Wen Duan Honggang
In modern and modern painting, there is a famous saying: Qi Baishi's shrimp, Xu Beihong's horse, Huang Gui's donkey, Li Ke's cattle. It shows that these four painters have their own strengths and are highly accomplished in the types of paintings they are good at.
Xu Beihong, formerly known as Xu Shoukang, was born in a civilian family in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, and his father Xu Dazhang was a private schoolman, who could write poetry, be good at painting and calligraphy, and was also a famous painter in ten miles and eight townships, and was often invited by the villagers to paint. When he was young, Xu Beihong often helped his father to do some ink research, color grading and other work, and through such exercises, Xu Beihong had more understanding of painting than his peers since he was a child.
At the age of 9, Xu Beihong officially followed his father to learn painting, and because of his talent, he became his father's right-hand man within a few years.
Since the age of 13, Xu Beihong has followed his father through the streets and alleys, making a living selling paintings, and has wandered in Wuxi, Nanjing, Shanghai and other cities, although the days of leaving home are hard, but it has tempered Xu Beihong's heart, also increased his painting skills, and laid a solid foundation for him to officially step into the painting world in the future.
After becoming an adult, after Xu Beihong read Su Shi's seven-word poem "Hezi Yu shi chi nostalgia", he felt a lot of emotions, so he took the mood of "life is everywhere like, just like Feihong stepping on the snow mud", and renamed himself "Sadhong", symbolizing that his life is like a hongyan wandering, and he does not know where to go.
It can be seen that the mentality of the young Xu Beihong is quite pessimistic, and his pessimism mainly comes from three aspects.
First, coming from a poor background made him feel pessimistic.
Second, the country's poverty and weakness at this time made him feel pessimistic.
Third, at this time, the painting world chen Chen Xiangyin, there is no sense of innovation, the art environment makes him feel pessimistic.
The "Four Kings of the Early Qing Dynasty" headed by Wang Shimin advocated "retro" and highly respected Song and Yuan paintings, and because they were recognized and appreciated by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, they were praised as the "authentic" of the painting world, and by the beginning of the 20th century, their influence in the painting world was still very large.
It can be said that from the beginning of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, chinese painting has been stuck in its own hands and has not made any progress, which is where Xu Beihong's worries and pessimism lie.
Traditional Chinese painting pursues freehand, the pen cares first, when the painter brews feelings in his heart, he swipes a large brush and smears a painting with ink and water. As for whether the painting was good or not, it was very difficult to understand with people's artistic cultivation and aesthetic cultivation at that time.
Therefore, the painting circles at that time, like the literary circles, were calling for improvement, requiring artists to create paintings that the public could understand and be grounded.
Under such an opportunity, "realism" became the most practical and effective way to improve the painting world at that time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian, Lin Wenzheng, Chang Yu, Pan Yuliang and a number of other artistic talents traveled across the sea to study in Europe, aiming to find ways to improve Chinese painting from Western painting through study and study of Western painting.
At this time, although Western painting, after the baptism of "Post-Impressionism" and "Expressionism", entered the track of modern painting, opened an artistic boom comparable to the "Renaissance", and gave birth to van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Munch, Picasso and other masters, but Xu Beihong did not follow Western modern painting, he chose "classical realism" and worshiped under the door of the realistic master Dayang.
During his study abroad, Xu Beihong seriously studied a series of Western painting techniques such as modeling skills, focus perspective, color composition, and the treatment of the relationship between light and shadow, and finally accumulated rich creative experience, coupled with his childhood to learn Chinese painting, proficient in calligraphy, belongs to the typical Chinese and Western people, which provides a fundamental guarantee for him to use Western painting techniques to improve Chinese painting in the future.
In the autumn of 1927, Xu Beihong returned to the motherland after completing a nine-year study abroad career, immediately became the mainstay of the painting world, and eventually became a generation of painting masters, especially the horses he painted, with rigorous shapes and gods, which perfectly combined the charm of Chinese painting and the realistic skills of Western painting to create a new peak of horse painting.
