Towards evening, the owner of a bookstore on Pingshi Street in Nanjing found that a page of a "villain's book" was missing from the shelf, and his curiosity prompted him to find the same version, and after comparing it, he found that the missing page was a galloping horse.
This happened one day in 1960, when it was an 8-year-old child who secretly tore down the "villain book" and took away the "horse". What the bookstore owner didn't know was that the boy would become a famous painter in the future, and what he was best at was drawing horses. The child's name is Lei Xiaoning, and in that era of scarcity of material conditions, the copy version he can find for his love of painting is the comic book on the bookstall .
No one could have imagined that Lei Xiaoning, who was later known as the "first horse of our time" and "another horse of China", began his artistic creation in this way.
Soaring thousands of miles
Hold a Written Horse –
After wind and rain, it is quenched into steel
Walking into Lei Xiaoning's studio, he was gentle and elegant, with a short beard on his lips and a full face, which looked like a "Republic of China style". Coincidentally, from his grandfather's time, his family was inextricably linked to the Xinhai Revolution and later the Republic of China.
His grandfather, Lei Feipeng, was a Hanlin of the Qing Dynasty, and later followed Sun Yat-sen to participate in the revolution, and served as the head of the three northeastern provinces of the League, and was a veteran of the Xinhai Revolution, known as the pioneer of the Chinese Revolution. His father, Lei Zhijie, served as the confidential section chief and chief secretary of the patriotic general General Yang Hucheng, and participated in the drafting of the patriotic telegram sent to the whole country by the two generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng during the Xi'an Incident.
Twin Horse Diagram
Despite having too much aura, Lei Xiaoning has not had an easy journey along the way. In the turbulent era of the last century, he became a "dog" of a "counter-revolutionary family" because he was dragged down by his family, but he never wavered in his hobby, painting horses.
There was a young lady who was 10 years older than Lei Xiaoning who lived in the courtyard of Pingshi Street, and when she saw that Lei Xiaoning liked to draw horses, she introduced him to the painter Zhao Lianghan, and Lei Xiaoning was overjoyed. Since then, he has had the first person to guide the way in artistic creation.
Once he went to his second uncle's house, Lei Xiaoning found several popular science books introducing horses, which had pictures of the body structure of horses.
With an innate aura, he has a telepathic connection with the horse. He copied the paintings of Master Xu Beihong in his workbook. Finding the door and breaking in, the horse he painted gradually became self-conscious.
Flowers and boys
Like the young people of that era, he also joined the team in the movement of intellectual youth to go to the mountains and go to the countryside, and went to Yongning, Jiangpu, Nanjing. Fortunately, because of his skills, Lei Xiaoning was favored by the county's propaganda department and continued his painting path, but said goodbye to his beloved horse for the time being. He began to paint festive birds and finches at the bedside of the villagers, portraits of the old people who had died in the village, goods for sale for the supply and marketing cooperatives, and, of course, more propaganda materials of that period.
After setbacks and continuous rise, after hardships and quenched into steel. After returning to the city, Lei Xiaoning, who had laid a good foundation for painting, was finally able to "hurry up" and start artistic creation in the real sense, especially after studying under Master Yaming, his pen had the momentum of "ten thousand horses galloping".
Fierce Soldiers and Horses -
Follow the master to lay a solid foundation in art
"Xiaoning, help me cut paper, I want to write a few words. In a party, Mr. Ya Ming, a great painter with an upright temperament, wrote the words "Wonderful Shape" on a piece of rice paper, and wrote "Title for Master Lei Xiaoning", which made Lei Xiaoning on the side stunned, he never thought that his teacher would make such a high evaluation of himself.
Lei Xiaoning has studied under three masters, namely Zhao Lianghan, Liu Ruli and Ya Ming. Zhao Lianghan is a student of Lu Fengzi, Professor Liu Ruli is Xu Beihong's master, and Ya Ming is one of the few contemporary art masters.
Father and son have a deep relationship
Ya Ming graduated from Huainan Art College in 1941 and joined the Communist Party of China in 1943.
Speaking of Yaming, Lei Xiaoning's gratitude was beyond words.
As a representative of the "New Jinling School", the cultural accumulation and ideological feelings contained in many of Yaming's well-known excellent works are particularly moving, and Lei Xiaoning has experienced the power of Chinese painting in inheritance and innovation. At the same time, Lei Xiaoning's works also left a deep impression on Yaming.
Yaming, who cherishes talents and loves talents, recognizes Lei Xiaoning as his adopted son and carefully guides him in art.
