This year marks the 125th anniversary of Liu Haisu's birth. A videotape 31 years ago, led to the recently opened special exhibition "Huangshan Returns to Ascend Again - Liu Haisu's American Colorado Canyon Sketch Documentary Documentary Exhibition", but also revealed a little-known past - in 1990, two years after completing the feat of "Ten On the Yellow Mountains", Liu Haisu actually climbed the Grand Canyon of the United States to sketch again, when he was 95 years old.
Regarding this sketching experience, there is only one short sentence in the "Liu Haisu Annals". The works of the past are now in the public eye for various reasons. Why did Liu Haisu insist on going to the Grand Canyon to sketch despite his age? This sketch stayed for a few days in total, what works were left behind? For a series of questions, this exhibition gives answers one by one.
The core part of the exhibition is this precious videotape, which lasts for more than 8 hours, together with more than 60 live photos, which are all detailed first-hand information on the sketching trip to the Grand Canyon of Liu Haisu that year. They came from donations from overseas Chinese Zhang Shanli, who was also an important witness to Liu Haisu's trip. Many of the documents of the news documentary extend more rich details to the exhibition. As a result, people can glimpse the footprints of Liu Haisu in the United States and the Grand Canyon in this exhibition, and once again chew on the significance of sketching in artistic creation.
Liu Haisu", "Grand Canyon" oil painting, 1990
At the age of 95, he sketched in the Grand Canyon of the United States, which was praised as "setting a new record in the history of modern Chinese painting"
Liu Haisu went to the Grand Canyon of the United States from May 22 to 24, 1990 to sketch. In April of that year, he and his wife, Shayjo, visited the United States for the second time and stayed at Zhang Shanli's riverside villa in Los Angeles. During that time, Zhang Shanli and Liu Haisu talked about the World Natural Heritage of the United States, the magical and spectacular Grand Canyon of Arizona, which made Liu Haisu vaguely moved his heart. In the future, he said more than once that he must go to the Grand Canyon to depict the natural wonders of the world, and he even shed tears when he spoke. If it is an emotional picture, it appears in the record of the videotape.
In the end, with full preparation, Liu Haisu's dream came true. He spent a total of three days sketching in the Grand Canyon and completed three sketches on the scenery, including two oil paintings and one Chinese painting. Liu Haisu's sketch was praised by the Los Angeles media at the time as "setting a new record in the history of modern Chinese painting".
On May 21, Liu Haisu took a small plane to change cars into the Grand Canyon, accompanied by health doctors, took all emergency medicines, and personally went to the painting materials store to prepare sketching materials before leaving. For the next three days, he completed a sketch every day.
The first of these works began at 11:00 a.m. on May 22. In the sketching spot chosen on the first day, Bangs Haisu, dressed in a light-colored trench coat with a hat, sat in a wheelchair and bathed in brilliant sunshine. One can see from the video that he picks up the oil paint brush, dips it in full blue paint, raises his eyes to gaze at the scenery in front of him for a moment, and then drops the first stroke on the canvas. In this first sketch, he painted for nearly two hours, painting a typical Grand Canyon landscape with rich colors: on the right side of the canvas is a knife-like "Table Mountain", on the left is a green grove of trees, in the middle are mushroom-shaped cliff pillars, and in the distance are layered red mountains.
In the second sketch, Liu Haisu painted only one ancient pine tree, leafy and lush, using a lot of indigo and emerald green. Zhang Shanli revealed that the picture came from a chance encounter on the journey - near a watchtower built on an old Indian site, Liu Haisu found this ancient cypress, the trunk was peeled off, but it burst out of the new green, full of vitality in the sun, overjoyed, he could not help but pick up the pen to freeze it.
Liu Haisu "Gu Bai" oil painting 1990
The most surprising thing is that the third sketch, Liu Haisu actually painted a Chinese painting. The mountain wind in the canyon is a bit strong, and the thin rice paper will be blown up if you are not careful, only to see four locally sourced mountain stones acting as "paperweights", Liu Haisu simply standing in front of the drawing table and waving a pen, and Shaycho holding a cup full of ink on the side. A historical photo left behind at that time shows that in the blank space of the painting, there is a poem by Liu Haisu: the Grand Canyon of the Wonders of the World, the pen and ink are dripping with BangsHaisu, ninety-five years old, and the rise and fall are deceived.
A local print media report wrote that liu Haisu was so excited that he lost sleep for several nights when he returned from the Grand Canyon. Although only large-scale works have been completed in the Grand Canyon, Liu Haisu said that he still has a lot of drafts left in his brain, and he said that he has been to the Grand Canyon and only then did he know that the smallness of nature's great people is one of the smallest in the sea. Interestingly, this report also appeared in this exhibition as a vivid footnote.
Liu Haisu painted Chinese paintings on the third day of the Grand Canyon in the United States
Painting the Grand Canyon of the United States ultimately paints a unique expression of nationalization and the spiritual pursuit of continuous transcendence
Today, looking back at Liu Haisu's sketch of the American Grand Canyon 31 years ago, the deep meaning is far beyond the picture.
Sketching, from the return of "Ten Yellow Mountains" to the re-climbing of the Grand Canyon of the United States, condenses a spiritual force of Liu Haisu's continuous search for self-breakthrough. This breakthrough is not only about transcending physical limits, but also about climbing the mountain of art. Liu Haisu's artistic path is precisely in the process of accumulating sketching. He painted ten sketches on Huangshan Mountain in a span of 70 years, from "approaching Huangshan Mountain" to "walking into Huangshan Mountain", from "Huangshan is my teacher" to "Huangshan is my friend", and finally drew the life connection with the object depicted, and brought the mountain to life. Such a spirit of sketching, in the eyes of the industry, is exactly what the Chinese art industry urgently needs to promote today.
Intriguing, there is also Liu Haisu's strong sense of Chinese cultural subjectivity. Jin Wenyi, curator of the exhibition and deputy director of the Liu Haisu Art Museum, told reporters that in the process of sketching in the Grand Canyon, Liu Haisu was actually thinking and pondering while painting. His last Sketch of Chinese Paintings was made up for a while. Originally, he only brought oil painting materials and painting materials when he went out that day, and suddenly decided to use Chinese freehand techniques to depict the magical landscape of the Grand Canyon, believing that this could best express his ideal artistic pursuit. To this end, the entourage drove back to the hotel for more than an hour and brought rice paper, brushes and ink.
Exotic sketching, as early as the late 1920s to the mid-1930s of Liu Haisu during the European tour, has been a lot of attempts. But at that time, he was using the painting technique of "taking" from the West--he was sketching with a hungry learning attitude. After a while of sketching in the Grand Canyon of the United States, Liu Haisu seems to paint a Chinese style. Even if he painted oil paintings at that time, the materials came from the West, and the pictures actually inadvertently revealed the methods and lines taken from Chinese paintings, and even the inscription poems used to Chinese paintings appeared in the first oil painting sketch. In the end, such a picture became a unique expression of nationalization.
Author: Fan Xin
Photo: Courtesy of Liu Haisu Art Museum
Edit: Jiang Fang