Abstract: When I first met Zhao Zhu, he was a doll in the first grade of the private primary school on Yangliu Street in Xingyi.
When I first met Zhao Zhu, he was a doll in the first grade of Yangliu Street Private Primary School in Xingyi. Now, decades later, he has become a director of the China Oil Painting Society, the president of the Guizhou Oil Painting Society, and a professor and master supervisor of the Academy of Fine Arts of Guizhou University. In 2016, his solo oil paintings were exhibited at ViewTwo Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
A recent photo of Zhao Zhu
It was 1971, and I was selected from Pingdong Commune in Xingyi to the regional script creation team, and was ordered to write a script and prepare to participate in the provincial literary and artistic performances. I compiled the materials of Maoli Ping in Pingdong into four dramas "Up and Down the Mountain" to make up the numbers. The person in charge of the script creation team is Zhao Rong from the United Front Work Department of the prefectural committee. On this day, Zhao Rong brought his son Zhao Zhu to the creation studio. The doll is well-behaved, and we all make him laugh. A friend asked him to write down his name, Zhao Zhu generously wrote "Zhao Ge", he wrote the word "bamboo" separately, everyone laughed, and called him Zhao Ge, Zhao Zhu also smiled, it seems that it is quite good to call each one. Until now, Zhao Zhu's WeChat nickname is just a "one".
When he was in elementary school, his father entrusted him to Zhang Yiyu, a painter who graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and worked at Xingyi Film Company, so Zhao Zhu's art career began.
Zhang Yiyu and I are junior high school classmates, and we both love to go to Zhao Rong's house to play. Zhao Rong lives in an alley on the side of Yangliu Street, which is the dormitory of the United Front Work Department of the Prefectural Party Committee. As soon as you enter the alley, there is a thin stream of water on the left, which is murmuring all year round, which is very meaningful. Their dormitory is small and exquisite, fresh and elegant, and there is a big catalpa tree in the courtyard at the door, like a villa hidden in the downtown area, and the environment is very pleasant. I can't help but think of Chekhov's house with an attic. Zhao Rong and Zhang Yiyu and I got together to brag, while Zhao Zhu drew various gypsum geometries in the next room and began basic training.
I went to Zhao Rong's house to gather out of interest, we have a similar cultural level, and we have many common topics to talk about. For example, on one occasion, Zhang Yiyu told the story of the painter Chang Shuhong's trip to Dunhuang. He has a strong memory and is like a river. He said that Chang Shuhong got an eight-cylinder "Buick" car to go to Dunhuang, and he also brought a female sculptor with him, saying that there were sculptures in Dunhuang, so she went. Thousand Buddha Cave, the source of ancient Chinese painting, Chang Shuhong was still in Paris, he saw the Dunhuang manuscript. Those thousand Buddha's golden bodies are not bad for thousands of years. Later, the female sculptor couldn't bear the hardships of Dunhuang, and quietly drove the Buick car, and the anxious Chang Shuhong rode a horse and chased all night......
Speaking of art and artists is Zhang Yiyu's strength. What Repin, Surikov, Rembrandt, Holbein, Michelangelo, Rubens, Botticelli, Titian and other masters, string after string, see the son, there is always something to say. At that time, I also borrowed an encyclopedic "Art Volume" from him to read.
Zhao Rong is an old-school intellectual, he has a lot of education, and he is involved in many fields, Confucianism, Lao Zhuang, Buddhism, Wang Yangming, Cao Xueqin, and Xu Xiake. Later, he really created the script of the movie "Xu Xiake".
Selected oil paintings of Zhao Zhu
Speaking of Chen Yinke, he said that Feng Youlan is a university scholar and is much more famous than Chen Yinke, but he is respectful and considers himself a student in front of Chen Yinke. Fu Sinian, who was in the sky of the world, sighed, "Mr. Chen's knowledge is only one person in the past three hundred years. He said that Chen Yinke loved books as much as his life. When I was studying at Harvard, I developed a penchant for buying books, buying more, and buying them all. The Japanese army surrounded Tsinghua Garden, and Chen Yinke asked his nephew Chen Fengxiong to hire a car to rush his books and manuscripts. The space in the car is limited, and what Chen Yinke is most distressed about is that he spent 2,000 yuan to buy the "Tripitaka Sutra", two or three hundred copies, which cannot fit into the car.
