Fu Baoshi talked about copying
△ Fu Baoshi in the swing
Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) was one of the most prestigious masters of Chinese painting in the twentieth century, with painting, books, literature and printing, among which landscape painting was the most classic, and he was the leader of the "New Jinling School" and one of the founders and pioneers of modern Chinese painting. In Fu Baoshi's painting process, he realized that copying is the most direct and effective way to learn and inherit from his predecessors. Copying not only helped him to study the history of painting more deeply, but also to be able to self-reflect and constrain his creation, maintaining a sense of humility and awe.
Is copying finite or infinite in the importance of copying for painters? It's hard to decide. In the past, I always had to copy several paintings a year, and most of them were quite heavy works, such as Fan Kuan, Xiao Zhao, Wang Meng, Shen Zhou, Zhou Chen, Shi Tao... I like to write my masterpieces.
△ Fu Baoshi Shi Tao Poetry 1943
I feel that this has at least a few benefits for me: First, it can help me study the history of painting, such as what kind of distance is there between Fan Kuan and Wang Meng in terms of pen and ink changes, and is there a stage of "Liu, Li, Ma, Xia"? These, more copying, easier to understand. Second, what painters are most afraid of is to become a horse without reins, to write and write, and to be self-righteous. In the presence of people, there is no such freedom, through which to collect their own peace of mind.
Third, observing a masterpiece, can only reach the surface of the picture but cannot go deep into it, the most simple example, like when we read an ancient text, it is better to read it once than to copy it again. Painting is the same, once the copy is passed, its peaks and mountains, the arrangement of trees and stones, and even the little by little painting, directly give us new revelations, accumulate the failure at this time, that is, the grasp of other days.
△ Fu Baoshi White Clouds Rolling Misty Song Pass 1944
Not only that, there is also a very special phenomenon in Chinese painting, which can be taken as an example of Ni Yunlin, one of the four masters of the Yuan, a landscape painter since the Ming Dynasty, almost Shijiu directly took the Yuan Sijia as the grandmaster, in other words, they all started from copying the works of the Yuan Sijia. From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, several painters had a common experience, that is, they felt that the paintings of the four Yuan families: Huang Dazhuo and Wang Shuming were very "welcome friends", Wu Zhonggui was "strict in choosing friends", and Ni Yunlin "refused to accept". So in their inscriptions, painting theories and essays, they cried out in unison: "Yunlin cannot be learned!" "What is the reason for this? This problem, which is not big or small, but really holds the hooves of Chinese painting, if we often copy the works of the Yuan Sijia, is easier to understand and easier to be vigilant.
△ Ni Zan Strange Stone Conglomerate Collection of Shanghai Museum
One day, I wanted to write an album of Meiqu Mountain, this painting is Huangshan, several thin pine plants, an old man, a bridge pavilion, a few distant mountains, the picture is incomparably simple, but the Yellow Sea smoke clouds, emerging on the paper, people will never forget. As a result, I went from morning to dusk, and I arrived at five zhang, but it was absolutely impossible, not the same thing as Mei Qushan, it can be seen that the ancients said that "the pen and ink of the superior cannot be obtained", which is really reasonable, and since then you can also understand how difficult Ni Yunlin is to approach.
△Mei Qing Nineteen Views of Huangshan Hegaisong Collection of Shanghai Museum
What are your thoughts on copying? Let's talk about it in the comment area
The content is from Fu Baoshi's "Self-Order of Chongqing Painting Exhibition", source network.