Regarding Gao Tongxuan's contribution to the history of painting, Wang Tuo discussed it in detail in his doctoral dissertation "Research on Gao Tongxuan, Yangliuqing Painter of the Late Qing Dynasty", which summarizes the following paragraph: "The significance of Gao Tongxuan's woodblock prints in the history of Chinese folk art is that he realized the intersection and fusion of styles of court (Western) painting, literati painting and late Ming printmaking. Especially on the basis of the traditional boundary painting technique, using the Western focus perspective method in Qing Dynasty court painting, the complex architectural space scene of the YuanYuan is truly reproduced in the New Year painting image. This injected a touch of vitality into the last period of late Yangliu youth painting in the context of the weakening of the late Yangliu youth painting due to the impact of lithography technology. ”
From this passage, it can be seen that Gao Tongxuan has made great contributions to the revival of Yang Liu youth painting. Yangliu youth painting is said to have originated in the Ming Dynasty, the production method of the year painting is different from other places, such as Shandong Yangjiabu, Hebei Wuqiang, Henan Zhuxian Town, Suzhou Taohuawu and other places of printmaking process is mostly woodblock chromatic printing, and Although Yangliu Youth Painting also adopts the production method of woodblock overprint printing, the New Year painting also has other ways such as complete hand painting and printing and painting, of which half painting and half printing are the main features. It is precisely for this reason that Yang Liu Youth Painting attaches the greatest importance to the painting level of the people who make the New Year painters, and Gao Tongxuan is the best among these painters.
Most of the biographical information about Gao Tongxuan comes from Mr. Wang Shucun's monographs and series of research articles, of which the book "Gao Tongxuan" is the most widely cited. Wang Tuo's doctoral dissertation, when it comes to Gao Tongxuan's life, basically quotes Wang Shucun's book "Gao Tongxuan".
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Regarding Gao Tongxuan's family origin, Wang Shucun said in the book "Gao Tongxuan": "Gao Tongxuan's father was a cloth merchant who traveled between Shanghai and Beijing, so he was affected by silver and cheap foreign goods, and his business was unfavorable, and his family was getting worse and worse. After the Opium War, a large number of foreign cloth entered China, because of its high quality and low price, the traditional Chinese textile industry was greatly impacted, and the silk and satin business operated by Gao Tongxuan's father and son became more and more difficult, and later affected by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, which made the economic situation of Gao Tongxuan's family even more difficult: "When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolutionary Army captured Nanjing in the third year of Xianfeng (1853), the Qing soldiers were defeated and retreated, scattered soldiers were brave, and they retreated with the rush, and the people of Jiangbei were ruined and could not survive. Gao's father and son could not go south, so they had to work in the family as a half-farmer and half-merchant to live. ”
At this time, Gao Tongxuan was in his twenties and began to sell paintings to subsidize his family, but the painting techniques he learned from him were not discussed in various materials. Wang Shucun wrote in his monograph that at that time, the Yangliu youth painting industry was also in decline, so Gao Tongxuan began to make a living by painting portraits: "At this time, Gao Tongxuan was thirty years old, his children were on his knees, and in order to alleviate his increasingly heavy financial burden, he opened a studio in his own courtyard, and every day in addition to agricultural affairs, he also took portraits as his business, and from then on, he no longer faxed portraits for people free of charge as he had done in the past. ”
For the portrait market situation at that time, Wang Shucun wrote in a monograph: "At that time, there was not only Gao Tongxuan painter who was engaged in portraits, but also he was a new 'pen list', and in the past, all he knew was the labor masses such as Tianfu Yuqiao, so there were not many people who invited him to paint portraits, so he also painted some fans and lamp paintings in his leisure time, or painted some new manuscripts for the Nian painting workshop, etc., so as to master his own skills on the one hand, but also to obtain some meager income. ”
Why is the painting industry in decline and the portrait industry still has business? This is related to the folk customs of the time, Wang Tuo believes that folk portrait painting is generally divided into five types: portrayal, music chart, shadow transmission, unveiling, and posthumous appearance, the first two are usually made by inviting painters when the general large households gather, and the last three are to paint portraits of deceased people for use in spiritual hall worship or funeral ceremonies.