I'm shallow and my knowledge is fragmented. I can only say that I have watched "Les Miserables", Valjean, Savoy, Fantine, the famous phrase "hope is sometimes lost", and that I like what Hugo said in his speech, that it is better to build more schools than to build one more prison. I also said Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman", that Pushkin's former residence was very small, and there was a grove out of it, which was the place where Pushkin duel with his rival in love. I also said "Anna · Karenina", the woman who boldly pursued love, who never curled up in the shadow of others, and finally committed suicide by lying on the rails with her skirt dragging to the ground. Her eyes seem to be beautiful and behind them is a huge black hole that wants to attract people to it.
It was in 1974 and 1975, and this kind of spiritual gathering was very tempting, at least once a week, and of course we would also talk about some current political topics, and it was our consensus to build a society based on the rule of law.
When Zhao Zhu heard us talk lively, he would run over and stand in the corner to listen.
Once his mother finds out, she will ask him to go back to his room to paint.
Zhao Zhu's mother is very virtuous, and when we talk about the dead of night, she will cook us a bowl of sweet wine eggs.
In 1972, Zhao Zhu transferred to Xingyi Hongxing Road Primary School to study.
In 1975, he entered Xingyi No. 3 Middle School. After entering junior high school, Zhao Zhu was full of interest in painting, and his painting skills continued to improve, drawing many big-character posters and blackboard newspaper mastheads for the school, and his thinking was also a little precocious.
Zhao Zhu recalls this time, saying, "I became obsessed with painting when I was about seven or eight years old in my childhood, but fortunately, my parents always encouraged me and found me a teacher to help me. It just so happens that some of my parents' friends are very professional painters. I think it's one of the human instincts to capture images and explore space with its practical brush, and everyone's artistic feeling will sprout in their childhood. Look at the children around you, as long as you have a pen, you can doodle. Tens of thousands of years ago, human ancestors also left a large number of carved traces on the cave cliffs, but unfortunately most people's painting potential was killed by social merit prejudices.
Zhao Zhu came to Xingyi with his parents from Guiyang when the Xingyi area was established in 1965, when he was one year old, and spent his childhood, childhood, and youth in Xingyi.
After entering junior high school, Zhao Zhu did everything possible to find a plaster figure, and later heard that there was a storage room for Xingyi Normal School, and the Xingyi Normal School at that time was on Mujia's side, which was relatively far away. Zhao Zhu carried a basket to borrow, and as a result, he came back with a basket of plaster portraits, and he still remembers that among the portraits, the most famous is the head of Gorky, and he smoothly painted all these portraits.
When he was twelve or thirteen years old, he and his little friend Wang Yu carried a sketchpad on their backs, and went to Xia Wutun, Jingjiatun, Duocaotian, Yulong, Jushan, Bagu Mountain, Wanfeng Forest, Maling River Canyon, and Dingxiao...... Sketch.
Dozens of sketches from that year are still intact.
He is like a fawn, running on the bank of the Panjiang River, spreading his hooves and taking off lightly, showing the vitality that life cannot hide, this fawn, affectionately receives the nourishment of Mother Earth, nourishes his agile body and soul......
Zhao Zhu has formed a deep love affair with Panjiang landscape.
Zhao Zhu also likes to listen to music, has learned to play the violin, prefers the Baroque, and admires Bach.
Zhao Zhu's art started very well, such as sketching, his enlightenment teacher said, why "sketching"? Because sketching is a direct way to observe the real world, facing and undertaking infinitely rich objects, sketching is anti-transcendental and anti-solidified, it is the realization and closeness with the real world anytime and anywhere, and it is the "de-enchantment" of other discourses (such as metaphysics), so that it can touch the real and definite existence. The observation style of sketching is also a reliance on creative discovery.
It's a very high, solid starting point.
Zhao Zhu kept it in mind.
In 1979, Zhao Zhu was successfully admitted to Guizhou Provincial Art School to study art.
