiful appearance problem, but to understand life through pen and ink, and to transform the realm of life into the realm of pen and ink, which is a process of spiritual transcendence, which transcends ancient and modern times, and also transcends pen and ink, and the form of pen and ink is the form of life. At this point, the bright sense of his pen and ink is the luster of life. This is the connotation of the way of pen and ink that he has realized. This is the profound connotation of Gong Xian's "blackness" and its "beautiful and moist". This beauty is in the ink color, but also in the essence of life, that is, the luster and vitality of the lonely life that is inherently eternal.
ethereal
Gong Xian said that "the principle of painting is all in the virtual place and the light place", considering the between the bold and the beautiful, and seeking the rhyme of thick expression. He used his own "thickness" to experience the highest model of literati painting established by Dong Qichang - the Xiao Shan Qingyi of Yunlin. Therefore, his blackness is heavy on rhyme, an ethereal rhyme, which is the whole connotation of Gong Xian's blackness. Gong Xian's blackness, although he took a hundred families, but also broke through all the laws, in the tension between norms and freedom, seeking to free space, thus creating his own expression methods and artistic characteristics. This innovation of Gong Xian is related to the ideological background of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and also related to his philosophical thinking. The diversity of this kind of thinking makes it not too easy to grasp the connotation of the blackness of Gong Xian's art. This article combines the "shou black" concept in Gong Xian's painting thought, talks about the profound influence of LaoZi philosophy on it, and hopes to provide a possible way to understand the ethereal rhyme of Gong Xian's art. First: Gong Xian said "thick". He once quoted Lao Tzu as saying about painting, "Lao Tzu said: Thirty spokes have a hub, when they have no use for cars." I am also in the painting, and the divine principle of painting is all in the void. ”
Qing Gongxian's "Landscape Album"
Thirty spokes were gathered in one hub, and it was precisely because there was an empty place that it was useful for cars. Painting is also the same truth, the magic of painting lies in the virtual and the faint. This passage mainly emphasizes the unity of existence and non-existence, that existence is born of nothingness, that nothing is the essence, and that there is use. Also in painting, it is necessary to unify the virtual and the real, the light and the thick, the real is born of the virtual, the thick is born of the light, the virtual and the light are the original, and the real and the thick are used. Lao Tzu told people to pay attention to the empty world, people are accustomed to knowing the usefulness of some, in fact, some uses are produced on the basis of nothingness, and in the relationship between existence and non-existence, nothingness is the most fundamental. What Gong Xian wants to express through Lao Tzu's words is that the qi rhyme in the "Seven Times of Ink Law", the light and the virtual are the fundamental, and the thick and the real are generated in this. There is no difference between thickness and emptiness, and the emptiness is the basis of qi rhyme, and the thickness is born in the emptiness. This is the only way for Lao Tzu to "know white and keep black".
Qing Gongxian's "Landscape Album"
Gong Xian's painting is extremely heavy, which is an important conceptual category of Chinese art. He said, "The air should be muddy." In his view, "thick" is the most important way to express "vivid rhyme". What is thick? In his letter to Hu Yuanrun, he said: "After ten years of painting, there is no trace of stagnation. Twenty years later, there is no name for it. Those who have no signs of stagnation are also known. Whoever has no name for himself is said to be the opposite. However, painters also have those who are vague and called muddy, not muddy. But the pen and ink are wonderful, and there is no distinction between pen and ink, which is really muddy. "His depravity is not a blur, not a black pressure, but a transcendence of the name of the hun, beyond the distinction between the hun and the portrayal, and also beyond the form of pen and ink, and on the realm of pen and ink. Therefore, his humility is not the overall sense of the picture, not the mixture of brushwork and ink, but the rhyme, which is the root of the landscape realm. Under this gist, he associated Hun with "circle", advocated pen circles, and implemented the landscape realm into pen and ink. He said: "The beauty of painting is that the pen is round and thick. He also said: "The pen is round in the center, and the pen is round and thick." His "circle" is not the flow of lines, but the circle "potential", the inner rhythm of the picture, and the center is the best form of expression. He wants to use this form of rhythm to express the rhythm of life's submerged repetition. As he said, "The so-called circle is not a circle of squares, but a circle of thick paintings." "His thickness, weighed between the squares, is wonderful. This realm is a harmonious world without distinction and fragmentation, and the charm he pursues is thick, beyond the theory of pen and ink form, but also implements the presentation of the life realm in pen and ink. Therefore, the connotation of Gong Xian's blackness is not in pen and ink skills, but in the wisdom of life. In this regard, he deeply understands the connotation of Yunlin art. His landscape is thick and quiet, and the desolate and cold atmosphere rhymes like Ni Zhan's paintings, but in terms of expression, his pen is very different from the thirsty pen of Yunlin...
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