Compared with the success of his painting career, Xu Beihong is not a successful person in marriage. Only because he lived in an era of alternating old and new, the shackles of the old era and the freedom of the new era were everywhere in his life. Such contradictions accompanied him throughout his life.
Like all young people living in that era, whether choosing arranged marriage or choosing free love, they had to endure pressure from all sides.
At the age of 16, although Xu Beihong evolved into a new youth in his thinking, his mind was full of the idea of doing big things, but his parents did not see it that way. His father believed that Xu Beihong was not small, he should marry a gentle and virtuous woman with small feet, and it was a big thing to pass on the Xu family's lineage, and other things were small compared to having children.
Xu Beihong could not change his parents' thoughts, and although he was unwilling in his heart, he could only obey.
Soon, the doll-kissed woman, whom she had never met, was married back under the Zhang Luo of the Xu family and became Xu Beihong's wife. Sadly, because of her early death, this woman did not leave a name in history, and posterity can only call her "Xu Beihong's wife".
For Xu Beihong, this marriage is like a disaster.
The second year after their marriage, the two had children, a boy.
The addition of a man to the family should have been a great joy in life, but Xu Beihong did not see it that way, in his mind, this arranged marriage was like a rope, binding his freedom and happiness, the birth of the child was like a second rope, he was tied to the cage by death, and life was full of misfortune and sorrow.
Therefore, in order to express his dissatisfaction with marriage and children, Xu Beihong deliberately gave the child an obscure name - robbery, implying that the child was "robbed and born".
Xu Beihong's wife is illiterate, under the feudal order of "three from four virtues", her husband is her heaven, and she can only acquiesce to what name her husband gives to the child.
After completing the task of succession given by his parents, Xu Beihong, who was only 17 years old, abandoned his wife and children, and under the pretext of selling paintings in Shanghai to make a living, he fled the double rope given to him by his family without turning back.
At first, his wife often entrusted people to write letters to Shanghai, informing Xu Beihong of all the situations in the family, and also telling Xu Beihong to take care of her health, work seriously, and not have to worry about family affairs, and she could fully cope with the family's affairs.
Xu Beihong, who came to Shanghai alone, was no longer bound by family life, and soon gained spiritual freedom, and gradually, he replied to his wife less and less, and sometimes, he even did not look at the letter sent by his wife, and threw it directly into the trash. Xu Beihong seemed to have thought it through clearly, and he wanted to cut them off and pursue the life he really wanted.
In his early years, he hardly enjoyed the taste of his father's love, until the age of 4, When Xu Beihong accidentally returned home to visit his relatives, he saw that he had a talent for painting. This discovery made Xu Beihong remorseful, and he immediately made the decision to compensate the child for his father's love, and changed his son's name to "Jisheng" by the way.
Xu Beihong, because of his great ambition to transform Chinese painting, coupled with his "half-work and half-reading" during his time in Shanghai, lived a relatively poor life, even if he had the idea of taking his children to his side to teach him to paint, he did not have the ability to achieve it.
In the days that followed, he could only take the opportunity to go home, teach his children for a few days, and then leave in a hurry.
Unexpectedly, when Ji Sheng was 7 years old, he unfortunately had smallpox.
In those days, suffering from smallpox was equivalent to suffering from a terminal illness. After half a month of entanglement with the disease, Ji Sheng still passed away. At this time, Xu Beihong had already developed feelings with Jiang Biwei in Shanghai, and was immersed in the sweetness of free love, how could he know the death of his son?
Only Xu Beihong's wife silently suffered the pain of losing her son. Because the pain of losing his son was too devastating, his wife was depressed and died soon after.
The name is like a magic spell, so that a child can freeze his life at the age of 7, is this fate? Or was the name itself obscure and brought disaster to him? It can only be commented on by posterity.