In art school, he had a solid foundation in drawing, color, and composition. Especially in terms of color, Mr. Xiang Guang gave him a lot of inspiration. Teacher Xiang Guang was "distributed" to Guizhou from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1964. Wang Lin, a professor at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, said that Xiang Guang's oil paintings are truly first-class oil paintings. Zhao Zhu agreed, he said that if it weren't for the learning of Xiang's teacher's color, it would be difficult to be admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
His work began to come out. His oil paintings with his mother as a model were published on the back cover of Shanhua magazine, and his works were also published in Huaxi magazine.
Zhao Zhu said: "I wandered in the mountains of Guizhou, fascinated by the strange hometown. I threw myself into one carnival after another, like returning from the same path and enjoying the mountains and forests. Listen to the breeze, watch the bright moon, drink the mountain stream and clear spring, and taste the world. Because we are amazed at the existence of the real thing, we truly return to the ego, and only one person is real. ”
Zhao Zhu formed his own thoughts and expressions.
While receiving an art education, he began to love literature. Zhao Zhu told me that when he was a child, he also read Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman", a pamphlet, with a gray-green cover in the center, printed with a bronze knight statue of Peter the Great. He secretly took it from his father's bookcase. It seems that your Uncle Lu lent it to my father. I said, I read Zha Liangzheng's translation.
When he went to secondary school, his father ordered him a publication called "Foreign Literature and Art", in which he read the novel "The Little Prince" by France writer Anthony · de ·Saint-Exupéry.
What impressed me the most when I read "The Little Prince" was the fox's "domestication of love" for the little prince, which he believes is the warm background of the story and the theme of the story. The novel "The Little Prince" was voted the best book of the 20th century by France readers.
The enlightenment given to Zhao Zhu by the reading of "The Little Prince" is that as a painter, his cognition should not be limited to the field of painting, but should also have a broad knowledge background such as literature, history and philosophy, and should be extensively involved to broaden his horizons and the dimension of thought.
In 1983, Zhao Zhu was admitted to the Second Studio of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. At the same time, he was also admitted to the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. Naturally, he chose the former.
It is the highest temple of Chinese art.
At that time, there were many painters in the Central Academy of Fine Arts, including those who came from Yan'an, those who stayed in the Soviet Union, and those who returned from studying in France, including Gu Yuan, Jin Shangyi, Feng Faci (Xu Beihong's disciple), Wu Zuoren, and Wen Lipeng (Wen Yiduo's son......
Zhao Zhu's second studio was directly taught by Wen Lipeng, Lin Gang, Li Tianxiang, and Su Gaoli, who returned from studying in the Soviet Union.
The most surprising thing is that there are more teachers than students at the college. At that time, there were only five students in their studio, but there were twenty or thirty teachers, which was a unique "special offer".
This is a key stage in Zhao Zhu's artistic progress, a breakthrough stage in concept and art.
He strongly agreed with the Italy philosopher Pico · de la · Mirandola that "man has no innate fixed form". Pico celebrates man as a free creature who knows and governs all that exists. Man is the most self-contained subject and the most abundant object.
He realized that music can be heard, articles can be reverberate, and painting is "moisturizing things silently" and "forgetting things and me" is the ultimate state. "If language cannot be exhausted, keep silent", such as Tao Yuanming's "The mountain weather is beautiful, and the birds are returning; There is a true meaning in this, and I have forgotten to distinguish it. ”
On the eve of Zhao Zhu's graduation in August 1987, his graduation work "Livestock Market" was collected by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and published in China Art Newspaper in the same year.
At this time, Zhao Zhu's whole person entered a mature period, and his creation entered a vigorous period.
After graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Zhao Zhu went to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts of Guizhou University.
In 1988, his "White Horse" was published, and in October of the same year, he won the first prize of the first Guizhou Oil Painting Exhibition. In May 1989, the oil painting "Great River Rush Gorge" won the first prize of the "Times Style Exhibition" in Guizhou Province. In October 1989, the oil painting "Long River Festival" was selected for the 7th National Art Exhibition. In December 2007, the artist's series of albums "Zhao Zhu" was published. In March 2008, West Chester University, United States - Visual · Spanning Academic Exhibition, his "Yelang Valley Sketch" appeared. In December 2008, his oil painting "Friends" won the first prize in the "Art Exhibition of the 30th Anniversary of Guizhou's Reform and Opening-up" at Guiyang Art Museum. In April 2009, the National Art Museum of China exhibited his oil painting "Two Sisters of Huaxi Qingmiao" at the · Shuangshuang Guiyang Art Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China. In May 2011, Guiyang Art Museum "Face: Zhao Zhu's Solo Exhibition", exhibiting 138 works. During the same period, he published three albums: "Zhao Zhu Oil Painting · Face", "Zhao Zhu Sketch · Sketchbook" and "Zhao Zhu Like a Shadow· with the Form". In May 2012, Shanghai Hongqiao Museum of Contemporary Art exhibited "Chinese Contemporary Oil Painters Series · Zhao Zhu Works Exhibition".
