Mr. Song Wenzhi, nicknamed "Song Taihu", is a famous painter who is deeply respected and loved by the public, he has grown from an abandoned baby to an outstanding Chinese painter's life path, and his artistic courage and outstanding achievements in his life of being overbearing, seeking innovation and change, admired and learned by future generations. The exquisite works he left behind are like a treasure trove of art, and you can not only get artistic edification, but also unexpected surprises and gains.
"Lake and Mountain Xinmei - Appreciation of Mr. Song Wenzhi's Works" by Chen Lan Cover inscription: Sun Xiaoyun
Chen Lan, the author of "Hushan Xinmei: An Appreciation of Mr. Song Wenzhi's Works" (hereinafter referred to as "Hushan Xinmei"), analyzes the representative works of Mr. Song Wenzhi in different periods from the unique perspective of the younger generations of the Song family, traces and traces the origins, reveals the production process of Mr. Song Wenzhi's artistic masterpieces in the changing times, and evaluates and analyzes them from an artistic perspective.
Song Wenzhi said that he has experienced the process of learning from the ancient in his early years, bringing forth the new in middle age, and seeking change in his later years. Many people have walked such an artistic path, but there are not many people who can really succeed, and the reason for this is that in addition to his talent and unremitting diligence, Song Wenzhi's mentorship is an important factor. Song Wenzhi initially learned from the ancients and learned from the ancients, mostly through copying works. "In 1947, he was introduced by Mr. Zhu Qizhan, a senior in the township, to worship Zhang Shiyuan as a teacher and began to learn the 'Four Kings' landscape." The first painting in "Lakes and Mountains of Xinmei" is "Listening to the Spring", "from this painting made by Song Wenzhi when he was 29 years old<听泉图>, we can see the charm of the 'Four Kings' landscape." In 1948, Song Wenzhi met Lu Yanshao, and later Lu Yanshao introduced him to Wu Hufan as a teacher, and his landscape painting entered a new stage. In his appreciation of the 1955 Autumn Mountain Xiao Temple, the "most representative work" of Song Wenzhi's youth, the author believes that this work "allows us to see that the young Song Wenzhi is passing through the 'alley' of learning traditional Chinese landscape painting, and is about to lead to an incomparably open 'street'".
On this "street", Song Wenzhi composed his own "Song family style" with a series of representative works, adding a beautiful page to the colorful Chinese landscape painting gallery. When "Lakes and Mountains Xinmei" shows us such a process, it slowly unfolds, and we can see the harmony between the brush and ink and the times in the splendid scenery of mountains and rivers, and see the magic and difficulty of "change". He just entered the Provincial Academy of Chinese Painting to create "Solid and Withering, Benefiting the Long Stream" with Wang Meng's brush and ink and Wu Hufan's rendering, "Zhenjiang Spring Scene" is still Wu Hufan's "little green", and in 1959, "Yuntai Mountain" and "Jinping Mountain Phosphate Mine" such sketches "can be seen that his painting style has begun to come out of the system of Wu Hufan and Lu Yanshao, and the artistic expression techniques of painters such as Fu Baoshi of the Academy of Painting have been valued and absorbed by him." Of course, this kind of learning and change is not achieved overnight, and Song Wenzhi's success lies in his eclecticism and integration, always resonating with the times, and becoming a leader of the trend of change in the Chinese painting world with a series of representative works.
"Lake and Mountain Xinmei" lists the general trajectory of Song Wenzhi's works in the fifties and sixties of the last century through meticulous combing. For example, for "Gorge River", which was painted on the way to sketch 23,000 miles, "To this day, I think "Gorge River" is the most successful of Song Wenzhi's similar themes. It is very important for a painter to be good at grasping the first feeling in life." "Guangzhou Shipyard" is only a little more than one square foot, but it paints a grand atmosphere, "showing Mr. Wang's solid, calm, and free artistic expression", "breaking through the shackles of traditional brush and ink, creating a new brush and ink that can reflect the times, and cooking the 'sandwich rice'". The so-called "sandwich rice" is how to deal with the relationship between the new era and the old brush and ink, which was deeply distressing to many painters at that time. The large number of excellent works produced by Jiangsu painters represented by Fu Baoshi and Qian Ya and Song Wei before and after the 23,000-mile sketching activity symbolizes that this stage has been surpassed. Song Wenzhi's "Tonglu", painted in 1965, "is full of a strong atmosphere of the times, close to life, close to the times, and the brush can be expressed very naturally and properly in his hands".
