The Way of Loneliness 137cm×68cm
Zhang Wei, the word Shicheng, the number of Fatian. Born in 1948. National first-class artist. He is a member of the Chinese Artists Association, a member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, and the president of the Nanjing Yangtze River Painting and Calligraphy Research Institute. He has successively served as the vice president of Nanjing Painting and Calligraphy Academy, the vice chairman of Nanjing Artists Association, the invited consultant of the Painting and Calligraphy Appraisal Research Office of the Chinese Academy of Arts, and a member of the Jiangsu Provincial Art Series Senior Title Review Committee (from 2001 to 2008, and drafted the Jiangsu Provincial Art Series Senior Title Evaluation Regulations together with Mr. Song Yulin).
The current state of traditional "Yipin"—the artistic character of Zhang Wei's calligraphy and painting
Text/Ma Hongzeng
In contemporary Chinese flower beds, it is rare to find exquisite works with pure breath and elegant style, which is regretted by people at home and abroad who love the essence of traditional Chinese culture. However, when I recently read a number of Zhang Wei's paintings and calligraphy, I was overjoyed.
The so-called "Yipin" is a kind of natural, pure, plain and innocent artistic style. In order to achieve this realm, it is necessary to have three conditions: "Yicai" (main personality), "Yiqi" (aesthetic mind), and "Yibi" (artistic language). And Zhang Wei has all three.
Zhang Wei, the word Shicheng, the number of Fatian, the name of the room is not Zhai, also known as the big stone hall, referring to the moon Xuan. Born in 1948 in a scholarly family. He loved painting since he was a child, and at the age of 16, he was able to enter the door of Yaming, the backbone of the "New Jinling School", with the sincerity of "three visits". Beginner figures, later also engaged in landscape and calligraphy. In the early 80s, he gradually achieved success and entered the Nanjing Academy of Painting and Calligraphy, fulfilling his long-cherished wish.
Zhang Wei is majestic and deep-looking, sensitive to action and speechless, and only when he meets a confidant, he talks and laughs and makes witty words. Because of deafness, it is engraved with an idle chapter "halved in the ear", which is a joke that does not count the reputation of discredit. In the past, there were Ni Yunlin's "roundabout" and Huang Gongwang's "idiot", both of which were painted with true temperament. Zhang Wei also has the name of "roundabout", regards art as life, not only studies calligraphy and painting, but also reads Confucianism, Taoism and Zen classics, chews and swallows slowly, and every time he has an understanding, he remembers it with great affection. Or when I heard the distorted theories about Chinese painting and calligraphy, such as "new is beautiful", they also dealt with it on paper, and their words were sharp and witty, often in one sentence.
Zhang Wei likes to be witty to send his heart. For example, "playing with big tools" and "being good at love" slightly express the meaning of utilitarianism and the essence of artistic beauty. His paintings are mostly for static beauty. Ziyun: "The eternity of stillness is the eternity of movement. "Understanding the principle of Chinese aesthetic meditation and the principle of the combination of movement and stillness can be described as three points. His paintings seek to do as they like without exceeding the realm, and he once made a "square circle map" inscribed on the "Currency Appreciation Map": "The sky is round and the place is round, the outer circle is square and the inside is square, the rules are round and square, and the wisdom is round and square." The circle is Taiji, the square is the law, the circle is the nature, and the direction is set up. The heart is round, the brain is square, love is round, reason is square, benevolence is round, righteousness is square, Tao is round, virtue is square. The square is round, and the circle is broken and the square is born. No square, no circle, no circle, no square. This wonderful theory, through the way of heaven, through the world, to the hearts of the people, mysterious but not mysterious, is in line with the philosophy of clear view, quiet and far-reaching.
In Zhang Wei's artistic creation, his personality and mind are truly infused, and thus he has entered the realm of "Yibi", from Bo to the contract, from the clever to the clumsy, and to the way.