This is called a shot and uncontrollable.
Someone once asked him: What is the one thing that impresses you the most about your years of painting experience?
Zhao Zhu said: I drew 12 people's sketches in one day. Four oil paintings, eight sketches, enjoyable.
Painting is a conscious art, and many times the painter indulges in direct sensual pleasures.
At the same time as the bumper harvest of oil painting, Zhao Zhu did not leave the books of Wenshi Zhe. There is a best-selling book called "A Brief History of the Future", written by the author Harari in Israel, who has read it twice and has recommended it to many people, who says that this book influenced his love of reading philosophy books, and he likes to read some philosophical books, mainly existentialist and centered on Heidegger.
When Zhao Zhu was fifty years old, he said that "fifty knows the destiny of heaven", because of the annual rings, it is difficult to leave fate after all, right? I had just turned 50 and found myself plunging headlong into the floating soil of my original hometown in Guizhou. I wandered in the mountains of Guizhou, fascinated by the strange hometown, and these gains belong not only to art, but also to life.
Obviously, there is a feeling, or it needs to be reviewed, it needs to be organized, it needs to be reflected, and it needs to be improved.
Soon after, he gave a lecture on "What is Art" at the "White Island Zero Zen Forest" in Guiyang.
Zhao Zhu went to the Art Academy of Guizhou University and became a colleague with Zhang Yiyu.
In 2012, Zhang Yiyu was seriously ill and hospitalized from Xingyi to Guiyang, and his daughter Lan Lan returned from United States to accompany her father and publish a picture album for her father.
Lan Lan also grew up in Xingyi, and Zhao Zhu is small.
Zhang Yiyu drew a sketch of Zhao Zhu when he was a child, and his small and agile appearance jumped on the paper. Zhang Yiyu also used Yang Lanlan to model him, Zhang Yiyu sharpened a row of pencils, but his daughter refused to give in, and his father promised to give you a bud valley after the painting was completed.
The album was flown in from Chengdu and brought together the main works of Zhang Yiyu's life. On January 13, the School of Art of Guizhou University held a solo exhibition for Zhang Yiyu. On that day, Zhao Zhu and I, as well as Jiang Changqing, Chen Zukun, Xie Guangrong, and Huang Deying from Xingyi, and Yang Changhuai, Xiang Guang, Li Ang, and Chen Zheng, heavyweights in Guizhou's art circles, all came. Zhang Yiyu's speech seemed to be lacking in energy, but he still spoke very soberly, decently, and in place. At this time, I remembered one of Kundera's novels, called "A Party for Farewell", and my heart was inevitably sad.
On April 26, 2013, Zhao Zhu and I attended Zhang Yiyu's farewell ceremony in Jingyun Mountain, and we took a group photo.
Usually, Zhao Zhu and I occasionally meet on the street because we live very closely. At one meeting, he said, "Uncle Lu, shall I paint you an oil portrait?" ”
Later, I came to Zhao Zhu's studio on the 4th floor of Building 5 of the Academy of Fine Arts of Guizhou University in Huaxi.
This is the first time I have come to the studio of an oil painter, and the studio is filled with a kind of turpentine atmosphere, and the works, semi-finished products, are full of colors, brushes, tools, and books are very attractive to me. It turns out that the painters are immersed in this artistic atmosphere?
I like and cherish this oil portrait that Zhao Zhu painted for me, and it has been hanging in my humble room.
For a painter, the real studio is nature. The landscape of Guizhou, no matter how you paint it, is nothing more than the natural humanities of thousands of mountains and rivers, thousands of peaks and thousands of villages, and you can paint it wherever you go. The off-road vehicle is the painting box, and the world is the studio.
