Text/Cao Qinghui,
Professor of the Department of Art History of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, doctoral supervisor, vice chairman of the Beijing Literary and Art Critics Association, and member of the Jiusan Society. Committed to the teaching, scientific research, writing and exhibition of modern Chinese art history and art education history of academic activities planning, once served as the Chinese cooperative professor of the Getty Foundation International Art Research Project, planned the exhibition has won the Ministry of Culture's National Art Museum Annual Collection and Annual Exhibition Excellent Project, authored "Chinese Paintings Into the Academy", edited "Chinese Modern Art Road Atlas", etc. and edited academic exhibition catalogues and academic conference proceedings, published many papers in journals and academic conferences at home and abroad and won awards.
Focusing on Chinese students and the French sculptor Buddell, the paper sorts out Buddell's translation and exhibition in China from 1928 to 2018, especially examines the interaction between Chinese students and Buddell in the first half of the 20th century, and collects and summarizes the comments of Chinese students on Buddell at that time.
Yue Lun, a native of Shaoyang, Hunan Province, who studied with Buddell in the late 1920s, is the only Chinese student who has been able to briefly review his studies in France and sculpture with Buddell in his self-description, saying:
In 1923 at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, he studied painting and practiced plaster casts and drawing of the human body. At the same time, he also studied carving in the private research room of prost Prost, a carving teacher at the school... When Platts was making or modifying my work, I often stood next to him, carefully watching him use pieces of mud to stick to the crops; one knife and one chisel, one finger, painted with contours and high and low forms, showing the high and low contours; especially easy to get the method of production. This kind of internship invisibly has a lot of skill gains. This form can be said to be the only way to teach art. After studying like this for four years, I felt that I had gained a little, and I had an unsatisfied idea about the environment... So I wanted to go to Paris. ,...... of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris For people who already have a fairly good foundation in artistic research, it doesn't have to be of much benefit... For the Paris School of Fine Arts, it is just envy and admiration. At that time, the most famous artist in the art world was the first to push Budel Bourdelle. I wanted to learn from Lady Wei's Wang Youjun, and as soon as I arrived in Paris, I resolutely worshiped him. He especially expressed his affection for me, an oriental student who had come from thousands of miles away. Until now, I have been studying at his Grande Chaumière institute, and I have been following the instructions from time to time. The performance of his unique strength - finally able to appreciate the point from time to time, unfortunately just one year to resign from our artistic comrades!
According to Yue Lun's account, it is certain that he studied with Budel for a year from 1927 to 1928. However, Yue Lun has other opinions on whether he will continue to move forward under the guidance of Buddell, he believes:
According to the performance of force, the study goes on and one fears going into monotony, and one fear of going into the extremes of force, which is not without conflict with the development of personality, which is not a good phenomenon for researchers. If so, it is from the Bernard master of Berchner, who is good at his proud curves. The methods of expression of Burrow and Brinell engraving are almost opposite. I suddenly changed from the training of the strong method to the training of the flexible method, and of course I felt a strong giving. I have changed my way of work, and I am sure that I am very willing to take the strengths of the two families and make my research policy. And Bai's attitude towards the spirit of studying art and imparting students is great: "The disciple does not have to be inferior to the teacher, and the teacher does not have to be wise to the disciple." There is a sequence of hearing the Tao, and there is a specialization in the art industry" generally, so Bai Shizhi seems to be a friendly student to me. In this case, I studied for a year, and I was confident that I had a lot of good results in the study and discussion of sculpture. ...... When I was studying under my teachers, I studied the art of other schools, such as Landowski Sigard, who was a different style.
Yue Lun's study abroad life has the basic characteristics of Chinese students studying in France to transfer to a multi-teacher, Buddell is only one of his close to the Fa, and summarizes the sculptural style and means of this family as a unique "expression of force", but from his self-description and the pictures of his sculpture published in the journal at that time, Yue Lun was actually not really inspired and followed by Budder's doctrine and practice, but followed his personality, natural understanding, and turned to more than one teacher, taking advantage of his strengths, only from part of the sculpture pictures, From his simple and sturdy overall generalization that is more conscious in terms of shape to seek a sense of body, it is possible to read the influence of Budel sculpture on him.
