The "Four Kings" are Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yuanqi and Wang Yi
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there were four famous painters Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yuanqi and Wang Yi, led by Wang Shimin, whose artistic expression was based on antiques. The most rare thing is that this kind of expression technique was recognized and advocated by the emperor, as a painter of the court, the painting style of the "Four Kings" was revered as "authentic", influencing the painting world for three hundred years.
Hua Lun's Chinese paintings
However, this situation was very different in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, because the painters represented by the "Four Kings" mainly served the court, completely based on the preferences of the emperors, plus the "Four Kings" mostly used landscapes as a means of expression, with a single theme, and increasingly unable to meet the social needs of the emerging national capitalism.
With the development of the economy, the capital of the people is also more and more, and many families have more and more demand for calligraphy and painting, which has also produced many artists who sell paintings for a living, the most representative of which is the "Yangzhou Eight Monsters".
The "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou" were mainly active in the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong periods, but there are different theories about who the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou" are, but no matter what, they cannot escape these people, they are: Luo Ping, Li Fangbin, Li Kun, Jin Nong, Huang Shen, Zheng Xie (also known as Zheng Banqiao), Gao Xiang and Wang Shishen, Gao Fenghan, Hua Song, Min Zhen, Bian Shoumin, etc.
In fact, the "Eight Monsters of Yu yangzhou" is only a group title, representing a local phenomenon, for this title is not a very praise, sometimes more of a pejorative.
The greatest thing about the group of "Yangzhou Eight Monsters" is the development of flower and bird painting, if the landscape painting of the "Four Kings" vein represents the preferences of the emperor, then the flower and bird painting of the "Yangzhou Eight Monsters" can be said to be the representative of the people, which is also a very important reason for affirming the status of the "Yangzhou Eight Monsters" in history.
Hua Song statue
Among the painters of this "Yangzhou Eight Monsters" group, there is an all-round player in painting skills, which is the protagonist we want to introduce in this issue - Hua Lun.
Hua Yao was a famous painter of the Qing Dynasty and one of the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou". He has pioneered the combination of literati painting and painter painting, and has achieved great achievements in landscape painting, flower and bird painting and figure painting, forming his own unique artistic style. While paying attention to painting skills, Hua Yao always insists on strengthening its own academic cultivation, and its paintings are full of vitality and fun, and the style is handsome, flowing and loose, and it is very expressive. At the same time, its novel art forms and interests also opened up an artistic path of elegant and popular appreciation, which had a profound impact on the development of painting in the late Qing Dynasty.
Hua Kun is a painter with a wide range of talents, who is good at flowers, birds, figures, landscapes, and can break through the old habits and have his own style and physique, which is rare among Qing Dynasty painters. Hua Lun uses the pen sharp in blunt, clever in clumsy, curved in straight, broken in the continuous, its line pen is characterized by more smooth dragging, less reverse support, more wrapping pen, less paving, cherishing ink such as gold, dry and wet combination, seeking unity in the five colors, and saving ink is better than splashing ink. His paintings are elegant and vivid, the layout is stable, the blank is more, the virtual is realistic, and it shows a unique interest and style.
Compared with ordinary folk painters and professional painters, Hua Song's paintings are detached from "craftsmanship", and the artistic style is more refined and more expressive; compared with some literati painters, Hua Lun's painting art is more easy, closer to ordinary life, more connected to the "ground atmosphere", and more rich in artistic skills and skills.