In 2015, Liu Wenxi was in Yanchuan, northern Shaanxi
Liu Wenxi was born in 1933 in Shuizhu Village, Changle Town, Shengzhou, Zhejiang Province. In 1953, he entered the East China Branch of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, graduated in 1958, and was transferred to the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts in the same year. He passed away on July 7, 2019 at the age of 86. Before his death, he was the president and professor of Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts. He has published thousands of works at home and abroad, published more than 80 kinds of albums, 25 works have been collected by the National Art Museum of China, 9 works have won national awards, the main works are "Chairman Mao and the Shepherd", "Joy and Joy", "Four Generations of Grandchildren", etc., and published two anthologies.
How to paint the best of the times
◎ Liu Wenxi
"The prosperity of a country and a nation is always supported by the prosperity of culture, and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation needs to be conditioned by the development and prosperity of Chinese culture", the importance of cultural construction to the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As an important component of culture and art, fine arts are closely related to the spiritual life of the people. The times need fine art products that are ideological, artistic, and ornamental.
The creation of high-quality products is inseparable from the times, people and life. Painters should passionately feel the strongest emotions of the zeitgeist and infuse them into their creations. I've been practicing this philosophy for decades. The 100-meter-long scroll "The Master of the Yellow Earth", which I spent 13 years creating, is divided into 13 parts, which reflects the changes in the spiritual outlook of the working people in northern Shaanxi since the reform and opening up, and enthusiastically praises the glorious course of the people of the Yellow Earth in pioneering and innovating under the leadership of the party and running towards a happy life. "The Old Farmer of Northern Shaanxi", which bears the vicissitudes of the mountains on his back, "Loess Doll", which has inherited the spirit of the loess from generation to generation, "Aunt Mizhi", which is honest and simple, and "The Han of Suide", which can be literate and martial, industrious and thrifty...... All are full of vigorous and upward power. Digging into the depth of life and familiarity with the characters determines the depth of art. In my decades of creation, I have deeply realized this truth.
Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth, the Han of Suide"
Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth, Aunt Mi Zhi"
Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth: Ansai Waist Drum"
Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth: Autumn Harvest on the Plateau"
Feel the temperature of the times in the depths of life
To go deep into life is not to go to many places, nor to understand one or two ordinary people, but to be deeply rooted in one place for a long time, to have an in-depth understanding of the local people, and to understand the typical ones in long-term accumulation and continuous cultivation. Only when the "bank inventory" of life is abundant, can it be compared and selected, can it be concentrated and created typical, and such works can have vitality. I mainly draw people, and familiar people come first to me.
To this end, I not only spent several years or even decades to create a work, but also went to northern Shaanxi more than 90 times in the past 60 years to live in depth and understand the local people and customs. In the process, I have accumulated life and art skills, as well as experience in drawing materials from a large number of sketches, and in refining themes from complex life to determine the theme of creation. Without such a process, creation would not be stable.
Detail of Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth: Autumn Harvest on the Plateau".
To go deep into life, you need to observe carefully, study carefully, and quickly discover and create character personalities. When going deep into life, the artist must be emotional, otherwise even if he is in life, he will not get creative inspiration. To go deep into life is to express the thoughts and emotions of the inner world of the characters, the characteristics of their personalities, the environment in which they live, the relationship between people and people, and the relationship between people and nature. At the same time, the characters should be specific and credible, and the personalities and characteristics of people and objects should be discovered, so that the picture has a lot of flavor.
Detail of Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth: Autumn Harvest on the Plateau".
To go deep into life, it is more necessary to be diligent in brushing, to express the most touching pictures that are suitable for painting expression, have profound social connotations, and use the works of art sublimated by life to inspire and unite the people, so that they can serve the new era with one heart and one mind, instead of giving "moldy food" to the people, which is not only not nutritious, but also will cause "food poisoning". After all, painting should pay attention to emotion, reason, law, and fun. We often pay more attention to reason than emotion, only starting from the truth, concept, and formula, and do not pay much attention to the vivid taste and emotion in life, so that the picture loses the temperature of life, the temperature of the times, and the temperature of art.
In the 50s of the 20th century, Mr. Pan Tianshou (first from left) gave a painting demonstration to Liu Wenxi (first from right) and other students in Jingyun Village's apartment
Enhance artistic expression
In the past 60 years, I have gone deep into northern Shaanxi nearly 100 times, painted tens of thousands of sketches of life, and sublimated them into a creation on this basis, and I have to go through a lot of thinking.
There are only living materials, and the unity of form and content cannot be achieved, and the creation of high-quality products is still an empty word. Brush and ink are like a piece of clothing, its form and artistic language should be in line with the object and content of the description. For example, when I paint people from northern Shaanxi, my brushwork is stronger and more powerful than that of Zhejiang-style figure paintings, which is to match and adapt to the description of the characters' personalities.
Detail of Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth: Autumn Harvest on the Plateau".
