Green Waters and Green Mountains (Peasant Painting) Wang Wenji, Huxian County, Shaanxi
On June 25, Wang Ani, a peasant painter from Jinshan District, Shanghai, gave a career experience class to a nearby middle school student in her studio. She started with the history of peasant painting, extended to the creative techniques of peasant painting, and asked the students to create their own works. Seeing the interested eyes of these children, Wang Ani felt very relieved. Born in the countryside, Wang Ani has been fond of art since she was a child. In 1995, she saw a teacher in the village painting peasant paintings for the first time, and her unique painting style instantly attracted her. Since then, she has embarked on the road of peasant painting. "If traditional Chinese paintings and other traditional paintings are seen as trees with deep roots and lush leaves, then peasant paintings are like flowers in the countryside, full of sunlight and the fragrance of the earth. Of course, they also need a little more care and support. Wang Ani said with emotion.
"Chinese peasant painting was born in the 50s of the 20th century, and along the way, there was an initial immaturity, but also a detour and even a stagnation, until the reform and opening up to the recovery and rebirth." Liao Kaiming, a painter and folk art critic, said. In 1985, Liao Kaiming and artist Cao Zhenfeng wrote an article entitled "The Rising Modern Folk Painting" in the People's Daily, introducing peasant paintings to the public eye. Since then, Liao Kaiming has been committed to promoting the development of peasant painting, and he said that through in-depth study and implementation of Xi Jinping's cultural thought, he has more deeply realized that the reform of peasant painting is moving forward along the road of Chinese-style modernization, which gives traditional culture modern power and has strong vitality.
At present, there are nearly 100 painting towns and more than 10,000 peasant painting creators on the mainland. However, due to the changes in the creative environment and the solidification of the creative style, the development of peasant painting has entered a bottleneck period in recent years. How to enrich the creative form of peasant painting and revitalize the way of social communication is the key to the revitalization of peasant painting.
An art form rooted in the folk
Peasant paintings are simple, naïve, exaggerated and romantic, full of a strong atmosphere of rural life and a keen yearning for a better life. This form of painting was born out of folk art and is closely connected with rural production and life, full of regional characteristics and the atmosphere of the times.
The rich and colorful folk art gives the peasant painting heritage and vitality. Xu Kai, president of Shanghai Jinshan Peasant Painting Institute, introduced that Jinshan peasant painting was born from traditional embroidery, paper-cutting, blue calico, stove head murals and other folk arts, with the customs and customs of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River as the main theme, with bright and bright colors, exaggerated and deformed shapes, and vivid and interesting pictures.
"Chongqing Qijiang peasant prints originated from the woodblock prints of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and combined with the art forms of batik, wood carving, stone carving, cloth stickers and other art forms in the Qijiang region, they jointly gave birth to the unique cultural characteristics and artistic style of Qijiang peasant prints." Liu Yue, president of Chongqing Qijiang Peasant Printmaking Institute, introduced.
Guizhou Shuicheng peasant paintings draw on the artistic elements of local ethnic minorities, and integrate the artistic styles of Miao, Yi, Buyi, Bai, Gelao and other ethnic minorities, giving Shuicheng peasant paintings a strong national charm.
Celebrating the harvest of Chung Xin Rice (peasant painting) Yunnan Guandu Yang Jinghua
The rich canal culture has created the simple, bold, enthusiastic and humorous character of Tianjin Beichen people, and accumulated rich artistic resources for the birth and development of Beichen peasant paintings. Peasant painters borrowed folk arts such as willow youth paintings, paper-cutting, and clay sculptures to form a bold, pungent, witty and humorous artistic style.
"Peasant painting used to blindly pursue academic painting skills, so that peasant painters abandoned their roots and their creativity was extinguished. After the reform and opening up, Shanghai Jinshan Peasant Painting Township took the lead in bold changes, and they believed that the peasant painting developed throughout the country should become a kind of modern folk art, which must take root in the soil and have strong national and local characteristics in order to have vitality. Liao Kaiming said.
At that time, Wu Tongzhang, the pioneer and tutor of Shanghai Jinshan peasant painting, led the peasant painters to visit the old folk artists to clarify the rich local folk art resources, so as to realize that the aesthetic ability and talent of the peasants who had been influenced by folk art since childhood could be used as a way to get started with painting, so he inspired the peasant painters to transform the skills they had cultivated from ceramic patterns, stove murals, blue calico, folk toys, paper-cutting, embroidery, clay sculpture, shadow puppetry, brick carving, lacquer painting and other folk art forms into paintings that expressed new life.
