The Tushanwan Art Gallery traces the development and inheritance of modern Chinese watercolor painting
Painting with water has a history of nearly 2,000 years in mainland China, while watercolor painting in the West is a relatively young expressive art, from the 18th century to the mid-19th century, it developed into an independent painting genre in Britain, and its birth has only a history of more than 200 years.
Watercolor painting is a foreign painting imported from the West, and although it is painted with water and color compared with Chinese painting, watercolor painting highlights the Western painting system and concept, attaches importance to depicting the changes of light and color, uses strong chiaroscuro and clear focus perspective, and focuses on realism, while Chinese painting pays more attention to artistic conception and charm. Due to the differences in painting systems and visual concepts, as well as the differences in painting materials, there are obvious differences in expression techniques and forms.
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The Tushanwan Art Gallery is the birthplace of mainland watercolor painting
The history of the introduction of Western watercolor painting to the mainland can be traced back to the Italian Lang Shining who came to China in 1715 and the Frenchman Wang Zhicheng, who later arrived in Beijing, who brought Western watercolor painting and became famous court painters in the Qing Dynasty. The real sense of watercolor painting was introduced to the people in the late Qing Dynasty, and the Tushanwan Art Museum, which was developed from Shanghai Xujiahui Art School, was the birthplace of watercolor painting in the mainland.
In 1852, the Spaniard Fan Tingzo (1817-1856) expanded the studio next to the Xujiahui Church into an art school to teach painting and sculpture to Chinese students, and then the Italian Ma Yigu (1815-1876) also came to teach painting techniques. They were the earliest propagators and founders of Western painting in China, and trained their disciple Lu Bodu (1836-1880) to serve as assistants and successors.
The painting room of the Tushanwan Art Museum at the beginning of the 20th century
In 1864, the Tushanwan Orphanage was established. Three years later, Lu Bodu moved the art school to the orphanage and expanded it into the Tushanwan Art Gallery. From 1869, Liu Dezhai (1841-1912), a student of Lu Bodu, presided over the work of the gallery until 1912. Tushanwan Art Museum is the earliest school in mainland China to systematically teach Western art. In 1942, Xu Beihong recalled the Art Nouveau movement in China, saying: "The communication between Chinese and Western cultures has made a very valuable contribution there. Tushan Bay also has a place to learn painting, and it is also the cradle of Chinese Western painting. ”
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Liu Dezhai is a pioneer of watercolor painting in mainland China
Liu Dezhai has been in charge of the Tushanwan Art Museum for a long time, teaching drawing and watercolor painting. At the beginning of the 20th century, Liu Dezhai discovered the works of the French watercolor master Pierre Vignal (1855-1925) in the French magazine L'ILustration. Therefore, Liu Dezhai was the first pioneer in mainland China to introduce and promote Western modern watercolor art.
A copy of Vigner's work at the Tushanwan Art Gallery
The Gardens of the Vatican in Rome
Liu Dezhai had a close relationship with Ren Bonian, the leader of the maritime Chinese painting scene, and the two learned from each other. When painting watercolor paintings, Liu Dezhai naturally integrated the traditional techniques and brushwork of Chinese painting, and gradually developed watercolor paintings from the West into watercolor paintings with the charm of Chinese painting, creating a history of the integration of Chinese and Western painting arts.
Liu Dezhai and the new and old students of the Tushanwan Art Gallery at the Baibu Bridge in Longhua (1912)
Liu Dezhai trained the earliest Western painters and art educators in mainland China in the late Qing Dynasty, such as Zhou Xiang (1871-1933), the teacher of Liu Haisu, Xu Beihong, Ding Wei, Chen Baoyi, Zhang Meisun, etc., and Xu Xuqing, who is known as the "first person of Chinese watercolor painting", as well as masters such as Zhang Yuguang and Zheng Mantuo. He also nurtured two artistic orphans: the Irishman Yasui Keisai (1865-1937) and the Japanese Tanaka Tokumi (1885-1978). An Jingzhai and Tanaka trained Zhang Chongren, China's first watercolor painter, so that this tradition has been passed on by their students from generation to generation.
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Xu Yiqing is "the first person in Chinese watercolor painting"
Xu Zhiqing (1880-1953) was a young orphan, entered the Tushanwan Orphanage at the age of 9, Liu Dezhai found that he was very talented in painting, personally taught him sketching and watercolor painting, designated him to start by copying Vigner's watercolor paintings, specializing in watercolor painting, and also instructed him to communicate closely with Chinese painters such as Ren Bonian and Wu Changshuo, so Xu Zhiqing's watercolor painting was also greatly influenced by Chinese painting techniques. Zhang Chongren once said: "Chinese watercolor painting started nearly a century later than Britain, but from the beginning of copying Vigner's watercolor painting, its starting point is extremely high. When Xu Yiqing painted watercolor paintings, he used the blank space method of Chinese painting for the highlight parts, which was more than ten years earlier than the blank space method pioneered by the famous British watercolorist Lamoma Birch (1896-1955)! He had his own uniqueness, which was comparable to the level reached in the world at that time,...... Therefore, at the beginning of the 20th century, that is, in 1909, it was not by chance that among the early Western painters in the mainland, a watercolorist with high achievements jumped out. At that time, China had begun to have truly world-class watercolor painters...... Therefore, Xu Yiqing is recognized as the 'first person in Chinese watercolor painting'. Xu Yiqing once opened a "watercolor painting gallery", and also taught watercolor painting in Shanghai Art College and other places, and published works such as "Watercolor Painting Landscape Sketching Method", which had a great influence in China.
Hangzhou West Lake Crane Pavilion (Xu Yongqing)
Xu Xuqing and Zheng Mantuo collaborated on painting a lot of "month cards". They combined watercolor painting with the technique of brush-drawing to develop a fashionable painting method with fashionable women as the theme and scenery and other backgrounds, which catered to the needs of commercial advertising, making this new advertising painting month card popular and becoming a new branch of watercolor painting. Xu Xuqing's students, such as Hang Suiying, Jin Meisheng, Li Mubai, Jin Meisheng, Ge Xianglan, etc., are no longer engaged in pure art watercolor painting due to market needs, but turn to the month card painting that is combined with business and has better benefits, and is popular in Shanghai!
Month card "Republic of China Girl" (written by Hang Suiying in the 1920s)
Author: Chen Yaowang (Honorary Director of Tushanwan Museum, Invited Researcher of Zhang Chongren Art Exchange Center, Author of Zhang Chongren's Biography)
Editor: Chen Haixiao
Reviewer: Wei Li