To achieve the unity of form and content, it is first necessary to have a solid modeling ability, especially figure painting, otherwise it will affect the depth of character depiction. At present, many figure painters lack or ignore the "strict modeling" of figure painting, so it is difficult to express the taste of life and the demeanor of the characters, and the images often lack vitality and vitality, and the characters are not vivid and touching. "Strict modeling" does not mean that the image drawn should be the same as the photograph, but that the personality and inner world of the character can be strictly grasped and expressed through the details of the image. There is a lot of knowledge in modeling, which needs to be constantly experienced, constantly summed up experience, constantly improved, and constantly honed in long-term and arduous artistic practice.
Secondly, the brush and ink should keep up with the times, and be able to make the works fresh and intimate in continuous innovation. Due to the different eras, the objects of expression are also different, and the art form should also change accordingly. For example, when painting working people today, we cannot apply traditional Chinese religious painting techniques, nor can we apply the demeanor of literati and doctors who are detached from the world. Figure painting should be determined by the spiritual outlook of the characters to determine the form of expression, which requires the painter to earnestly study the tradition and not apply the tradition, and also requires the painter to absorb the nourishment of foreign art and not copy it. I'm always looking for problems and challenging myself, and I don't want to repeat history, others, and myself.
Detail of Liu Wenxi's Chinese painting "The Master of the Yellow Earth: Autumn Harvest on the Plateau".
Breakthrough to true knowledge. How can we innovate and improve? This cannot be separated from the national artistic characteristics and the aesthetic needs of the broad masses of the people. Nowadays, a lot of innovations are either focused on form or difficult to understand. True innovation is not about seeking innovation and difference. There are many connotations of innovation, which can be deepened from life, and explored from any point such as artistic conception, composition layout, pen and ink taste, image processing, etc. For example, in order to adhere to the national artistic characteristics and Chinese style, it is necessary to have China's own unique artistic language.
A work of art can be called art, which is more beautiful than life, and can arouse people's sense of beauty and love for life. A work without artistry is not infectious, and artistry lies in the humane taste of brush and ink and the perfect artistic effect, including a more vivid, profound and typical image in the selection and processing.
Liu Wenxi, A Day in the Construction of the Village, Size Unknown, Chinese Painting, Published by Chaohua Art Publishing House in August 1956
The depth of thought determines the height of art
Excellent artistic creation comes from life and is higher than life, which depends on the depth and height of the artist's thoughts.
Artists should first and foremost be thinkers, who can consciously apply a correct world outlook and artistic outlook, guide their own artistic practice, and strive to instill the lofty spirit of patriotism, collectivism, and socialism in their works.
The improvement of thinking depends to a great extent on how to go deep into life, but it in turn plays a decisive role in going deep into life, and what kind of stance to take to go deep into life is a premise that must be clear. The purpose of going deep into life is not to visit the mountains and rivers, but to improve oneself in a serious way -- can we use correct ideological concepts to gain insight into the current social reality and the law of artistic development? Do we have a clear understanding of the advanced factors that promote the progress of society? Can we extract the truth, goodness, and beauty in reality, so as to decide what we want to praise and what we want to oppose? As far as art workers are concerned, they must conscientiously comprehend the party's principles and policies on literature and art, link them with the actual life of the masses, and enhance their thinking. Only in this way can we have a deeper and more thorough understanding of the content of life, so that we can select advanced things and heroic figures representing different periods and express them forcefully; can we stand high and see far, keep a clear head in the pluralistic literary and artistic trends of thought, not be swayed by certain temporary phenomena, and distinguish between the mainstream and the tributaries, the phenomena and the essence, the truth, the good, the beautiful, and the false, the evil and the ugly; and the readers can have a deeper understanding of life through the pictures.
Liu Wenxi, Morning of Yan'an, Size unknown, Chinese painting, 1958, Published by the People's Fine Arts Publishing House in February 1959
There are some painters who overemphasize painting what they feel in life, and inadvertently blur the need to understand life with a correct ideological height and explore major themes in life with full political enthusiasm. The failure to learn to think about the connection between living characters and events and the party's literary and artistic policies is the real reason for the superficiality of creation. It should be clear that reflecting life is multifaceted, but it must be recognized that there are major and minor aspects of it.
Creation is not a bet, not a market, not a fashion, not a preaching imposing on others, after all, it must be aimed at touching people. Whether it is a big theme or a small theme, as long as it is touching, it will be welcomed by the people. Touching works must come from life, and beneficial social effects must come from the author's sense of social responsibility and arduous artistic creation. Here are some of my thoughts and thoughts on creating a masterpiece.
Liu Wenxi, Chairman Mao and the Shepherd, 139.5cm×91cm, Drawing, 1958-1962
Liu Wenxi, Splitting Mountains and Diverting Water, Size Unknown, Chinese Painting, 1958, Published by Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House in May 1959
Liu Wenxi, Four Generations of Ancestors and Grandchildren, 119cm×96.6cm, Chinese painting, 1962, Collection of the National Art Museum of China