In this way, the peasant painter entered his own artistic kingdom like a fish in water. The true love of life in their hearts can flow freely, and the creative wisdom of the beauty of the form of painting can be fully displayed. This is to express the aesthetic taste and aesthetic ideals of the peasants who have been condensed in folk art for thousands of years in a new form of painting. Liao Kaiming said.
With the development of the times, the creation of peasant paintings is also advancing with the times. Yang Hui, a painter from Guizhou Dafang Peasant Painting Research Institute, introduced: "Dafang peasant paintings are constantly changing in the choice of subject matter and creative techniques, from the old rural theme of cattle ploughing and horses carrying thatched huts to the new picture of a happy new village with busy traffic, recording the development and changes of the rural landscape of socialist New China. ”
Chongqing's Qijiang peasant prints have expanded from the bustle of the market and the busyness of the autumn harvest to a wide range of areas including local culture and historical elements. The artists began to focus on the creation of "big themes" and "big scenes", summarizing and reproducing the unique farming culture of the Bayu region from a macro perspective, and at the same time refining, sublimating and innovating in the form of presentation combined with modern aesthetics.
"We encourage painters to draw nourishment from other art disciplines and make new explorations on the basis of carrying forward the characteristics of traditional art. In the past, peasant paintings were mostly treated with a single line flat painting, but now they are treated with texture effects borrowed from traditional Chinese paintings, rock paintings and traditional murals, and there is a new breakthrough in form. He Xiaobao, director of the art department of Tianjin Beichen Cultural Center, said.
Skillfully draw the dream of poverty alleviation (farmer painting) Guizhou Dafang Yang Hui
New issues on the road to development
With the rapid advancement of urbanization, the way of life of peasants has undergone significant changes, which has had a profound impact on the creation of peasant paintings, and to a certain extent, there have been problems of dilution of regional characteristics, similarity of creation, and lack of depth.
Yunnan Guandu folk painting began in the 70s of the 20th century, and has developed to cultivate more than 1,300 rural art talents. However, what worries Wang Gang, chairman of the Kunming Civil Artists Association, is that the creative transformation and innovative development of Yunnan peasant paintings are not enough, and there is more than inheritance, and there is not enough innovation, which restricts development.
"The rapid development of the market economy has caused some printmakers to pursue short-term interests excessively, shortening the creative cycle, and resulting in a decline in the depth, quality and artistic value of their works." Liu Yue said.
"Regional characteristics come from two aspects, one is the production and life, customs and people in different places; Second, the humanities and folk art traditions of different places are different. Grasp these two aspects to perform, and the problem will be solved. This requires a good mentor to lead the exploration of local folk art resources for innovation. There are also often 'walking exhibitions' between painting townspeople to learn from each other, recognize themselves, and learn from each other's strengths. Liao Kaiming suggested that in terms of the style shaping of individual painters, we can learn from the experience of Mr. Wu Tongzhang, and do not take a unified basic art course, but focus on discovering the different painting potentials and aesthetic orientations of peasant authors. It is necessary not only to understand the common artistic language of peasant paintings, but also to understand the personalized artistic language of each peasant painter, to help them sort out the language and gradually establish their artistic personality.
For some peasant paintings, the pursuit of superficial forms is lively and lacks connotation. Liao Kaiming suggested that we should first learn folk art. "We should not only learn the surface and copy and appropriate the symbols of folk art forms and symbols into our own works, but also understand its cultural connotation and essence, capture its inner charm, study its modeling rules and formal rules, so as to be familiar with the mystery of folk art decoration and apply it to painting creation." He said.
In addition, the team of peasant painting creators has also changed. Wang Ani is deeply touched by this, although many young people now like peasant paintings, but almost do not take the creation of peasant paintings as a profession, and there are currently two apprentices in her studio, which is considered a large team. Wang Wenji also said that in Xi'an, there are fewer young people in rural areas, and there are very few newcomers to participate in peasant paintings, and there are difficulties in the development of the author team. "The backbone of Tianjin Beichen peasant painting creation team is seriously aging, most of the core backbone are the elderly, and young people participate very little, resulting in a serious fault in the creative team. In addition, the assimilation of urban life also makes the creator have no strong desire to create, so the phenomenon of similar pictures will appear. In the long run, it will affect the motivation of creators. He Xiaobao said.
On the ridge of the seedling field (peasant painting) Huai'an, Jiangsu, Pan Yu
"Judging from the situation in Xiuzhou, Jiaxing in recent years, the number of peasant painters in Xiuzhou has not decreased, but the structure of the team has changed, from the 80s of the 20th century 9 rural youth began to paint, to today there are more than 200 creative backbones. The author group is not only farmers, but also rural art teachers, enterprise employees, community residents, etc., and the peasant painting team in Xiuzhou has been growing steadily. Yang Haiping, deputy director of the Cultural Center of Xiuzhou District, Jiaxing, said.