Yue Lun statue of his wife in the Lyon studio
In 1931, one of Yue Lun's sculpture works was published in the picture supplement of the People's Weekly (Nanjing).
After studying under Prost, Budell, and Berchner, Yue Lun immersed himself in his studio on the outskirts of Paris from the winter of 1928 to the spring of 1930, during which time the human research sculptures were also selected by the salon for the "Honorary Award of the Best Class". After that, Yue Lun returned to China and held Yue Lun sculpture exhibitions in Shanghai and Nanjing in 1931 (the journal of the same name was published when it was held in Shanghai), and some scholars judged Yue Lun to be "the first person to exhibit solo sculpture in the Republic of China". However, sensing that sculpture had no future in China, Yue Lun was sent to work at the Italian Embassy through his connections as a learner at the Embassy in Italy, and in 1932, he sent a long report on "Paris Salon, Fiftieth Anniversary" from Rome to China. During his infancy, Yue Lun continued to study sculpture and graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in Rome, but in view of the lack of attention to sculpture in China, Yue Lun did not return after graduation and still stayed at the embassy. Later, Yue Lun gradually gave up what he had learned, engaged in diplomacy full-time, and worked as a diplomat in southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and West Asia, until 1984, when he returned to China as a returned overseas Chinese in France. Because he switched to diplomacy very early and was overseas for many years, the domestic art world quickly forgot his ideals and efforts in sculpture.
Also in 1928 with Buddell study Chinese students also include Chen Xijun (1893-1951), about Chen Xijun's overseas study, Lingnan famous painter Huang Shaoqiang wrote in Hong Kong in January 1940 in a preface has a general introduction, according to this preface and combined with the introduction text compiled by Chen Xijun's children, It can be seen that Chen Xijun, a native of Taishan, Guangdong, went to Montreal, Canada in 1907, and was at the Boston Museum in Boston from 1917 to 1924 The School of Fine Art,founded in 1876) studied painting, and after feeling the lack of domestic sculptural talents, continued to study with charles Grafly and other teachers in the school's sculpture department, until 1928, "graduated with excellent materials, and was given the academy to study in Europe", "at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, from the famous sculptor Bourdelle, he was a disciple of Rodin." A bronze statue of "Girl" that has survived to this day also reflects his experience in shaping Rodin's image through Budel in visual interest. Later, because of "thinking of Italy as the world's famous carving capital", Chen Xijun entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy from 1929 to 1930, and his 1929 stone statue of "Boy" (donated by his family to the Collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts In 2008) reflected more of the aesthetic touch given to him by the "noble simplicity and quiet greatness" of ancient Greek sculpture, and there was a comment at the time: "On quality, this marble head is among the masterpieces of the world." In 1931, Chen Xijun returned to China and was employed by the Guangzhou Municipal School of Fine Arts and the Guangdong Provincial University of Xunqin, where he should have created many portraits of officials, businessmen, politicians, and other people from all walks of life, such as "Sun Yat-sen" (1934), "General Lindemann" (1934), "The Bronze Statue of Zhao Shaoang" (1936), and "The Ancestor of the Missionary Women's Religious Society After the Gods" (1936). These portraits are rigorous in law, and the shape of the god Bi Xiao is in the same artistic and aesthetic dimension of natural realism as the portraits created by Wang Rujiu and Yue Lun, but the level of realism is higher.
