Introduction: Ren Yi, an outstanding representative of the maritime painting school of the late Qing Dynasty, a powerful connector of ancient Chinese figure painting and modern Chinese figure painting. He inherited ancient law and integrated Western learning, and his figure paintings were unique in the late Qing Dynasty, with the characteristics of elegant and popular appreciation.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, after the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou", the last school of painting in the history of modern Chinese painting appeared- the Maritime Painting School. Adhering to tradition and approaching real life, the Group of Haipai painters is an important part of the transition from classical Chinese painting to modern painting. Ren Yi is one of the best.
His paintings originated in folk art, attached importance to inheriting traditions, integrated the strengths of various families, absorbed the sketches and coloring methods of Western painting, and formed his own unique painting style of rich and colorful, novel and vivid.
《Diagram of the Grass Hall of Qilan》
01 Representative figure of the Maritime School
Ren Yi, the word Bo Nian, and the word Ci Yuan, the number of xiao lou, Zhejiang Shanyin people. When he was a child, he learned to paint with his father, and at the age of 14, he went to Shanghai as an apprentice in Fanzhuang, and later made a living selling paintings.
Ren Yi was born in a family of folk painters, his father Ren Shuyun is an ordinary folk painter, good at portrait painting, proficient in the creation of portrait painting, is an excellent folk painter, but he is very hostile to the corruption of the official field, unwilling to step into the official field, to sell paintings and maintain the operation of rice shops for a living, life is very poor. In his early years, due to the influence of his father, Ren Yi was exposed to fewer poetry books, and he also cut off the idea of the imperial examination and the first, and due to the lack of literary accomplishment, it became the bottleneck in the development of his future painting art.
Ren Yi went to Shanghai Fanzhuang to apprentice at the age of 14, and his painting skills improved greatly, and he had a reputation when he was a minor. Xianfeng eleven years old Taiping Army conquered Shaoxing, 22-year-old he joined the Taiping Army as a banner. After the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he stayed in his hometown and lived in Ningbo, where he was given the name of Ren Xiong and Professor Ren Xuan, and went to Suzhou with Ren Xiong in the seventh year of Tongzhi.
After middle age, he lived in Shanghai for a long time and made a living selling paintings. Its painters, Chen Hongjie and Hua Yan, attached great importance to sketching, outlining, dots and clusters evenly, using a unique style, becoming one of the important founders of the "Maritime School". Together with Ren Xiong, Ren Kaoru and Ren Pre, he called ren men the "four masters" of the painting world. There are "Eryou Tu", "Banana Shade Na Liang Small Statue", "Eight Immortals Wishing For Life", "Blessing", "Peach Society", "Guanhe Yiwang XiaoSuo", "Zhong Kui", "Riding Donkey In Reverse" and other famous works.
His life was full of ups and downs, and he experienced two Opium Wars, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Self-Improvement Movement, and the Sino-Japanese War, until the year when China and Japan concluded the Treaty of Maguan. This period of most tragic time in modern Chinese history was the era of Ren Yi's life. Unfortunately, he was deeply affected by opium and damaged his vitality, and he died prematurely at the age of 56.
《Zhong Kui Tu》
02The combination of East and West, integration and integration
Ren Yi's figure paintings only inherit the tradition and are also innovative. It can be said that Ren Yi is not only an outstanding representative of the Hai School, but also a representative figure of Chinese paintings in this period.
The personal cultivation, personality and aesthetic taste of the literati are mainly reflected in the pen and ink interest of painting, the combination of poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing, the performance of calligraphy and painting poetry has become the basic cultivation embodiment of the literati, and the flowing and free temperament of the literati is vividly displayed between pen and ink. Ren Yi's figure paintings lack cultural taste, which are reflected in the inscription poems of his works. Later generations often criticized his works for becoming vulgar, also because of the lack of poetry he painted, and the ordinary was even more ordinary, without the combination of poetry, calligraphy and painting printed by the literati, which caused the cultural background of the work to be low.
Custom and elegance are opposites. The literati pursue elegance in painting, which is very different from the customs in Ren Yi's paintings, and the gap is also obvious. Literati painters highlight their taste through poetry and song, cultivate their temperament, and pursue elegant aesthetic tastes. Ren Yi pays attention to realism, lacks cultural accomplishment, coupled with his low social status, is a folk painter who sells paintings for a living, and the aesthetic taste of his figure paintings is also different from that of literati paintings, and many factors have caused Ren Yi's figure paintings to not become literati paintings in the true sense.
Although Ren Yi's figure paintings are not traditional #literati paintings, some of his works already have some characteristics of literati paintings, and his works have profound meanings, which is the result of being deeply influenced by literati paintings. Many literati also like some of his works on the subject of literati paintings, and these works that focus on elegance can be said to be the artistic expression of the painter's expression of the feelings of the literati.
Ren Yi studied portraiture in his early years, and his character paintings were mostly based on heavy colors, and later he gradually worked with both brushes and pencils, and Chen Chun's small freehand style was inherited and developed by him. He also learned Chen Hongshou's nail-headed method, which is also used in his paintings. "The lines are rigid and soft, round and delicate, clumsy like an ancient seal, strong and strong, the color is calm and heavy, the custom is elegant, not falling into the usual set, quite decorative and golden stone taste."
In addition, the combination of Chinese and Western is another major breakthrough in Ren Yi's figure painting, he borrowed the treatment of the blank space of the picture of Western painting and the treatment of light color, so that it has a strong sense of layering and vivid and realistic characters. The fixed mode will limit the development of painting, Ren Yi broke the rigid pattern of literati painting, and the technique expression is more flexible and diverse. Therefore, in a sense, he inherited and developed literati painting, which was reborn in modern times.
"Wisteria Mandarin Duck"
epilogue:
In fact, in the Shanghai painting world at that time, China and the West were at war, and the traditional road was already the end of the crossbow, and the urgent need for new changes was ancient. As a result, the "Four Appointments on the Sea" came into being, they not only attach importance to inheriting the tradition, but also absorb Western painting techniques, especially Ren Yi and Ren Pre, forming their own unique painting styles with colorful styles, which have a great impact on future generations. This is the so-called hero of the times.
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