"Due to social changes, the number of authors who are pure farmers in the countryside has decreased sharply, and most of the newcomers are primary school art teachers, which has its own strengths and weaknesses." Liao Kaiming analyzed that the advantage is that they have received a certain amount of art training and have modeling ability. They painted peasant paintings, and they also taught students to paint, and there were successors in the countryside. At the same time, they have cultural knowledge, can keenly discover new things and express them in paintings, and many of the best works in the countryside come from their hands. The disadvantage is the lack of folk art literacy and the lack of rural life experience, which directly leads to the weakening of the regional characteristics of the painting countryside and the hollowness of the content of the painting. In this regard, the course of folk art can be supplemented by scientific methods, and learn to use folk art elements to innovate.
Unlike his father Xu Chenggui, who created peasant paintings in his spare time, Xu Xiaodi, a peasant painter in Shuicheng, Guizhou, devoted himself to the creation of peasant paintings after being trained by a professional art academy. "In today's urban-rural integration, the locality of the works is much weaker than that of the parents, but new things such as live broadcasting, Guizhou goods, and rural Taobao have become new sources of creation. Our generation is to absorb traditional folk art and create new works in combination with the new era. Xu Xiaodi said.
Stepping on the White Boat (Peasant Painting) Jiaxing Xiuzhou Zhu Qinhua
Seize the opportunities of the new era
Nowadays, peasant painting has become an important part of rural culture, which promotes rural revitalization and popularizes mass aesthetics and mass aesthetic education. It develops derivatives with abundant original art, forms a cultural industry, and generates income for farmers; With its simple folk art characteristics, strong local life atmosphere, and vivid stories of China's development, it has become a cultural window for foreigners to understand China.
In Beichen District, Tianjin, it has become a common practice for the vast number of peasants to paint, appreciate and comment on paintings. In addition, most of the subject matter of peasant paintings promotes a positive, harmonious and healthy outlook on life and values, which has a wide range of educational significance for the masses. Over the years, through the subtle influence of peasant paintings, the ideological sentiments of the masses have been sublimated, and there have been fewer fights and neighborhood disputes; There are more respect for teachers and education, respect for elders and filial piety.
"I remember once I went down to the village to tutor, and a farmer painter said that in the past, his lover would go to the village to play mahjong when he was not working, but now he doesn't rub mahjong anymore, and he paints when he has time." Yang Haiping said.
There are also many places where peasant painting has actively entered the campus, focusing on the cultivation of children's peasant painting talents. Thanks to the government's policy support and the great attention of relevant departments, as well as the persistence and creation of some influential artists, Chongqing Qijiang peasant prints have now been officially incorporated into the curriculum system of local primary and secondary schools.
Out of the water hibiscus (peasant painting) Shanghai Jinshan Wang Ani
While promoting the social benefits of peasant paintings, how to explore their economic benefits? At present, the vast majority of peasant painting townships in the country are still in the stage of exploration and attempt.
"Shanghai Jinshan Peasant Painting Institute is responsible for the excavation and sorting of Jinshan peasant paintings, training and counseling, brand exhibitions, academic exchanges, copyright protection, team building, creative research and development, etc." Xu Kai said that at present, a wealth of cultural and creative products have been developed around Shanghai Jinshan peasant paintings, such as silk scarves, hand-painted black pottery plates, mobile phone cases, mobile power supplies, etc., and have also cooperated with a number of well-known brands to design more than 600 products, more than 195 kinds of products have been put into production, and more than 10 urban exhibition areas such as the China Art Palace and the Oriental Pearl Tower have been opened.
Red rhyme (peasant painting) Jilin Huadian Li Zhefeng
"It takes a long time to create peasant paintings, the cost is high, and it is difficult to produce them in batches, which often leads to a situation where there is no market for them. However, it can be combined with the characteristics of local characteristic products and tourist attractions, and find a meeting point from the aspects of aesthetic value and humanistic value to create a relevant industrial chain. Yang Hui said that Guizhou Dafang peasant painting tried to combine with Dafang lacquerware to show the art of peasant painting through lacquerware.
"While seriously demonstrating the successful experience of other painting towns, we believe that first, we should continue to strengthen the training and guidance role of public welfare culture and art, and build a good interactive platform for farmers' painting creation and exchange; Second, in the early stage of industrialization, the government should provide necessary support, guidance, and management, so as to achieve a definite target. Wang Wenji said that the peasant painting industry and the peasant painting industry should perform their respective duties and complement each other.
Source: China Culture Daily
Reporter: Qu Han, Li Bailing, intern, Guo Yiran