After all, Zhao Zhu has lived in Xingyi for 14 years and has endless thoughts about Xingyi. He returned to southwest Guizhou many times to sketch, collect style, and create. What's more, Xingyi has his mentors and friends Xie Guangrong, Dai Zhongguang, Chen Zukun, Zeng Chuanwen, Cao Zhiyong, and Wei Yongkang. There are also Zheng Yong and Deng Kuanglin...... A common hobby, a common pursuit, connects them and cherishes each other.
Deng Kuanglin once worked in the Youth League Committee of Xingyi Teacher's College, he was Zhao Zhu's playmate and painting friend since childhood, and later, when he became the president of the Guizhou Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, he set up an art committee and hired Zhao Zhu as a consultant.
Zhao Zhu himself said: "The beautiful scenery and profound minority culture of Guizhou have given me artistic inspiration and technical breakthroughs. ”
Zhao Zhu went to Xingyi, Zhenfeng and other places, and also painted an oil painting of Wanfeng Lake.
Fast forward to 2014. Zhao Zhu spent three months creating the large painting "Vowels" (210cmx160cm), which is the first work of the "Miaojiang Trilogy". In July, he appeared at the 12th National Art Exhibition and won the Excellence Award of the China Art Award.
"Vowels" can be called Zhao Zhu's masterpiece.
The success of the large painting "Vowels" is inevitable, just like the wind has to blow and the water has to flow.
In 2017, Zhao Zhu's oil painting "Yi Nationality Pu Taiji" was selected for the colorful Guizhou large-scale calligraphy and painting "Double Hundred" creation project exhibition and won the Excellence Award.
Zhao Zhu perceives with life, explores the infinite with the finite in the free space, and "Vowels" and "Yi Nationality Pu Taiji" are representative works that combine Western painting art with Guizhou's local ethnic culture.
At the end of May this year, Zhao Zhu asked my son and I to go to his studio at the Guizhou Art Museum to chat.
It was a great time to see each other.
In the studio, there is a large-scale oil painting that he has just completed to participate in the national art exhibition, "On January 2, 1935, the Second Division and the Fourth Regiment of the First Red Army Broke Through the Wujiang River". The picture occupies a wall.
I said, this should be the Jiangjie River in Weng'an?
Yes. He went to the Jiangjie River in Weng'an many times to sketch on the spot. He gave us a detailed account of the battle that took place in Guizhou in 1935.
The table top of the studio has props for painting, such as miniature pistol models.
Not to mention the characters in the picture, even the gun in the hand of the person is also done in the way of sketching.
Let's talk about his participation in "Xing Song 2023 - Looking at Guizhou", which is a unique set of oil painting comic strips, reflecting the new life of Guizhou up close.
The flying bridge is like a rainbow over the ridge, and the sea of clouds is steaming to welcome distant friends. The light car explores the scenic spots, and the fog and tide wash away the dust.
The wine brought out the drunken soul, and the Miao girl pretended to smile and blocked the door. The scenery is even Xiangchu, and the love rhyme is especially true.
In the long table of stacked cups, the banquet is set in the winding path of Xijiangli. Guests come home and gather happily.
At the end of the banquet, the voices of people were boiling, and the neighbors on the railing laughed loudly. The "village BA" in the mountains, the night battle is still in full swing.
"Guizhou Tour" depicts the various beauty, friendship, and feelings witnessed by the self-driving team on their journey to Guizhou in 2023.
This month, Zhao Zhuzheng is sixty years old, and he still has such enthusiasm, motivation, open-mindedness, and chic. It is "fifty and know the destiny of heaven, and sixty and obey the ear".
Let's talk about the house with an attic in the alley of Yangliu Street in Xingyi.
Zhao Zhu said, in fact, at that time, the conversation between the three of you in the living room, I heard it when I was sketching next door, I felt curious, I love to run over to see you talking, the three of you, I thought it was: Iron Triangle.
Decades, suddenly, Zhao Zhu is sixty years old.
Here, I wish Zhao Zhu eternal youth and a peerless ride on the road of artistic creation.
Photo/Selected oil paintings by Zhao Zhu
Author: Text/Picture Lu Huilong
Second instance Deng Hanyu
Third trial Shu Pengqian
(Editor-in-charge: Zhou Bo)