Zhang Wei's figure paintings are broad in scope and emotional. Whether it is Buddhism, Taoism, immortals, masters, or beautiful village girls, they are all the reflections of their own personality ideals. What impressed me the most was the old man in his pen, all of them were calm and open-minded, the apartments were clear, the free and concise pen and ink and the appropriate rhyme, waving the wisdom of the mind and understanding, and their skills were close to Liang Kai and Fa Chang. And those dignified and kind Guanyin monks, like the world's loving and elegant young women, are mostly outlined with strong and flexible lines, showing the beauty of antiquity. From time to time, he painted the human body with a few brushstrokes that cherished ink like gold, simple and expressive, beautiful but not demonic, charming but not vulgar. Or imitate Qu Yuan's beauty vanilla "the fragrance of the heavenly heart is there, not allowed to be known by ordinary plants and trees"; or light and contained, painting and grooming pictures "my day three provinces and my body"; painting scratching the back of the wonderful question "the upper part is not, the lower part is not, scratch to the right place, only you know"; it can be described as lingering, intriguing taste.
Zhang Wei's landscape painting is slightly different from the style of figure painting but has the same taste, focusing on expressing the hills and valleys in the chest, creating a quiet and distant artistic conception with elegant and changeable brushwork and style, with a strong and timeless charm. From Dong Qichang, Shi Tao, Yanjiang, Mei Qing, to Fu Baoshi and Ya Ming, the dot paintings are continuous in context, but also in their own personalities.
It must be pointed out that the quiet and pure environment created by Zhang Wei, in the context of fierce competition in contemporary society, impetuousness and serious damage to the environment and ecology, is closer to the contemporary psychology of returning to nature and returning to the basics and the conscious consciousness of longing for the harmony between heaven and man, which is the modern value and significance of the current form of Yipin painting. "Neither the ancient nor the present month", this inscription shows the self-discipline of artistic aesthetics, the ancient and the modern, the old and the new, under certain conditions, can be transformed into each other, and the sober artist will never be led by the popular customs of the times.
The formation of Zhang Wei's painting character is due to his in-depth understanding and skillful use of the traditional structural rules of poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing, especially the importance of "calligraphy".
The system of Chinese painting, also known as "painting", is composed of three elements: one is the "writing" (depiction, portrait, and sketch) of the object reflection, the second is the "pouring out" (freehand, depiction, and heart) of the subject's spirit, and the third is the "writing" of art ontology. The three are interrelated, interacting and complementing each other, constituting distinctive Chinese national art characteristics. The so-called calligraphy includes not only calligraphy and painting, but also the formal beauty of the brush and ink system derived from the movement of the pen. Writing and painting pay attention to the charm, wind spirit, bone strength, and cloth potential, and there is more blood relationship in writing and moving the pen. For example, the metaphors of cone painting sand, folding hairpin strands, house mud leakage, peak falling stones, 10,000-year-old withered vines, startling snakes into the grass, tigers and dragons, etc., are all related to calligraphy and painting. Whether it is "writing", "drawing" or "doing" determines the level of aesthetics. The famous aesthete Zong Baihua even believes that "the introduction of calligraphy into painting is the first characteristic of Chinese painting".
As far as calligraphy is concerned, Zhang Wei has been honed and comprehended for decades, and his divine quality is already extraordinary. At the beginning, it was started by Yan Liu, followed by Wei Beibei and his bones, and the two kings were full of their gods, and then returned to Li Beihai and Minan Palace. In this way, it is integrated into the personality and casts into a dignified and elegant style of writing. The penmanship is round and strong, the word momentum is flying, and the ancient elegance is in the boldness, and the line is strong in the flow of beauty. Some people say that Zhang Wei's books are better than paintings, and although I disagree, we cannot ignore the aesthetic effect that Zhang Wei has achieved by using books into paintings. The strength of the points and lines, the changes in speed, the changes in gestures, the virtual and real of the brushwork, the positive side, the hidden dew, the frustration, the square circle, the straight, the shade, the dryness and other rich and diverse, dialectical and unified artistic beauty, naturally add to the interest of the resistant product. It's getting more and more exciting.
Lin Sanzhi once commented that Zhang Wei "has a strange atmosphere in painting", and Yaming once commented that Zhang Wei "is rooted in tradition and has the divine quality of the times", but Zhang Wei said that "it is itchy and self-aware", and also said that "the Taoist, the Tao is also the Tao, and it is not very Tao." "If you have enlightenment and self-knowledge, how can you no longer enter the essence realm?