Not long ago, I saw an article by Mr. Chen Lusheng, in which he was talking about the same subject painted by two well-known painters, He Haixia and Song Wenzhi, that is, Sanmenxia of the Yellow River. In fact, such a situation also appeared in many painters at that time, the same has a relatively deep traditional foundation, but also embraces real life, but in the end it is still divided into Xuan Xuan, Chen Lusheng from the Song Wenzhi and He Haixia two Mr. analysis that He Haixia "is basically the continuation of Zhang Daqian's brushwork, and there is no new atmosphere of the times." The author has paid attention to this phenomenon in the past, and the comprehensive and thorough analysis of "The Great Changes in Mountains and Rivers" in "Nobumi in the Mountains and Mountains", especially from the perspective of the times and pen and ink, has given us some new enlightenment.
One (34 x 132cm) was painted in September 1960 during a 23,000-mile grand journey, and in 1963, "it was screened and introduced in the large-scale documentary "Landscape in Painting" produced by the China Artists Association and Beijing Film Studio, and it should be included in the list of the most important works of his life. In fact, Song Wenzhi had already been to Sanmenxia in 1959 and created two works, of which "Great Changes in Mountains and Rivers" in May 1960 was a very successful work, and this one "is completely different from the two previous works, and its atmosphere is magnificent, very shocking and infectious." The work encapsulates the surging Yellow River, the majestic mountains, and the hot and busy construction site in the majestic widescreen scene, making people truly feel the firm determination of human beings to transform nature and harness the Yellow River."
"Brush and ink should be with the times" has become the Guigao of Chinese painting. The British art historian Kenneth Clarke also made a similar statement in "What is a Masterpiece". He believes that any outstanding work "must use the language of the era, no matter how vulgar the era", and such "language" should include its ideas, themes and techniques, etc., which can reflect the characteristics of the times, or explain the understanding of the era in which the work is located. Amazing ingenuity". "Nobumi in the Lakes and Mountains" vividly depicts the subtlety of this work: "The most important feature of "The Great Change of Mountains and Rivers" is that it is different from ordinary landscape paintings, except for the mountains and the Yellow River, the whole picture is basically depicted with dams, cranes, factories, construction sites, and cars and boats being transported······ From the painting, we can't find a single tree, there is no green quilt on the mountain, and there is no mountain waterfall, this strong contrast between the natural environment and the building, as well as the treatment of the structure, has completed the cognitive range of traditional landscape painting, and its difficulty can be imagined. Therefore, in addition to the artist's creative enthusiasm and the profound traditional techniques, the painter's modeling ability is very important at this time."
Kenneth Clark sees two characteristics of a masterpiece: the convergence of memories and emotions to form an idea, and the ability to recreate traditional forms----- both to represent the artist's time and to relate to the past. These two characteristics, although they refer to Western oil painting figures, almost conform to our definition of Chinese landscape painting. We see in "Lakes and Mountains Xinmei" that even in the context of changing the world, Song Wenzhi is still full of expectations and yearning for the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, and his depictions of rivers, lakes and seas, famous mountains and rivers, and pictures of construction and red landscapes are full of passion and even pride, but more of them are the warmth in human nature. We can feel it from the Jiangnan and Taihu lakes that he is best at.
When I read "Lakes and Mountains Xinmei", I found that this is the most complete collection of Song Wenzhi's works on Jiangnan and Taihu Lake. At that time, Song Wenzhi was famous in the painting world is "Jiangnan Spring Tide", with the most gorgeous and not into the painting of the golden rape flowers in the south of the Yangtze River as the main body, painting the farmhouse style, and then the brush stretches out to the alleys of the water town, the most famous is "Jiangnan March" and "Jiangnan Spring Dawn", which has become a classic image of the Jiangnan water town. "Hushan Xinmei" also tells us the story behind "Jiangnan March Spring": Song Yulin first purchased the "Jiangnan Spring" inscribed by Mr. Lin Sanzhi, and asked his father to match the picture wall, and later, this painting was selected and made into Suzhou embroidery works and has been displayed in the Jiangsu Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. To write about Taihu Lake is to write about Song Wenzhi himself. In "Hushan Xinmei", there are red Taihu Lake (peach blossoms), green Taihu Lake (plum blossoms), willow branches, pear blossoms, Dongting West Mountain, East Mountain, and Wuxi Taihu Lake, which are loved by the audience and the market, spanning different periods and a total of more than 40 years. "As a native of Jiangnan, he has always had a deep affection for his hometown, and it has become the eternal theme of his creation to reflect the grass, trees, mountains and rivers of his hometown with his own brush and ink."