Chen Xijun and his sculpture "Boy"
Chen Xijun Girl Sculpture 1928
What has been introduced above is only the general situation of several Chinese students who have studied sculpture in the Buddell Sculpture Studio of the Big Hut. Of course, the author believes that there are more than a few Chinese students who need to study with Buder out of special training, but the other Chinese students with names and surnames who are currently being discussed are either nonsense (such as Pan Yuliang, Chang Yu, and Xu Beihong), or in the clouds and fog of ambiguous language (such as Jiang Xiaolu), or the words of a family that needs to be investigated by the same way of speculation (such as Zheng Ke), all of which are far from the starting point of the author's research, so they are all shelved. In terms of the basic situation of the four international students mentioned above, they and Buddell's teaching staff have two points worth noting. (1) Buddell is only a part of their study in France to benefit from many teachers, not the only patriarchal object, in a variety of artistic contact and comparative perception, they discussed the principle of sculpture modeling from the ancient times to the present, Budder's personal sculptural art style has a basic understanding, but also due to understanding and need to make reactions and choices. (2) In the face of these foreign students who have their own artistic and aesthetic foundations, the teaching combined with Buddell's theme teaching and tutoring comments can not only lead to the depth and breadth at the ideological level, but also introduce specific guidance, so that foreign students with different needs to varying degrees are enlightened or educated, or those who can enter the skill are skilled, or those who can get the way can get their way. Obviously, judging from the future creative reactions of several of the above-mentioned recipients who personally experienced Buddell's teachings, the sculptural works of Wang Rujiu, Yue Lun, and Chen Xijun are more to give people a good impression of the techniques of the nineteenth-century sculpture tradition, while Wu Dayu has more of the implementation of Budel's artistic enlightenment through ancient and modern to the exploration of starting from modernist painting practice and going out of his own mind. If we associate the fact that Budel's other international students have both newcomers to monument sculpture and pioneers in modernist sculpture, it can reflect buddell's success as a sculpture educator, and it can also reflect the fact and logic of the problem of sculptural modernity in China.
Another intersection with Buddell
Boudell died on October 1, 1929, at the age of 68. At that time, Liu Haisu (1896-1994), Fu Lei, Zhang Xian and others were traveling around Paris and other places, and learned of Buddell's death from the report of the newspaper "The Funeral of the French Art World", which was not without sighs and disappointments. Originally, their party planned to visit Buder, but they learned bad news, which especially made Liu Haisu, who likes to make friends with celebrities from all walks of life, say:
"Hero worship" is a common psychology of everyone, especially my old habits, so I don't hide my proximity to big people. This time, when I went to Europe, I also wanted to pay homage to a few more heroes. Painters Henri Matisse, Paul Picasso, Antlai Trang, Alpe Pena, Amenjou; the poet Valley, the literary scholar Romain Rolland, the sculptor Bourdell, all of which I was scheduled to meet! But now that Bourdell had died suddenly before I was about to meet him, my heart was so hurt!
The newspaper said that Buder's body would be moved to his paris studio for the world to see in the early morning of the third day, the funeral ceremony would be held on the spot on the fourth day, and the Mengbaolas Cemetery would be buried on the fifth day, so Liu Haisu and other Chinese students who learned the news, such as Liu Kaiqu, all went to Attend Buder's funeral to bid farewell.
