The Sanmenxia Yellow River Water Conservancy Hub is the only water conservancy project among the 156 key projects of the first five-year plan of New China, which is of landmark significance in the history of water conservancy in New China, when a group of literary and art workers created works on it, of course, the figure of the painter is indispensable.
On September 28th, "But Adding Color to the Rivers and Mountains - Wu Zuoren's "Yellow River Sanmenxia" Research Exhibition" opened at the Wu Zuoren Art Museum in Suzhou. The surging news learned that the exhibition presents new research results on Wu Zuoren's artistic practice and achievements with 18 works, 4 reproductions, and nearly 110 documents.
Wu Zuoren, "The Pillar of the Yellow River Sanmenxia, The Mainstay", oil painting, 1955-1956
Literature in Wu Zuoren's exhibition
The Yellow River meanders from afar, with rocky walls on both sides and mountains in the distance, hidden in a blue-gray mist. The turbid waves in the river rush and push away. This is the scene depicted in Wu Zuoren's "Sanmenxia of the Yellow River: The Mainstay of the Yellow River". Between the rough and majestic landscapes shown in the picture, the small people who are drilling and working form a thrilling contrast with the majesty of nature, and it is precisely in this contrast that it not only shows the difficulty of building the Sanmenxia Yellow River Water Conservancy Hub Project, but also shows the bravery and determination of the workers who challenge nature.
Wu Zuoren
Wu Zuoren (1908-1997), originally from Jing County, Anhui Province, was born in Suzhou. In 1927, he was admitted to Shanghai University of the Arts and received guidance from Xu Beihong. In 1930, with the help of Xu Beihong, he went to Europe to study, first entering the École Des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then transferring to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium. In 1935, he returned to China and became a professor in the Art Department of Nanjing Central University. After the founding of new China, he was the provost and president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and served as the chairman of the China Artists Association.
Wu Zuoren, "Camping Place of the Yellow River Sanmenxia Engineering Team", oil painting, 1959
The Sanmenxia Yellow River Water Conservancy Hub is the only water conservancy project among the 156 key projects of the first five-year plan of New China, which is of landmark significance in the history of water conservancy in New China. In order to control the flooding of the Yellow River, people have made many indomitable struggles over the years. After the founding of New China, the party and state leaders kept the safety and security of the Yellow River in mind. In October 1952, shortly after Chairman Mao Zedong inspected the Yellow River, he issued a great call to the whole country to "handle the affairs of the Yellow River well." The Yellow River has entered a new historical stage of comprehensive management and comprehensive development. In the 1950s, water conservancy elites from all over the country rushed to Sanmenxia to build the Yellow River Dam. Construction began on 13 April 1957 and was completed in 1961. The completion of the Sanmenxia Yellow River Dam has put an end to the situation in which the Yellow River has broken two times in three years and enabled the people on both sides of the strait to live and work in peace and contentment. The construction of the Sanmenxia Yellow River Dam was a groundbreaking event at that time, and a large number of literary and art workers created many immortal hymns for this purpose. Of course, there is no shortage of painters.
Wu Zuoren, "Sanmenxia Dam of the Yellow River (Part II)", oil painting, 1959-1960
The above-mentioned "Yellow River Sanmenxia" is the oil painting work created by the painter Wu Zuoren in this period.