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But after all, such business patrons are limited, in order to make a living, Gao Tongxuan came to Beijing and engaged in portrait painting at the fax hall near Changdian. But then his situation took a turn for the worse, because he had the opportunity to enter the inner court to paint. Wang Shucun's article "Folk Painter Gao Tongxuan and His New Year Paintings" wrote:
In the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), when Gao Tongxuan was thirty-two years old, the Qing court ordered Yang Liuqing folk painter to enter the inner court and paint for Cixi, and the general manager of the "Ruyi Pavilion" at that time was Guan Jin'an, and after Guan Jin'an received his orders to Yang Liuqing, because the bribe was too high, no one dared to respond, and he had to find Gao Tongxuan, who had a new "pen list", so he went to the Beijing court to paint. In order to fill in the background when painting, he also accompanied Guan Jin'an on a tour of the Forbidden Three Seas, which had a considerable impact on the pattern of the scenery in his later New Year paintings. Since then, Gao Ji has often enshrined the "Ruyi Hall" and gradually gained fame.
For this experience, Wang Shucun also recorded in the book "Gao Tongxuan": "When Empress Dowager Cixi learned of this, she immediately ordered her favorite eunuch An Dehai to go to the 'Ruyi Pavilion' and ordered Gao Tong to enter the museum for worship. According to the Qing Dynasty, there was no 'painting academy', and all the crafts such as painting, carving, jade, and mounting were all done in the 'Ruyi Pavilion', and at that time, the director of the 'Ruyi Pavilion' was Guan Jin'an, and Guan YiyangQingren, who went to Yang Liuqing after receiving the instructions to summon the painter Gao Tongxuan into the palace. ”
Wang Tuo noticed the changes in Wang Shucun's two texts, the former of which stated that Gao Tongxuan's entry into the inner court was due to Guan Jin'an's relationship, and the latter paragraph was changed to Cixi's direct order. Wang Shucun recounts in his monograph that Gao Tongxuan entered the inner court on the day of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and then painted a portrait of Cixi in the curtain of Shufangzhai in the Forbidden City, and later after obtaining Cixi's approval, he created a small-scale "Hidden Map of The Fishery of The Immortal Mountain". This figure depicts Cixi as a fisherman wearing a hat, which Cixi admired after reading it, and rewarded Gao Tongxuan with 500 taels of silver. For this matter, the book "Gao Tongxuan" has the following description:
Gao Tongxuan's painter with Guan Jin'an led here, just put a few rectangular stools under the eaves of the window, the curtain was roughly outlined according to Cixi's appearance, the eunuch forwarded the painting to Cixi, Cixi looked at the head and praised the good, and passed on the instructions to him to take "Xianshan Yuyin" as the title of the painting, and then add the beautiful scenery of the Royal Garden. At the same time, he was given the opportunity to travel with his inner courtiers through the Three Seas. The painter Gao Tongxuan walked into the forbidden places this time, admiring the magnificent scenery such as the flowers and trees in the Imperial Garden, the Qionglou Pavilion, etc., the vision was refreshing, the abdominal manuscript was self-preserving, and the New Year paintings he made later had a unique view, which was related to this. "Xianshan Fishing Hidden Map" is not large in size, painting Cixi wearing a straw hat, sitting on a flat leaf boat, looking at ease. Because the eunuch tour guide, know that Cixi likes to worship the Buddha chanting, so the painting of the South China Sea Yingtai as a background, Yingtai is located in the middle of the South China Sea, surrounded by green waves on three sides, the stage Xuan Pavilion is majestic, like Penglai Wonderland.
