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Mountains and rivers and forests are a line of sky
——On Zhu Min's landscape paintings
▓ Zou Ling
I have known Zhu Min for many years, but I only know that he is a calligrapher, but I don't know that he is good at painting landscapes. Not long ago, he invited me to read dozens of recent landscape paintings, but I was shocked by the unique flavor of his landscape paintings. It is not difficult to see from his landscape paintings that he has systematically studied and researched landscape paintings, especially Huang Binhong's landscape paintings, which not only have their shapes, spirits, but also originality. I think there are three characteristics: one is to use books into paintings, the second is to be good at "black gas" and "ink", and the third is to create the original "flying leaves".
Huang Binhong once said: "Calligraphy and painting have the same origin, if you want to understand the painting method, you must first study calligraphy, the painting method is vivid, and so is calligraphy." (Wang Zhongxiu, ed., "Huang Binhong's Complete Collected Works: Letters") means that to learn painting, you must first study calligraphy, and it may be "vivid" to use calligraphy as a way to paint. Since ancient times, calligraphy and painting are the same method, Guo Xi of the Song Dynasty said in "Lin Quan Gaozhi": "The painting method is taken from calligraphy, calligraphers are often good at painting, and the cover of their wrists is not sluggish with the pen, which is the same as the brush for painting." ”
This instruction method and painting are the same in the use of the pen, are a combination of lines, and the combination of lines can produce a thousand changes, forming different artistic languages and symbols, the so-called "stone such as flying, white wood such as Zhou, writing bamboo should also be eight laws." (Yuan Zhao Mengfu's inscription "Dead Wood, Bamboo and Stone Map") and "The trees of Guo Xi and Tang Di, the bamboo of Wen and Ke, and the grapes of Wen Riguan are all derived from the grass law, and this painting and calligraphy are also." (Ming Wang Shizhen's "Art Garden Dialect") is about the calligrapher and painter through the line to convey the mood, express the emotion, so that the work reveals a kind of artistic conception and feelings, Zhu Min's landscape painting is also through the line of calligraphy to pursue the charm of the picture and personal ideological taste.
Zhu Min's calligraphy is characterized by the style of calligraphy, such as zheng, line, grass, li, and seal; in terms of form, it has the characteristics of high-pitched and depressed, masculine and feminine, vigorous and light; in terms of brushwork and modeling ability, it has a degree of side, cutting, dragging, chopping, and brushing. Therefore, he integrates the rhythm of calligraphic lines into his paintings, with steady brushstrokes, thick strokes, and heavy grass with potential, so that the hook and the creature in the landscape painting are intertwined, highlighting the overall sense of the lines, and constituting the agility and simplicity in the picture. We can see this from his works such as "Fishing Alone in the Autumn River", "Hanging on the Clouds and Sailing to the Sea", and "There is No Vulgar Things in the Mountain Dwelling".
Straight to the clouds, sails and the sea, Zhu Min
The so-called "black Gong" and "white Gong" refer to the characteristics of Gong Xian, the head of the "Eight Families of Jinling" in the early Qing Dynasty. Gong Xian's early landscape paintings focused on the outline of the outer contour of the mountain, the lines were round, tough, full of changes, and the picture was in a gray and white tone, so it was called "Bai Gong". In his later years, Gong Xian abandoned the gray and white tones and turned to the ink painting method, using ink layer by layer to dye, from simple to complex, from white to black, dense and heavy, quiet and thick, vigorous and moist, so it is called "Black Gong". This style of painting was inherited and innovated by the modern painter Huang Binhong, forming "black and yellow" and "white and yellow", and "black and yellow" is the subtlety of Huang Binhong's landscape painting. However, Huang Binhong believes that "black painting" should focus on "ink", rather than "black gas", he said: "Painting is not afraid of thousands of layers of ink, but afraid of poor ink accumulation. (Wang Bomin, ed., "Huang Binhong's Painting Quotations")
The so-called "black gas" refers to the fact that the picture is more cohesive and thick in the process of pen and ink, forming a lot of unnatural ink blocks, thinking that the ink accumulation is to be thick and black, so that the picture is dark and lifeless, and cannot form a natural harmony. Lu Yanshao said: "If there is no black gas in the painting, even if the whole body is scorched with thick ink, or even with Su ink, horizontal and vertical painting, there is no black gas." There is black gas, even if it is a few faint strokes, there is still black gas. ”
This shows that the formation of "black gas" is caused by the painter's improper use of ink. In order to avoid "black gas", Huang Binhong advocated the "five strokes and seven ink methods", the "five strokes" are flat, round, retained, heavy, and changing, and the "seven inks" are thick, light, broken, accumulated, splashed, scorched, and condensed; he believed that brush and ink are very important in landscape painting, and all of them are indispensable. He said that the use of seven inks in painting is called the law preparation, and the law preparation forms "ink gas"; The aesthetic core of "ink qi" is the generation and continuation of its own artistic value, the gathering and dispersion of the flexible floating of ink and wash, and the "dense atmosphere" and natural beauty formed by the rhythm of the picture.
