◎ Zhu Dongjun
Exhibition: Sense of Inch - Tang Yunyu Watercolor Exhibition
Duration: April 7 – May 3, 2024
Location: Huaixuan
In spring, it is the most suitable to go to see Tang Yunyu's art exhibition.
The green willows are breezing, and the plains are full of red. Walking into this April Huaixuan, spring is coming.
It's just that these "spring colors" belong to China in the fifties and sixties of the last century, and they are a record of the painter's travels at that time.
You may not be familiar with the name of the painter Tang Yunyu, but you probably know the people who intersected with her - Liu Yazi wrote poems for her paintings, Sanyu painted her portraits, He Xiangning married her, and Pan Yuliang was called "Shuangyu" with her. She is the first generation of female artists in the Republic of China, who studied art in Japan and France in the 20s of the last century. She was at the center of trends.
At the center of the trend
It was a time of great events.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a wave of "Western painting" in the Chinese painting world. A group of foreign painters studied and introduced Western oil paintings, and made localized creations. Liu Haisu, Xu Beihong, and Lin Fengmian are all representatives.
It was during this period that Tang Yunyu studied painting and entered the art world. Born in 1906 in Wujiang, Jiangsu Province, she loved painting since childhood, and stayed in Shanghai to teach after graduating from the Shanghai Shenzhou Women's School of Fine Arts at the age of 14. Shanghai was the birthplace and flourishing of the Western Painting Movement. When she was teaching Western painting at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, she and Liu Haisu led more than 100 students to go to Hangzhou West Lake to sketch.
During the same period as Tang Yunyu, a number of female painters emerged, including Pan Yuliang, Cai William, Guan Zilan, Fang Junbi, Sun Duoci, etc. These women were the pioneers and often appeared in the women's and art magazines of the period. "Women" magazine once launched the "four golden flowers" in the art world, namely Tang Yunyu, Fang Junbi, Cai William and Pan Yuliang.
Tang Yunyu is also very active in the art world. She and Pan Yuliang are both members of the Art Garden Painting Research Institute (Yiyuan), an art society. Yiyuan is a non-profit academic institution of painting, teaching Western painting, and also accommodating ordinary painters to create freely, and has a good reputation in Shanghai's Western painting community. Later, Tang Yunyu and others also initiated the Shanghai Art Society and edited and published the "Shanghai Art Monthly".
He was a leader of the Western painting movement, and studied in Japan and Europe. At first, many international students moved to Japan to study Western art. Western painting was imported from France, first with Impressionism and then from Modernism. In the 20s of the last century, more and more people went to Europe to study Western art. Europe is the stronghold of modernism and the heritage of the academy, with its center in Paris. Tang Yunyu was one of the few female painters at that time who had experience in both Japan and France.
In 1926 and 1927, Tang Yunyu went to Japan twice: the first time was to go to Japan as a member of the Jiangsu Provincial Special Investigation Committee on Art Education, and the second time was to accompany Liu Yazi's family.
Tang Yunyu and Mrs. Liu Yazi's sister Zheng Guangying are good friends, so they have known Liu Yazi and his wife since childhood, "often called them brother and sister". Liu Yazi also often wrote inscriptions for Tang Yunyu's paintings. In 1927, Liu Yazi took his wife, two daughters and Zheng Guangying to Japan, accompanied by Tang Yunyu. During this trip, Tang Yunyu learned from painters Hashimoto Sekiyuki, Ishii Kashigetei, and Kunishiro Mitsuya, and her work was selected for the Tokyo Exhibition. It was also during this trip that Tang Yunyu met and fell in love with Zheng Kuiyi, who studied in the Department of Political Science and Economics of Waseda University.
In January 1930, "Liangyou" magazine published the news of Tang Yunyu's trip to France. In this year, Tang Yunyu and Zheng set out from Shanghai, passed through Hong Kong, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Singapore and other places, traveled along the Suez Canal to Cairo, took a camel to view the pyramids, and then crossed the Mediterranean Sea and landed at the port of Marseille.
When she first arrived in Paris, Tang Yunyu went to the Louvre every day to paint, ate some bread at noon, and went to the studio to learn sketching in the evening, and was soon admitted to the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She studied orthodox oil painting and also studied in the studios of New School painters, and her works were exhibited in the spring and autumn art exhibitions in France.
During the same period, Zheng was studying for a doctorate in history at the University of Paris. In 1931, Tang Yunyu and Zheng Kuo got married, and the witness was He Xiangning. The couple has been living in Europe for almost 8 years. Every summer, they travel to various European countries to visit art museums, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, etc.
Clouds and sparkles
The Huaixuan exhibits are all watercolor works created by Tang Yunyu in the fifties and sixties of the last century. In 1938, Tang Yunyu and his wife returned to China, settled in Hong Kong, and returned to Shanghai in 1940. Tang Yunyu first taught Western painting at Shanghai Xinhua Art College and Shanghai Art College, and after 1949, he taught in many middle schools in Shanghai. Every winter and summer vacation, she goes out to travel and sketch - Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Guilin, Guangxi, Hunan and other places have her footprints.