Generally speaking, wearing a robe and wearing a grass crab sitting on a flat leaf boat, this is the image of a male hermit, why Cixi asked Gao Tongxuan to make this picture, no other literature has been recorded. The details contained in the book "Gao Tongxuan" are quite detailed, and how the author, Mr. Wang Shucun, knows it, does not indicate the source in the book. The book "Gao Tongxuan" also says such a passage: "Gao Tongxuan has studied in a private school since childhood, and the well has not applied for the prefecture and county, and the long, willing to be poor, determined not to involve in the examination room, so the grade of the Top of the Qing dynasty official's robes is contemptuous, but the 'shadow transmission' and 'unveiling' must be familiar with the difference between the python robe and the supplementary costume, the distinction between the literary birds and martial arts, the Gao Tongxuan painter has neither inherited the transmission of the teacher, nor is he familiar with these clothing systems, so whenever he encounters the image of the imperial clothes, he asks jiao Da'an, a friendly friend of the same industry, to paint the costume and write the shadow alone." ”
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It turned out that Gao Tongxuan did not understand the clothing level of Qing Dynasty officials, he was only quite good at character painting, so some portraits of people he only looked at, and when he encountered official clothes, he asked another painter, Jiao Da'an, to make up for it. In his essay, Wang Tuo quoted the early Ming dynasty painter Wang Fu as talking about the difficulty of drawing the Imperial Appearance in the "Records of Calligraphy and Painting":
Photography is difficult, and writing royal appearance is particularly difficult. Who? The imperial palace is magnificent, the dignity of the throne, the thousands of cattle and tigers, the solemn sanitation, the incense fireworks, the colorful, and the worship at the bottom of the steps, the head of the temple, and then prostrate to say long live. The sound of The Fu Lun is both descending, the grace is to the emperor, the square begins to be on the case, containing a little stretch of paper, and the heavenly power is within reach, and he does not dare to look at it. A little indulgent, and for the superior, Si Shi is also solemn and righteous, not smiling falsely, the heart of the painter has been intimidated, and the qi is also demanding, seeking its shape, it is enough to be spared, why bother to take more into account the god-like Yes?
In that era, ordinary people were difficult to see, even if they were lucky enough to see it, they would tremble and tremble, and of course the painters had the same situation and mentality, in this case, it was not easy to paint the quasi-imperial appearance, but Gao Tongxuan's painting of the Cixi Imperial Appearance could be appreciated by the empress. If the book "Gao Tongxuan" contains historical facts, it is enough to show that Gao Tongxuan is extremely skilled in drawing portraits.
In his thesis, Wang Tuo also noted that Jin An, the general manager of the RuyiGuan mentioned in Wang Shucun's book "Gao Tongxuan", should actually be the court painter Guan Jian in the middle of the Qing Guangxu Dynasty, and the latter was recorded in the "Maritime Merlin", "Notes on Tao Yang Zhai", and "History of Poetry of Qing Painters".
Regarding guan Jian'an's life, Wang Tuo quoted in the text what Liang Xi said in the "Wild Record of the Qing Dynasty" written by the old man sitting on the view: "Guan Jian'an, Yanghu people. His father was in the business of Jia, and his livelihood was not very rich. He wanders in peace, lustful friends, frequent conquests, and exhausts his father's gifts. Gu Qiren is small and talented, has a good face, and is good at painting things, working small songs, and can be a quiet voice. The Father, for his inability to teach, cast them out. He abandoned his parents and wife and entered the capital alone with his fellow villagers. Hui Ruyi Hall recruits painters, takes the test, and is the first choice, so he enters the museum to make offerings. When the eunuchs of the inner court went to the museum to paint and admire The Peace alone. Jian An was also kind to him, and he was extremely willing to accept it, and he was happy with the internal supervision, so he was informed by Li Lianying. Meng Cixi summoned the secret hall, interviewed the painting, called the queen, and suddenly rose to the head of the Ruyi Pavilion. ”
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It seems that Guan Jian'an's father is also a businessman, but the business is not big, although Guan Jian'an was born with a good appearance, but from an early age, he was idle and mixed in various occasions, so he was expelled by his father. After he came to Beijing, just in time for the Ruyi Pavilion to recruit painters, Guan Jian'an went to take the exam, and even won the first place, and was able to enter the inner court to paint, and later won the favor of Cixi because of his musical talent: "When he entered the palace, and played it by Cixi with the obscene songs of Jiangnan, this northerner has never heard of in his lifetime." After being overjoyed, the reward was not calculated, and the nearby attendant was ordered to set up a house for him, and the reward was outside the Donghua Gate. Jian An also vowed to bow down to repay the problem and not return to the south. Over the past ten years, it has accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars and placed business in Beijing. and the old beard, so they do not enter the palace permanently. When it was in its prime, there was no vain day in the palace garden, and it was often called 'Wu'er', and outsiders falsely rumored that he was Cixi Gan'er, but in fact, it was not. In the guangxu season, the Beijing division Jiangsu hometown set up a painting club, and In the meeting, Wuxi Wu Guandai had seen it. Beautiful beard, sparse eyebrows, quite stylish, people want to see Zhang Xu in that year. ”