Weng Iohong's (1908-1994) has been with operas all his life, especially the screenwriter is famous Jutan, and the long-performing classic plays such as "Suolin Bag", "Zhou Ren's Sister-in-law", "Jiang Xianghe" and "Red Lantern Record" are written by Mr. Weng. The so-called "Six Opera", that is, listening to plays, learning operas, arranging plays, rehearsing plays, discussing plays, and painting plays, these six tasks summarize Mr. Weng's main achievements in cultivating pear orchards. In the six opera fasts hangs the master's handwritten "Zizhiming": "It is also the seed of reading, and it is also a jianghu linglun." He has also painted his face with ink, and has also written vermilion. Sweet flower lice in the chrysanthemum garden, not tired of silverfish in the book forest. The book is broken in ten thousand volumes, and only one is young; The road travels thousands of miles, and there are no thin stratus clouds. Ning bowed to the flowers and birds, and did not bend his waist to the gentry. Walking Hanqing without the shadow of the bead curtain, Yiweng without the heart of the jade hall. Seeing that it is not broken, make several idle busyness; If it has not returned, it is a generation of ancients. This wonderful confession shows Mr. Weng's ambition to take "play" as his life's ambition.
■Weng Iohong's late age photo Profile picture
One
Mr. Weng is obsessed with the art of flower face performance, he studied drama to focus on this industry, "hook face" is the "main play" of flower face "play", "ink painting" is not an easy task, the lines, colors, shapes of the face contain many mysteries, in line with the law, accurate and pure beauty. Ordinary ticket lovers who are new to Qú Shū really don't know how to start with makeup, and Mr. Weng is no exception, when starting the "ticket play", the indispensable "process" of "hooking faces" can only be pretended to people, and jokes such as "painting people's heads" are often heard. This further stimulated Mr. Weng's competitive spirit, and he decided to do it himself, not only trying to draw his own face during the performance, but also moving this interest to paper, collecting faces anytime, anywhere, copying sketches, and even designing faces for the characters himself.
When Ma Lianliang rehearsed the new drama "Spring and Autumn Pen", he asked Mr. Weng to determine the face of the famous general Tan Daoji. According to the identity and personality of the characters in the situation specified in the repertoire, Mr. Weng "changed the old spectrum and gave new meaning": "If there is a dragon and tiger in the eyebrows, show its courage and have a stormy atmosphere; Positive forehead purple gall, golden light in the middle, showing its loyalty, with the spirit of the sun; The big nose socket takes the method Jiang Wei, and the round eye socket takes the law Guan Tai, so it shows that he is rude and martial, brave and loyal. "This design does not seek to be unconventional, but to innovate under the principle of abiding by the law, which shows Mr. Weng's learning and creativity." "Painting" has run through Mr. Weng's entire artistic career, and the achievements of "Painting" are closely related to the achievements of other "Five Opera". In a word, only by in-depth study and thorough understanding of the 360-degree play without dead angles can we sketch and dye, and the next pen is like divine help.
Mr. Weng's "Painting Play" is based on watching the play, first of all, watching the performance on the stage, and experiencing the vivid beauty of the face in motion. The face of the same stage image, different plays often have different scores. Mr. Weng paid special attention to observing the subtle differences between them, and he carefully depicted the faces of Meng Liang, a famous general in the four genres of Han Opera, Bangzi Opera, Yi Opera, and Kunqu Opera, and mastered their respective characteristics. Face masks are also a symbolic element in the formation of the Peking Opera genre, and in order to focus on perspective in this frame of reference, we must first have a lofty and broad vision, and Mr. Weng's all-round involvement and experience in opera shows that this is his strength.
Since joining the Chinese Opera College, Mr. Weng has been committed to screenwriting as a lifelong career, but he has been an out-and-out all-rounder from the beginning, "In the process of writing the script, he not only writes the script, but also serves as a rehearsal without the title of director, writes the gong and drum outline of the whole play for the drummer, writes the outline of the whole play for the stage worker, designs the costumes for the characters in the play, goes to the backstage for the script performance, and organizes the troupe as a screenwriter to perform in various places." Mr. Weng's aesthetic concept has been shaped by his rich opera practice, and he is knowledgeable, knowledgeable, and good at distinguishing between the fine and the bad from comparisons.
Specifically, he is very proficient in the face art of the masters of the founding school, such as Yang Xiaolou, Jin Shaoshan, Hao Shouchen, and Hou Xirui, and he not only knows it, but also examines the reasons in detail, and points out the specific presentation of the aesthetic style pursued by the founders of these self-contained schools on Facebook. Over time, Mr. Weng has developed a pair of "golden eyes of fire", through the perspective of face, you can get a glimpse of the performance art, and you can also "see" the nature and heart of the characters at a glance.