So, in this exhibition, we followed Tang Yunyu on a long trip, through the cascading red walls of Beihai Park, overlooking the west peak and chess pavilion of Huashan Mountain, strolling through the old streets of Xi'an, putting a boat on the lake, and enjoying the spring of Cuihua.
Tang Yunyu likes Van Gogh and Cézanne. Her sketches are simple and realistic as a whole, and the influence of Impressionism can be seen in the details, with clouds, waves, flowers and trees all transformed into different shades of color blocks and strips, recording the artist's perception at a moment's time.
Landscape painting and portraiture are Tang Yunyu's specialty, and they are also her consistent creative themes. In 1929, the first national art exhibition in Chinese history was held in Shanghai. Tang Yunyu has 5 works selected, among which "Suzhou Street" has also been released as a postcard. Some visitors commented that the urban landscape was a subject that few painters set foot in at that time, and "Suzhou Street" used gloomy colors to represent the greatness of history.
In 1947, Tang Yunyu also held an oil painting exhibition in the painting hall of Shanghai Daxin Company, with as many as 100 works, divided into landscapes, still lifes, portraits, human bodies, famous paintings and sketches, especially landscape paintings. An article in the newspaper recorded, "Its color is dull and uniform, and the light is harmonious, especially its fine workmanship is far beyond the reach of ordinary oil painters...... The colors are particularly fantastical...... and the cover used in the catalogue of that exhibition was a portrait of Tang Yunyu made by Sanyu in Paris in 1930. The concise lines and modern techniques outline Tang Yunyu's modern temperament.
Outdoor sketching is also Tang Yunyu's favorite, and she often creates outdoors when she is in France. At that time, she had already given birth to her eldest daughter Zheng Fangli and eldest son Zheng Guangxian. In the memories of her children, Tang Yunyu's handbag always contains albums and brushes, and she paints them when she sees beautiful scenery. When she travels with her family, she always brings her small painting suitcase, and on weekends outside Paris, she brings an easel, a sketchpad, a paintbrush and a folding chair. When the family plays, she sits quietly in the landscape of her choice, engrossed in painting. Zheng Fangli felt that it was the happiest and most satisfying moment for his mother.
Tang Yuyun herself said that she "gradually cultivated, and felt that her interest in painting was purer than anything else, and she could eliminate all her troubles, so when she was painting, she was unwilling to do anything anyway."
Flexible and tough
Huaixuan's exhibition for Tang Yunyu is titled "Sense of Inch", which is named after one of Tang Yunyu's own articles. She wrote: "Of course, the success of painting is based on the material, color tone, and structure, and I especially feel that the tone of the painting can express each individual's personality. ...... I...... In the invisible, I often like to use cold colors...... This is also a sign of my personality, and as for other painters, they all have their own lives in them. ”
As Tang Yunyu said, her own paintings are all light and elegant, showing a quiet and indifferent temperament. At that time, the "Women" magazine commented on her, "extremely gentle and smooth".
However, this evaluation is only half true - Heshun is not all she has. Tang Yuyun's life has been bumpy with the times. She has experienced the turmoil of war, most of her works were lost to the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and destroyed by the catastrophe of the decade, and she has experienced the highs and lows of life, attracting attention when she was young, and gradually falling silent in the second half of her life. Enduring the pain, she reveals another side of her character.
From the 50s to the 70s of the last century, Tang Yunyu's painting style no longer matched the atmosphere of the times, and her artistic activities and oil painting creation gradually decreased until she faded out of public view. But she still paints as much as she can, insisting on depicting landscapes in the way she likes. Behind the quiet picture of the years is a long-term patience, a tenacity that does not want to give up ideals, and a dedication to painting.
In 1980, Tang Yunyu and her family moved to the United States. Despite her advanced age, her passion for painting has not diminished, specializing in portraits and flowers. She took the bus to the portrait class to paint, and even accidentally broke her thigh and hit a steel nail, but insisted on going to the studio. She also joined the Southern California Artists Association and participated in some small art exhibitions. Later, her physical condition became worse and worse, and she continued to paint at home until she was treated with cancer and chemotherapy.
In 1992, two days before Tang Yunyu's death, her second son Zheng Guangzhou sent a bouquet of flowers. The second daughter, Zheng Yiwen, asked Tang Yunyu, do you want to paint? Tang Yuyun said, yes. In a few minutes, she finished the last picture of her life. The brushstrokes are sloppy but powerful, and they are full of life.
Returning to the exhibition in front of us, the poster of the exhibition reflects the artist's character. There is only a willow branch on the poster, taken from Tang Yunyu's painting "Outside the Ancient City". Outside the ancient city, willow branches blown by the wind occupy half of the picture. Tang Yunyu is like this willow branch - soft and tough. The contagious power thus generated is not sharp, but it is long, melts into the painting, and grows in another spring.