Walking into the yard, several large trees, as if they could not withstand the wind and frost, one by one, yellow leaves continued to fall on top of our heads. A few dozen steps further in, on the left there is a tall, dark building with glass windows that seems to be exposed to years of wind and rain. This is the famous Studio studio. As I looked at the row of glass windows and doors of that room, I thought to myself: Bulldell has been creating many immortal works, probably in that room. As for the main entrance, because it was raining, it was as dark as dusk; inside the studio was lit with lights like snow. There were many people who went to the funeral, and we stood outside the door in a rainstorm. The two celebrants, dressed in jet-black dresses, with prickly red faces, and their hair and beard were jet black, which was very eye-catching. They waited for the guests to sign and the fish went in. Entering the door with great solemn piety, in the middle of which was placed the body of Bourdell, on all sides were piled with countless flowers and wreaths, especially the flowers in the back as high as the roof; two branches of three feet of white ash were placed on the left and right of the body, and the dim candlelight trembled in the wind, and it felt a kind of melancholy and sad color. In the left corner of the roof is a statue of Rodin, which is his masterpiece, and the words "My Master Rodin" are engraved below. On the left is a five-foot-tall relief clay sculpture, a large-scale conception that has not yet been completed. A large work on the front is a huge illusion, the left hand is straight out, the muscle tension, the skill is strong, it is a bold attempt. There are many, many of his recent works on all sides, because at that moment of grave mourning, we cannot walk around and look closely. Mrs. Bulldell and several of her relatives, dressed in black mourning clothes, sat on the side of the body, with most of the guests standing around, taking turns paying homage to see his remains. I also ran to the front to look at his face, which looked roughly like a triangle, the top of his head was completely bald, the forehead was wide and protruding, and there was a handful of all-white hair on each side of the corner of his head, a beard that reached the tip of his chin; his cheekbones were wide, his eyes were deeply concave, and his mouth was tightly closed as if he were sleeping peacefully. Although he is dead, from his face, he can still show the depth and intensity of his personality. The illusion of time and space throughout his life has left traces on this.
Before long, there were more and more hangers, and we stood for an hour, reluctant to leave the studio, but it was not early, so I looked back and left the studio.
Bourdell died, an artist who was always on the path to perfection.
After Budel's death, his wife Cleopattora Sevastos Buder, a woman of Greek origin and a strong will of Buddell's students, not only worked hard for twenty years to preserve the studio where Buder lived and worked, making it finally a place to witness the artistic prosperity of Montparnasse in 1949, "Budel Museum", but also adhering to the Buder way, promoting its ideas and methods, and continuing apprenticeship, Among those who was taught was Wang Ximin (1917-2015), a young man who graduated from the Western Painting Department of the National Peking Art College in 1936.
Wang Ximin was one of the last Chinese young people to study in France at public expense before 1949, when he and Wu Guanzhong fought for two artistic places in 1946. Wang Ximin studied under Alfred Auguste Janniot (1889-1969) while studying in Paris, and studied sculpture with him for almost two years. Influenced by Budel, Rangio devoted himself to monuments and architectural sculptures, and his sculptural works are architecturally more decorative than Budel's. Wang Ximin said: "His works and buildings are integrated, majestic and atmospheric. In addition, Wang Ximin also went to Buddell's studio to receive guidance from Mrs. Buddell, and Wang Ximin recalled: "At that time, Buddell had died, mainly because her wife taught us, and the old lady was very good to me. I am particularly impressed that architectural sculpture should pay attention to six points: 1, three-dimensional sense; 2, architectural sense; 3, sculpture sense; 4, sense of strength; 5, decorative sense; 6 sense of reality. Among them, for the difference between the sense of architecture and the sense of sculpture, Wang Ximin's understanding is that "the sense of sculpture pays attention to the technique, and the sense of architecture is about the square circle, and it is about the combination of various basic forms." It can be seen from this that twenty years after Boudell's death, the architectural problems originally explored in his sculptural practice and the theoretical understanding and artistic experience accumulated from them have been developed and summarized by his followers from both practical and teaching aspects, forming technical essentials with stylistic significance and disseminating them. As a result, although Budel is dead, Wang Ximin has achieved intersection with Buder through Buder's students and widows, but this has another teaching significance. I think that at the beginning, young artists from all over the world went to the big hut to follow Buddell to learn sculpture art, and now they are learning Buddell's sculpture art, which is a stylized Buder language, which is a summed up Budell technique, so Wang Ximin has become the most easily recognizable Chinese students to identify the people who have a teacher-to-teacher relationship with Buder and Rang Nio in style, and the most direct example of this is the shaping of horses when he participated in the sculpture creation of the National Agricultural Exhibition Hall "Qingfeng Harvest" (also known as "Long Live the People's Commune") in 1959. For this group of horse sculpture practices that organically combine the Han Dynasty galloping horse style with the influence of Buder and Rang Nio, the sculpture industry and Wang Ximin have always been very satisfied.
Boudell's funeral
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