Two
In addition to the "living faces" on stage, Mr. Weng also spent a lot of energy and financial resources collecting, interviewing, and appreciating facial paintings. Many of the masks only exist on paper, and the relevant plays have been lost, and this kind of out-of-print is precious. Mr. Weng once wrote an article entitled "Talking about the Ten Thieves" Facebook Mask, introducing the essence of his treasured "Shengping Administration" manuscripts. The so-called "Ten Thieves" refer to the Zhu Bajie of "Soul Theft Bell", the flapping lamp moth of "Stealing Jade Candle", Meng Liang of "Thief Gourd", the egg monk of "Stealing the Heavenly Book", Dou Erdun of "Stealing the Royal Horse", Sun Wukong of "Stealing Golden Pill", Feng Mao of "Soul Stealing Bottle", Jiao Zan of "Stealing Bone Colony", Kunlun Nu of "Stealing Red Silk", and "Stealing Hehuan Robe".
Mr. Weng talks about "play" on "score", telling the ins and outs of it, and readers can just watch "score" and want to "play" to pay for their curiosity and thirst for the stage scene that has disappeared. What is even more rare is that Mr. Weng always paid attention to the Fang family and confirmed the copyright ownership of some Facebook. For example, in the above "Ten Thieves" face spectrum, Zhu Bajie is Tan Xinpei, Meng Liang is Jin Xiushan, Dou Erdun is Qian Jinfupu, Sun Wukong is Zhang Qilin, Jiao Zan is Li Lianzhong, and so on. The evidence provided by those who witnessed it has enhanced the value of Facebook, and has been regarded as a model for reference and reference by future generations of artists.
The lack of face masks used to be a regret that Mr. Weng cherished, so he divided his exquisite face masks into categories, sorted them out, and published them to the world, in order to promote and spread the art of face painting. In the article "Exploring the Ancient Hook and Curious Dreams - Collecting Face Masks", he said: "The faces I have collected in my life include four episodes of "The Secret Face of the Rainbow Room", each episode of 100 pages; One volume of "Twenty Absolute Faces of Bangzi", one volume of "Wushuang Spectrum", one volume of "Zhongqiuzhai Face Collection", more than 300 frames of "Shengping Department Face Mask", one face fan each of "Water Margin", "Fengshen ", "Three Kingdoms" and "Journey to the West"; There are countless others that have not been sorted out. Unfortunately, these masks were gone in the end, "recalling the human and financial resources and labor I spent to collect Facebook masks back then, like a spring dream." Fortunately, his disciple Fu Xuebin found the "Face of Bell Ball Zhai" in the library and copied it into a book, "The Bell Ball is Hanging, Extraordinary Sound", and its reappearance gave us the opportunity to see the treasure soaked with Mr. Weng's painstaking efforts. After that, the two volumes of "The Secret Face of the Rainbow Room" were published, collecting more than 400 faces, and the rolls were covered with smoke, which was beautiful and intoxicating! These masks involve many types of plays and repertoire, which can be called one play and one style, one person and one side, dazzling, and unparalleled in the world.
After decades of diligent exploration in the ocean of opera, Mr. Weng has accumulated extremely rich and solid first-hand information, which is the basis for his Facebook creation and research. Mr. Weng is known as "an epoch-making researcher of opera faces", and he has published many insights and ideas on the "masquerade mission" and "artistic performance" of Facebook, and has sublimated these practical guidance and theoretical interpretations at the aesthetic and philosophical levels.
Three
Derived from masks, Facebook has gradually become mainstream with its rich patterns, flexible and lively, integrated with the performance, and without losing the advantages of masks highlighting the characteristics of characters through exaggerated shapes. Carefully combing, it can be seen that the face has undergone a process from simple to complex, from rough to exquisite, from general drawing, random sketching to forming a spectrum with certain rules and rich meaning. Facebook, a long-term accumulated and conventional makeup paradigm, reflects the cultural aesthetic psychology and habits of the Chinese, and also reflects the philosophical concepts and moral tendencies embedded in it. Mr. Weng summarized it as the "five natures" of facial art, namely "expository, symbolic, evaluative, personality, and pictography", and proposed that the "five natures" and the "six books" of Chinese characters are in line with the core ideas, and that Facebook draws on the methods of creating characters such as pictograms, referring to things, and meeting intentions. Mr. Weng listed the "dragon" on the face for detailed analysis, and the "dragon shape" on the face of some imperial characters is called "grass dragon", the so-called "grass" is the "grass" of "walking grass" in calligraphy, rather than scrawling and reckless, emphasizing the drawing method - a few strokes, abstracted into a totem, concise and eye-catching, not only pointing out the identity of the characters, but also showing the beauty of pictograms.
The specific face sketch is not a single presentation of a certain performance, but pursues a comprehensive effect - pictographic depiction, symbolic illustration, and visual character. The "commentary" nature of Facebook reflects value judgments and discrediting tendencies, like the "pen of spring and autumn", which can be described as "a sum of praise, glory in Huagon; A stroke of depreciation is stricter than an axe". Therefore, for the aesthetic consensus formed by the Chinese for a long time, it is more necessary to have an in-depth understanding and avoid mistakes, in order to outline a decent and perfect face.