Mr. Wu Zuoren's daughter Xiao Hui recalled in an interview at the exhibition site: "My father traveled to Europe in the 1930s, systematically learned the nordic traditional realist oil painting creation methods, and had a solid foundation in Western painting and modeling ability. In 1955, my father went to inspect the construction of the Sanmenxia Dam, and after seeing it, he was very excited and full of creative passion, and immediately decided to paint the magnificent scene in front of him. ”
According to reports, in the more than 10 years from the early 1950s to the early 1960s, in order to reflect the achievements of socialist construction in New China and the new spiritual outlook of the people of the motherland, Wu Zuoren, like many artists of the older generation, plunged headlong into the grassroots, went deep into the workers, peasants, and soldiers, and went to various regions of the motherland to investigate sketching: in 1952, he went to Gansu Yongjing Bingling Temple Grottoes; in 1953, he went to Gansu Maijishan Grottoes; in 1954, he went to Anhui Foziling Reservoir and other places to sketch; in 1955, he went to Inner Mongolia. In 1956, he went to Lushun and Dalian to sketch; in 1957, he went to Qinghai to sketch; in 1960, he painted for the Ningxia Hall of the Great Hall of the People; in 1961, he went to Northeast China with the "Northeast Travel Sketching Group" organized by the China Artists Association; in 1962, he went to Suzhou, Wuxi and other places to sketch... Among them, in 1955 and 1959, he visited the Sanmenxia water conservancy site of the Yellow River in Henan twice, which shows that Mr. Wu Zuoren attaches great importance to the theme of the Yellow River Sanmenxia. He not only did a lot of sketches, but also created a number of oil paintings after returning to Beijing, of which two oil painting representative works and four sketches are now in the collection of the National Art Museum of China.
Wu Zuoren, "Sanmenxia: The Mainstay of the Mainstream", Charcoal on Paper, December 1955
Wu Zuoren once said: "Art should reflect life, reflect the environment, reflect an era, and reflect a nation." In 1956, Wu Zuoren came to the construction site of the Sanmenxia Reservoir of the Yellow River, which had just begun construction, and he was excited by the majestic scenery and grand plan to transform the mountains and rivers. According to Xiao Hui, Wu Zuoren's daughter, "In the artistic creation with the theme of the Yellow River Sanmenxia Water Conservancy Hub Project, Wu Zuoren once had a grand creative plan of the 'Yellow River Trilogy'. "The Yellow River Sanmenxia Pillar" is the first of Wu Zuoren's planned "Yellow River Trilogy", which later became a representative work in his landscape paintings, from which we can see the painter's ideological feelings, artistic accomplishment, and painting skills melted into one furnace.
Wu Zuoren, Sketch, December 1955
Wu Zuoren, Sketches and Notes, December 1955
Ai Zhongxin previously said when analyzing this painting: "The painter calmly and confidently wrote the flood world that gave birth to human civilization with a comfortable and loud and confident tone, with a concise and powerful technique... Depicting the rolling flood, the pen is continuous, and in the skillful technique, it shows the turbulent waves, the sand flow is like a turn, such as hearing the noise of the ice cliff, such as seeing the swirling and floating trend. "The white waves of the riptide are outlined with a palette knife, which enhances the reflection of the water surface and makes the flowing water more vivid. The second painting of the "Yellow River Trilogy" is "Man Will Win the Heaven - The Second Painting of the Yellow River Sanmenxia Group", in addition, he also wrote the "Sanmenxia Song" three ques, namely "The Dangerous Sanmenxia", "Man Will Win the Heaven", "Sanmenxia City", singing the painter's excited mood.
Wu Zuoren, "Man Will Conquer Heaven- The Second Painting of the Yellow River Sanmenxia Group", oil on wood panels, 1959
Unfortunately, in the artistic creation with the theme of the Yellow River Sanmenxia Water Conservancy Hub Project, Wu Zuoren's grand creative plan of the "Yellow River Trilogy" only completed one or two of them, and since then for various reasons, the third has not been completed. However, this time, taking the work "Sanmenxia" as the sample object of research, extensively excavating and collecting basic materials, in-depth combing and analysis, research and analysis, and then carefully planning the exhibition form and summarizing certain theoretical research results, we may wish to peek into the historical scene and artistic ambition of the painter to prepare to create this set of grand works.
It is reported that the exhibition is sponsored by the Suzhou Public Cultural Center and the Wu Zuoren International Art Foundation, and undertaken by the Wu Zuoren Art Museum.