Author: Sun Yanjun (Associate Professor, School of Overseas Education, Fujian Normal University)
In terms of the relationship between poetry and painting, the most famous statement comes from Su Dongpo's "Shu Ma Ji (Lantian Smoke and Rain Map)": "The poems of the taste of the Maha Jie, there are paintings in the poems, and the paintings of the observation of the poems have poems in the paintings." Originally, Su Dongpo used the superiority of painting to praise the brilliance of poetry, but only referred to Wang Wei's poems, which were not universal. However, this famous sentence later became the theoretical basis for the unity of poetry and painting, and there were also sayings that "poetry is an invisible painting, and painting is a tangible poem" and "painting is a silent poem, and poetry is a sound painting".
Momei Tu Yuan Wang Mian/Painted profile picture
In fact, as art forms, poetry and painting are both opposites and unified, and unity is the unity of opposites. Zhang Dai, a native of the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century, said: "If you paint with a painting with verses, the painting will not be good; For example, Li Qinglian's "Silent Night Thoughts": "Raise your head to look at the bright moon, bow your head and think of your hometown." 'What is there to paint?' Zhang Dai's questioning is very eloquent, and the psychological activity of homesickness cannot be expressed with visual pictures. The eighteenth-century German Lessing's Laocoon also revealed the difference between poetry and painting, and discussed the contradiction between poetry and painting, poetry and plastic arts, and became an aesthetic classic. In the eighties of the twentieth century, Zhu Guangqian translated it into Chinese. However, for a long time, the theory of the unity of poetry and painting was still regarded as unpublished.
This is not accidental, there is a big difference between the relationship between poetry and painting in Chinese and Western art. The relationship between Chinese poetry and painting is particularly intimate, and the calligraphy and painting of qin, chess, and calligraphy are the comprehensive cultivation of traditional Chinese literati, and many poets are also good at calligraphy and painting. The great painters of the Western Renaissance can often write poems, such as the sonnets of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, which have a place in the history of literature. However, in the West, poetry and painting are independent of each other, and poetry is not made for painting.
Chinese poets often write poems for their paintings. In the forty-sixth year of Kangxi Reign (1707), he collected 120 volumes of "Imperial Title Painting Poems", a total of 8,962 poems, divided into 30 gates, such as trees and stones, landscapes and scenic spots, historic sites, fishing, cultivation and weaving, shepherding leisure, orchid bamboo, wheat, flowers, etc. This is only before the Ming Dynasty, if you count the inscription poems of the Qing Dynasty in the past three hundred years, there must be more than 10,000 poems. This is a unique artistic miracle in the history of world painting.
In the eyes of Western painters, writing sonnets into paintings is undoubtedly destroying the structure of the picture. This is because of the difference in tools, European classical painting generally uses a brush (English brush, both a brush and a brush) to brush paint, applied to canvas, and for poetry, swan feathers and wild goose feathers (English pen comes from Latin penna, feathers, plume in French, both feathers and pens) dipped in ink, can not sway paint, brushes can not compose poems for literature, while Chinese painting and poetry use brushes and ink, all of which are applied to paper and silk. Therefore, poetry and painting are close to each other, which can be called a double flower.
Weixian County Bureau's Chinese painting bamboo Chengnian Bo Bao Dazhong Cheng Kuo Qing Zheng Xie / painting data picture
Of course, there is a development process between poetry and painting from intimacy to coexistence. Originally, the text and pictures were independent, and even the names of the great Tang Dynasty painters Wu Daozi and Li Sixun were not found in the paintings. It is signed in the painting, and some are also signed in an inconspicuous corner, which is called "Tibetan money". The author of the classic Song Dynasty painting "Traveling in Streams and Mountains" was debated endlessly, and it was not until 1958 that scholars found Fan Kuan's inscription in a hidden place in the dense forest. Later, the painter not only wrote the name in it, but also some concise words such as inscriptions, because when writing in the painting, the calligraphy must match it, so it is impossible not to pay attention to it. Calligraphy has since entered painting.
However, words alone are not poetry. From the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty, the atmosphere of painting with poems and inscriptions was greatly opened. However, unlike the name, the poem can no longer be "hidden", and it is written directly into the frame, which may interfere with the structure of the picture. Therefore, the original poem was inscribed outside the painting.
Paintings are applied to paper and silk, which are difficult to preserve and easily damaged, while poems resort to words and are easy to circulate. Therefore, there are few paintings that have been passed down to the world, and there are many poems that have been handed down. There are only more than 48,000 poems in "All Tang Poems", and as many as 10,000 inscription poems have been handed down. A large number of paintings have disappeared into oblivion. Meng Haoran was a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, leaving more than 300 poems, he was still a great painter, but none of the paintings survived. Few people today know that he is still a great painter.