Zhu Min's cognition and understanding of "black gas" and "ink gas" in ink landscape painting should be soberly distinguished. He believes that the ink color in the picture is too thick and black, and the formation of the ink block does not change, which seems dull and rigid, that is, "black gas"; and "ink" is layered, changing, moving, and living carrier; therefore, in his landscape paintings, he attaches great importance to the difference and correlation between the two, reflecting the relationship between balance and imbalance, and is to present the aesthetic expression of virtual and real, dynamic and static in the expression of black, white and gray and so on.
There is nothing vulgar in the mountain dwelling, Zhu Minzuo
Since ancient times, innovation has been extremely difficult, especially in Chinese painting, and even the slightest new change in painting is worth celebrating. In the study of landscape painting, Zhu Min admired Huang Binhong's "Taiji Diagram Method", that is, in the painting, according to the circular Taiji diagram, the brush sketches a wave of twists and turns, the left line is the strangle, and the right is the hook; the brush waist is fat and round, the brush is sharp, and the front has eight sides; the middle brush has a side, and the side is divided into upper and lower, left and right; the brush is closed and the roots are exposed, which is called the silkworm tail, and inspired by the leaf painting method in Fu Baoshi's "Mrs. Xiang", the static leaves are turned into dynamic leaves, combined with the "Taiji Diagram Method" , with the pen left a bit, the right side, the formation of a semi-circular leaf falling down, the original "flying leaves"; and self-titled "learning to paint landscapes" poem: "rough ink fee graffiti, mud splash swallow branch snow sand, self-created mountain head flying leaf method, Qi Nan to the two masters." ”
We can see from his works "The Flying Leaves of the First Mountain", "Ren Yinqiu", "Mountain Dwelling Map", etc., that the leaves between the peaks and mountains and the valleys fall from top to bottom, echoing each other, seemingly chaotic, but in fact orderly, and it is really a bit of a "Taijitu" flavor. This reminds me of the Northern Song Dynasty painter Fan Kuan's "Raindrop" and Mi Fu's "Raindrop"; "Raindrops" shows the vigor and strength of the peaks, while "Rice Spots" shows the changes and confusion of clouds and mist between the mountains and rivers, both of which are epoch-making innovations. Of course, Zhu Min's "Flying Leaves" cannot be compared with "Raindrops" and "Rice Spots", although "Flying Leaves" is still very immature, and there are still many defects in the form of expression, but he can have some insights in painting, put this perception into action, and look forward to continuous improvement in future paintings, which should also be given a great praise in this regard.
March 17, 2024 in Nanjing
The author is a member of the Chinese Literature and Art Critics Association, deputy secretary-general of the Theoretical Art Committee of the Jiangsu Artists Association, and a painter
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Zhu Min close-up
Zhu Min (Min Zhi), a first-class artist. He is a member of the Calligraphy Committee of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, the executive vice president of the Chinese Calligraphy Research Institute of Southeast University, and the executive chairman of the Nanjing Calligraphers Association.
His works have been exhibited more than 30 times in various authoritative exhibitions sponsored by the Chinese Calligraphers Association and won many awards. He has won awards in the first National Large-character Calligraphy Exhibition and the National "Xiaolan Cup" Calligraphy and Seal Carving Competition, won the "Academic Achievement Award" of the "Lin Sanzhi Triennial" awarded by the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government, twice awarded the "Fifth and Sixth Literary and Art Awards" by the Nanjing Municipal Government, and participated in the 8th National Calligraphy and Seal Carver Exhibition and won the "National Award". Won the highest award in Chinese calligraphy - the 2nd Chinese calligraphy "Lanting Award • Art Award". Because of his calligraphy achievements, he was included in the "Chinese Character Yearbook".