"I brought a few more paintings and asked the teacher to take a look. Every time he meets with "Dad", Lei Xiaoning always brings his recent works and asks Yaming to find questions and give opinions. From the idea to the lines and color blocks, Yaming's fiery eyes can always benefit Lei Xiaoning a lot.
The "father and son" put their emotions into the fiery creation, using new content and techniques to meet the aesthetic needs of the times, and also narrowed the distance between the hearts of the two generations of artists.
Shengshi New Six Horses
"Art" originates from "thinking", and it is imperative to improve one's artistic theoretical cultivation while painting. In this regard, Professor Liu Ruli gave Lei Xiaoning a lot of help.
Liu Ruli is a well-known art historian, educator, and accomplished painter. He studied in Japan in his early years, majoring in painting and art history. Since 1953, he has been engaged in art history teaching and research at Nanjing University of the Arts. He is good at both Chinese and Western art history research, and is known as "Chinese and foreign experts".
Following in the footsteps of Liu Ruli, Lei Xiaoning gained a new understanding of Chinese painting and further consolidated the foundation of art.
Leading the way –
Soar the unstoppable spirit of Ryoma
The tree is 1,000 feet tall and has fertile roots. From being a child with horses to constantly expanding the field of art, Lei Xiaoning has worked hard all the way to achieve success.
In the history of modern Chinese painting, Xu Beihong's Ma Zeng stood alone in the painting world. He uses Chinese ink as the main means of expression, and also refers to Western perspective and anatomy, vividly depicting the sassy and heroic posture of the horse.
Equinox
Lei Xiaoning is good at inheritance and innovation, proficient in Chinese painting and sculpture, and especially likes to sketch life, and his paintings of horses are not only shaped but also cast souls.
Lei Xiaoning broke the tradition and made bold innovations while inheriting and developing the horse painting skills of Master Xu Beihong, overthrowing the dogmatism of the traditional painting without asking about the object of expression and emphasizing the dogmatism of the pen in the center of calligraphy. Lei Xiaoning's horses have a center, a flank, a reverse striker, and a dyed dot rub, supplemented by the richness of color and ink, which shows the spirit of the horse and greatly broadens the pattern and expressiveness of the horse.
He has painted for the Great Hall of the People many times, and one of them, "Ten Thousand Horses Galloping", has aroused strong repercussions in the art world with its grandeur, magnificence and three-dimensional dynamics.
Lei Xiaoning integrates emotion and philosophical thinking, and the horse in his pen is galloping like electricity, vertical and horizontal, showing the beauty of life that inspires people to forge ahead, and flying with the spirit of moving forward and being unstoppable.
Each of the huge gongbi paintings "The New Six Horses of the Prosperous Age" is 347 cm × 280 cm, which is three or four centimeters larger than a real horse. Different from the stone relief Zhaoling Six Horses in the tomb, Lei Xiaoning depicts six horses with both masculine and feminine beauty, both traditional and modern, full of the spirit and aesthetic connotation of the times, and at the same time, the unique dragon horse spirit of the Chinese is vividly expressed.
Statue of Lao Tzu (located in Jurong Maoshan Mountain)
"In order to express the sweaty BMW with four hooves in the air and running like flying, I went to different horse farms many times to observe, experience and sketch, experience the inner strength of the horse galloping, and understand the unruly and untamed temperament of the sweaty BMW. Once, I accidentally broke my lower leg, but I think it's worth it. Lei Xiaoning said that during the investigation of the horse farm, he was fascinated by writing and watching horses every day, and accumulated extremely precious sketching materials and creative inspiration. The unruly eyes of the sweaty BMW, the roar of the dragon, the flying mane, and the lightning and thunder of the galloping gallop were all imprinted in his mind one by one and perfectly reflected in his paintings.
Today, at the age of 72, Lei Xiaoning still leads the current art world with high-quality creations, and his horses run from the "grassland" to the "plateau": creating more excellent works in the magnificent theme of sublimating the spirit of the times and nurturing the feelings of family and country.
(Guan Yunlin)
Artist Profile
Lei Xiaoning, a painter and sculptor, was born in 1952 in Hunan, and lived in Nanjing. He studied under the great painter Mr. Zhao Lianghan (a student of Lu Fengzi), Professor Liu Ruli (Xu Beihong Gaozu) and the art master Mr. Ya Ming.
Lei Xiaoning specializes in Chinese painting and sculpture, especially good at painting horses, and his unique style and influence of painting horses have been praised by the painting world as "Lei's painting horses", "the first horse of contemporary times" and "another horse in China".