Zhang Yuming, a Ming man, has no status in the history of Ming poetry, but the title "Meng Xiangyang Snow Walking Map" "The snow is full of Qin Jing and wants to go late, so people know each other when they are on the road." How many amazing sentences in his life, but he recited a poem of resentment to the king", but it was included in the "Inscription Poem" of the Siku Quanshu.
Cai Qian of the Song Dynasty said in "Poetry of the Western Qing Dynasty" that the inscription poem cannot "speak in vain", and "if you do your best, the Jinliang of this inscription is also". In other words, pictorial poems should not be limited to visual content, but should break through the limitations of the picture and give full play to the superiority of poetry as a language art.
"Momei" by the crown at the end of the Yuan Dynasty: "My family washes the inkstone pond tree, and all the flowers bloom with light ink marks. Don't let people praise the color, only leave the air full of goodness. The title of this poem is in the blank space of "Memetu". Dong Qichang, Tang Yin, Shen Zhou and other great painters were also good at calligraphy and poetry, and the poems were painted and then inscribed, which became a trend.
In this way, the relationship between poetry and painting has undergone a major change, and poetry is no longer an accessory outside the painting, but an integral part of the painting. The poem is in a conspicuous place in the painting, and its calligraphy cannot but be commensurate with the painting. Poetry, calligraphy and painting are trinity, poetry and painting are no longer one branch and two flowers, and with calligraphy, they have become one branch and three flowers.
Looking back at the ancient people on the mainland, "painting is silent poetry, poetry is sound painting", and Su Dongpo's "there are paintings in poems, and there are poems in paintings", at most they can only be regarded as the prelude to the trinity of poetry, calligraphy and painting.
After all, poetry, calligraphy and painting are three kinds of arts, each with its own norms, so that the three art forms can be integrated, and there can be no process from grass creation to maturity. Even in the Ming Dynasty, when inscriptions were prevalent, the artistic standards of the three were not very balanced, most of them were high in painting, and the quality of calligraphy and poetry was often slightly worse. The reason for this is that poetry is a poem in a painting, and most of them are attached to the painting, and the unfinished meaning in the painting is expanded. The painter Shen Zhou's relatively high-level "Inscription" poem says: "The blue water and Danshan reflect the cane quinoa, and the sunset is still in the west of the small bridge." The slight groaning of the frightened brook bird flew into the depths of the chaotic clouds and cried. "The last couplet, it can't be said that there is no timeless interest, but it is not a masterpiece among the Ming people. Another example is Tang Bohu's self-titled poem "Mengshu Palace Prostitute": "The lotus crown is the Taoist clothes, and the king feasts Ziwei." I don't know if the flowers have gone, and I fight for green and scarlet every year. "The tail couplet is certainly not without aura, but it is limited to the feeling of the characters in the painting. Poetry is subordinate to the painting and subordinate to the painting. The poet's spiritual bearing cannot be fully displayed.
It was not until Xu Wei that the combination of poetry, calligraphy and painting developed to a new stage. His large-scale freehand paintings, the pen and ink are open and open-minded, and there is a "playful" in the inscription. His self-titled painting poems go beyond the content of the painting. For example, the title of the poem "Bamboo Chrysanthemum Yishi": "Fuxiao nine days of dragon mountain, tired and return sleepless." Ask the wine to be astringent by chance, and try to make the spot tube against the money. The content is no longer limited to the interpretation of the painting, but uses the bamboo in the painting to ridicule himself, has no money to buy wine, and uses the bamboo on the painting as wine money, showing that he is poor and chic. His calligraphy is also sometimes in line, sometimes in grass, with the style of "playing".
In order to achieve organic unity, poetry, calligraphy and painting face three problems. First, the quality of the poem, second, the quality of the calligraphy, and third, most importantly, the poem, calligraphy and painting cannot simply add up. In the eighteenth century, this question finally had a theoretical generalization. Fang Xun (1736-1799) said in the volume of "Painting in the Quiet Residence of the Mountains": "Those who paint the environment in the position of the inscription will also benefit from the title." High sentiment and thought, the painting is insufficient, and the question is sent. This is to the point, the trinity of poetry, calligraphy and painting, not only the quality of the poem should reach the level of painting, but more importantly, the inscription poem includes calligraphy, to "position the painting environment", that is, to obey the structure of the picture, at the same time, "the lack of painting", to express the "high sentiment and thought" by the poem.