In addition to the above-mentioned Jiangnan and Taihu Lake, we can see in "Lakes and Mountains Xinmei" how Song Wenzhi often painted in different eras, and his brushwork was always filled with the atmosphere of the times, reflecting the "connecting era" of outstanding works, and "giving a new and timeless contemporary significance". Especially after entering the new era of reform and opening up, Song Wenzhi was in a comfortable mood, his pen tone was relaxed, and he made a new interpretation of the original theme, such as Taihu Lake, which let us see his early beauty, the grandeur and hesitation of the special period, and the enthusiasm and innocence of his later years. He wrote the Jialing River with splashed ink, the Shujiang River with pointillism, the boneless method with Cuiping Mountain, the pure ink color with Huangshan, and also wrote the "fantasy" of Lushan, the "ethereal" of Huayue, and the "wonderland" of Wushan, which the author summarized as "In the early 90s of the 20th century, Mr. 's creation began to enter the stage of 'freewheeling'".
In the 80s of the last century, Song Wenzhi felt the emergence of the idea of "the end of Chinese painting", and started his journey of reminiscence. "Hushan Xinmei" compares the reminiscences of this period with those of the early years of the teacher and the ancients, and believes that "the reminiscences of Mr. in his later years can no longer see that Mr. is imitating a certain family and a certain method, but more of a traditional into his own system, integrating into a traditional and self-conscious 'Song family landscape'". "I can feel the joy and relaxation of his mood, and the elegant brushwork is full of ancient style and poetry, expressing his deep love for tradition." This horizontal comparison, which connects the past and the present, reflects the painter's ability to recreate traditional forms. In his later years, Song Wenzhi was obsessed with "small splashes". There are many "small splashes" of Song Wenzhi in his later years, which are very precious because they are few and fine, and the author's interpretation is also unique and wonderful. Song Wenzhi completed the transformation of his later years, which also symbolizes that his lifelong art of seeking innovation and change has reached a complete state.
After his death in 1999, the study and dissemination of his art continued, and as a descendant of Song Wenzhi, he has been enthusiastically involved in the process, which has become a new example of the continuation of the family culture. There is the "Song Wenzhi Art Museum" in Taicang, and the "Song Wenzhi Art Research Center" in Shenzhen, and the books include "Loujiang Song Wenzhi: Remembering My Father" by Song Wenzhi's eldest son Song Yulin, and "Passing on the Ancient and Ding Xin: Appreciation of Song Wenzhi's Artworks" by her granddaughter Song Pei. With her perseverance, it took several years to complete the book and publish it, which is gratifying.
Poetry is not up to the mark, there is no interpretation of the text, and it is not easy to appreciate and analyze the books and paintings that belong to the category of art. It is also worth mentioning the beauty of the rhetoric of this book, in addition to professionalism and vision, the artistic conception and charm and sense of language are also very important, and a good appreciation is a good prose. The text of "Hushan Xinmei" is elegant and fresh, which fits the gentle Jiangnan style of Mr. Song Wenzhi, which makes people read it inexhaustibly. It is now March in the south of the Yangtze River, and Mr. Song Wenzhi's beautiful scenery is presenting, citing the author's appreciation of Song Wenzhi's "March in the South of the Yangtze River" to support it:
In "March in the South of the Yangtze River", you can see the warbler flying and the grass growing, everything sprouts, the peach blossoms are in full bloom, and the garden is full of spring. The houses are black and white, undulating and scattered, the panes are ethereal and wonderful, and the small bridges and flowing water are like a fairyland on earth. People leaned against the window and leaned against the railing, or stopped on the bridge, gazing at the blossoming flowers and clouds, breathing the stamens and spitting fragrant, the water vapor steaming, and the flying swallow warbler crying, making people feel the breath of life revived by the earth......"
(The author Zhou Heping is the author of "The Biography of Song Wenzhi" and "The Avenue Remains True - Song Yulin")