Color, line, and spectrum are the three elements that make up Facebook. Regarding the coloring of faces, Mr. Weng summed up a set of mantras: "Red loyalty, purple filial piety, black zheng, pink old, water white traitor, oil white arrogance; Yellow ruthlessness, gray greed, blue bravery, green storm, gods and Buddha spirits, gold and silver shine. Each color corresponds to a specific character, which is equivalent to drawing "personality" on the face and indicating praise. It has to be said that this way of giving color the function of "illustration" and "symbolism" is a rather concise and exquisite artistic expression. Mr. Weng believes that this stable correspondence is not a conjecture of individuals, but has its origins and pertinence. "Red symbolizes loyalty and justice, and is based on Guan Yu; Black symbolizes recklessness and directness, based on Zhang Fei; The water white symbolizes insidious and cunning and is based on Cao Cao; The oil white symbolizes flying and slaughtering, and is based on horses; Purple symbolizes rigidity and steadiness, and is based on Xu Yanzhao; Pink symbolizes the twilight years of loyalty and bravery, and is based on Yang Lin; Yellow symbolizes bravery and ferocity, and is based on Dianwei; Blue symbolizes strength and courage and is based on Dou Erdun; Green symbolizes tenacity and irritability, based on the blue-faced tiger; The gray-blue color symbolizes the cruelty of old age and is based on Lang Ru Leopard; The gold and silver symbolizes the gods and spirits and is based on dharma and golden-winged birds. Of course, the stage image regarded as "basis" here belongs to the category of artistic fiction and myths and legends, not conclusive historical figures, and the reason why they become "basis" is to win the recognition of the audience and reach tacit understanding and resonance between the audiences.
"Recipe" refers to the basic "face" of the face determined by the "main color", and the colorful details are indispensable for the combination of "secondary color", "solid color", "boundary color" and "background color". More importantly, the uneven changes of similar characters on the face are realized by the color tone other than these "main colors", which makes the characters present a "harmonious but different" sense of layering and contrast effect, and the richness of the face color is also an inevitable requirement for the "spectrum" to become complex. The line outline of the face draws on the "line drawing" technique of Chinese painting, the difference is only that the face is three-dimensional rather than flat, and the pen should adapt to and use the different facial physiological characteristics of people, so as to achieve "sharp pen" and "smooth pen intent", so as to highlight the character temperament or the characteristics of Zhuang or harmonious, suitable rigidity and softness. Accurate and vivid line sketching of the face is obviously more conducive to the actor's "expression" and "play".
The pattern of color and line synthesis is called "spectrum", which Mr. Weng summarizes into sixteen types. Among them, "fairy face", "monk face", "eunuch face", "hero face", "little demon face" and so on have special requirements in terms of shape and color due to the identity of the characters, so the face mask has its own style. "Hieroglyphic face" refers to the elf face of the Monkey King, the crab spirit, the money leopard and other elf faces that simulate the facial characteristics of certain animals. In addition, "whole face" and "three tile face" are used as the basic spectrum, and the rest are derived from this. For example, "whole face" is derived from "rubbing face" and "six-point face"; "Three tile faces" are derived from "flower three tile faces", "cross door faces" and "ingots faces"; "Flower Three Tile Face" and "Yuanbao Face" have mutated into "Flower Face" and "Flower Ingots Face" respectively; "Crooked face" evolved from "three tile faces" and "flower faces", and its overall pattern changed from "positive" to "crooked".
From the increasing richness of the spectrum, it can be seen that the trend of the development of face painting is from simple to complex, the combination of lines and colors is renewed, brilliant, metaphor for multiple symbolic meanings, and the characters with "subtext" written on their faces "bring the play to the stage" with this special makeup, and the audience understands it and quickly "enters the play". In terms of mere form, the exaggerated and freehand characteristics of the face are very consistent with the overall aesthetics of the opera. The elements and means of various compositions, the main and secondary, complement each other, create a harmonious and self-consistent, thousands of postures, and both form and god of the face, so that the audience has a pleasing to the eye, shocking and other different levels and directions of aesthetic response, which is unforgettable, long-thought, and endless.
Mr. Weng has devoted himself to the study of Facebook for decades, and his achievements are remarkable, and he has carefully examined and repaired Facebook with his rigorous and down-to-earth style as a scholar, so as to avoid false rumors and discrepancies. Therefore, the face masks he has learned and newly created are all "quasi-genetic", with clear traceability, clear combing, and well-founded arguments. Mr. Weng's vision, insight, heart and pattern have been created by his profound education, and he does not stick to a corner, only focusing on design and sketching, but closely combines the face with the specific characters, plots, historical backgrounds involved in the repertoire and the specific development stages of opera art, etc., which not only focuses on precision, penetrates into the inside, but also has a superb style and broad vision, highlighting the charm of face art and novelty.
Author: Zhang Chuanping Source: China Social Science Network - China Social Sciences News