However, such a theory still lags behind practice. Zheng Banqiao, who was nearly half a century earlier than him, had already achieved a high degree of harmony between the three in art. He not only writes poems in his paintings, but also writes poems into the canvas, and if one is not satisfied, he writes another poem. Sometimes he even wrote poems on the main stone of the painting. His eclectic "positional painting" did not interfere with the picture in the slightest. This is because his calligraphy is self-contained, adding the penmanship of Xingshu, regular script and cursive script to the "eight-point calligraphy" of Han Li, which has become a kind of six-and-a-half point calligraphy. On the surface, it seems to be a bit chaotic, but it is scattered vertically and horizontally, and it is scattered. His poems are also unique, with a high degree of unity and harmony in poetry, calligraphy, and painting. Here's an example:
Insist that the green mountains are not relaxed, and the roots are in the broken rocks. Thousands of blows are still strong, and the wind blows from east to west, north and south.
This is a poem inscribed by Zheng Banqiao on his bamboo and stone paintings. Put bamboo in the relationship with stone, stone is not soil, not suitable for plants to take root and sprout, Zheng Shi emphasizes the tenacity of bamboo, with the word "bite", bamboo is better than stone, benefit from "thousands of blows" and not change "tenacity", and finally add "Ren Er's east, west, north and south winds", using the vernacular, to reach the climax of the poem, where is writing bamboo, it is clearly writing people. His "high sentimental thoughts" really enhance the "inadequacy of painting". If such a poem is still symbolized by bamboo, it is simply directly lyrical in "Painting Bamboo in the Weixian County Bureau":
Yazhai listened to Xiao Xiaozhu, suspected to be the voice of the people's suffering. Some small Caozhou county officials, one branch and one leaf are always concerned.
The bamboo in the painting is silent, and the touching part is that the natural sound of this plant has become the voice of the people's suffering. Zheng Banqiao once inscribed in "Bamboo and Stone Map" that "the bamboo in the chest is not the bamboo in the eye" and "the bamboo in the hand is not the bamboo in the chest", and it should be added that the bamboo written in the poem is different from the bamboo drawn. The bamboo in the poem is a depressed breath in the poet's chest for the suffering of the people, which is always and everywhere. "A branch and a leaf are always about love", the branches and leaves of the bamboo in the painting have obtained the spirit of the bamboo in the poem, and the bamboo in the poem has obtained a perceptual image because of the bamboo in the painting. He inscribed on the "Orchid Bamboo and Stone Map": "Where I paint orchids, bamboo, and stones, they are used for the labor of the world, not for the peace and enjoyment of the world." ”
Looking at the bamboo painted by Zheng Banqiao, there is no way to hide in the wind. Its bamboos are independent of the waterless standing stones, above, and between, and the chic and noble wind gods have it, and there is no spiritual dilemma. Even if he abandoned the official and returned to his hometown, he also painted bamboo to say goodbye to the county people. In "Returning to the Confession, Painting the Gentlemen of Zhubie Wei County", he inscribed the poem like this:
The black yarn is not an official, and Xiao Xiao's sleeves are cold. Write a thin bamboo, and make a fishing rod on the autumn wind river.
The bamboo here is prominent and thin, on the one hand, it echoes the "cold sleeves" of the previous sentence, and on the other hand, it is also the foreshadowing of "making a fishing rod". The thin bamboo has become an off-the-picture fishing rod in nature. Not only is it full of chic taste, but also has a high sense of humor. Poetry and painting complement each other, and the effect goes far beyond the simple sum of poetry and painting.
Zheng Banqiao also organically unified the two arts of calligraphy and painting. Painting is sensual and intuitive, while calligraphy is abstract, but both are inseparable from lines. Zheng Banqiao painted bamboo is known for its thin dry and fat leaves, he expresses the plump bamboo leaves with official calligraphy, bamboo branches with cursive calligraphy and painting, calligraphy and painting are different and the same work, and the blue bamboo pen is painted into the book, revealing the delicate atmosphere, so its poems, calligraphy and painting are intertwined, Zheng Banqiao's poetry and calligraphy and painting, can be called one of the three uniques.
This art form has been inherited and developed in the hands of the older generation of painters in the mainland. The more prominent one is Pan Tianshou, who left more than 100 inscription poems, such as "On the Fuchun River", "The wax clogs can not be deleted, and the Fuchun River is green and murmuring." Don't think that the volume is infinitely long, and I'm afraid of writing a big idiot ink mountain", he wrote his unconventional ease. He also often wrote the same poem in seal script and line script. Feng Zikai also has a whole volume of "Ancient Poems and New Paintings", which uses ancient poems every time to give a new meaning to the concise picture of pen and ink. In addition, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, etc. are also among the masters.
Guangming Daily (2024-04-26 Edition 16)
Source: Guangming Net-Guangming Daily