Dai Dunbang
Recently, the Dai Dunbang Art Research Center was established at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In the future, it will become an important town for the study of Dai Dunbang's artistic achievements and creative characteristics, a position for discussing social life and the laws of artistic creation, and a temple for inheriting and carrying forward the traditional and excellent Chinese painting art.
Dai Dunbang, who was born in 1938 in Jiangsu, is a famous Chinese painter who calls himself a "folk artist". He graduated from Shanghai First Normal School in 1956 and joined the Shanghai Institute of Arts and Crafts in 1976. In 1977, Mr. Dai was commissioned by the State Administration of Foreign Languages to draw illustrations for the English version of "Dream of the Red Chamber" translated by the famous translators Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidi. The following year, the English edition of Dream of the Red Chamber was published, and the 36 illustrations created by Mr. Dai entered the eyes of foreign readers, and he himself became one of the top painters in the domestic painting world. Since then, people "when they think of painting "Dream of the Red Chamber", they think of looking for Dai Dunbang."
In 1981, Dai Dunbang came to Shanghai Jiao Tong University to teach painting in the Department of Literature and Art. At that time, the humanities, arts and social sciences of Shanghai Jiaotong University were still in their infancy. Dai Dunbang, who is already a famous artist in the art world, joined Jiaotong University, which undoubtedly added a heavyweight teacher to the field of humanities, arts and social sciences of Jiaotong University. Dai Dunbang worked at Jiaotong University for 17 years until his retirement as a professor in 1998.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" Mushi Qianmeng - "But I repaid all the tears of my life to him, and I can repay him." ”
Dai Dunbang is good at painting characters, working and writing, mostly with classical themes and costumed figures into the painting, the painting is bold, the pen and ink are strong and bold, the image is vivid and vivid, and the painting style is elegant and customs. His major works include "One Hundred and Eight Figures of Water Margin Characters", "Character Genealogy of Dai Dunbang Water Margin", "Hundred Pictures of Characters in the Dream of the Red Chamber", "New Painting of the Dream of the Red Chamber by Dai Dunbang", "Collection of Classic Literary Masterpieces of Dai Dunbang" and so on. His paintings follow the Tang and Song Gong pen figure brush methods, integrating the artistic conception of Song people's landscape paintings, simple but not flexible, elegant but not reserved.
Dai Dunbang once said such a sentence: "I am Chinese!" Besides, China's traditional classic culture has a unique charm, which particularly attracts me. I'll just do something I'll do. "Simple as si, with a heart style, a confident heart, no distractions, "I live by painting, painting with me as a friend", Dai Dunbang used his own brush to work, and even fought for his life, so that the traditional culture of the Chinese nation glowed with the times.
<Capital > Picture Book
The first person to draw "Capital"
2018 is the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, in order to express his thinking on the fate of the Chinese nation under the world today, Dai Dunbang, with unlimited love and gratitude for the party and the country, decided to use Marx's famous book "Capital" as the creative material to create a series of works "< Capital> Picture Book". During the creation period, Dai Dunbang and his assistants deeply studied the text of "Capital", taking the history of modern Western society as the material, breaking through the scope of the previous creation of themes from Chinese classical literature masterpieces and historical stories.
In terms of creative style, Dai Dunbang used the chinese classical art painting form to depict Western classic works, boldly made breakthroughs and innovations in the art form, enriched and developed the art of Chinese painting, reached a new height in art form and style, and also provided a new form for people to study and study Capital. The completion of this set of works also presented a gift for celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
Map of the exhibition site of Capital
From 1981 to 1998, Dai Dunbang worked at Shanghai Jiaotong University. This period coincided with the peak of his creative career, during which he created a large number of paintings that showed the beauty of classical Chinese paintings. They are not only important achievements of Shanghai Jiaotong University in the field of humanities and arts, but also make important contributions to improving the cultural and artistic literacy of teachers and students, and cultivating and building university culture.
On October 24, 2019, Dai Dunbang donated 26 paintings from the first volume of the "new paintings of < Capital theory >", which he had just completed, as well as 100 paintings of "Xinhai Revolution Figure Paintings" and 56 works of "Chinese National Figures" that he had previously created to Jiaotong University, in order to express his support for the development of the museum of Jiaotong University. On April 16, 2021, Dai Dunbang donated 56 works from the Song Dynasty poetry series and 34 works from the second and third volumes of the "new paintings of < Capital theory >" to Jiaotong University. In this way, the Jiaotong University Museum has collected a total of 272 works from Dai Dunbang's four major series, which has become the foundation and significant feature of the Jiaotong University Museum's collection system. Dai Dunbang said that he will continue to donate his masterpieces to the school in the future. In the future, Jiaotong University Museum will also strengthen the construction of the collection system, present more and better exhibitions to teachers and students of the school, and give full play to the cultural education function of the school museum.
Water Margin
Dai Dunbang Art Research Center - the base for the inheritance and innovation of Dai Men painting art
In order to thank Dai Dunbang for his love for Jiaotong University, he further carried out the research and publicity of Professor Dai Dunbang's artistic thought. At the end of 2019, Shanghai Jiao Tong University decided to establish the Dai Dunbang Art Research Center to inherit and carry forward the achievements and wisdom of China's excellent traditional culture, and make useful contributions to human civilization and social progress.
On the morning of April 16, 2021, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Museum held a listing ceremony for the Dai Dunbang Art Research Center at the same time as the opening ceremony of the "Hanmo Painted Poetry Danqing Chengyi Rhyme - Dai Dunbang Illustrated Song Dynasty Poetry Exhibition", and dozens of leaders and guests from all walks of life witnessed this important moment.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "deeply excavating the ideological concepts, humanistic spirit and moral norms contained in China's excellent traditional culture, combined with the requirements of the times to inherit and innovate, so that Chinese culture can show its permanent charm and the style of the times." With the purpose of inheriting, researching, innovating and developing the art of Dai Dunbang Chinese painting, the Dai Dunbang Art Research Center extensively collects and sorts out the art materials of Dai Dunbang's Chinese painting and continuously enriches the collection of Chinese painting art. On the basis of inheriting the previous research results, we will carry out the sorting out and research work on the achievements of Chinese painting figures, Chinese painting art and Chinese painting represented by Dai Dunbang and others, promote multicultural and artistic exchanges, cultivate and support artistic talents, attach importance to the academic nature of artistic works, promote artistic masterpieces, and contribute to the innovation and development of Chinese painting.
Author: Liu Limei Zhao Haodong
Editor: Gu Jun
Image source: Courtesy of Shanghai Jiaotong University