Eight Horses
1. Famous Paintings handed down from ancient times
In the history of modern Chinese painting, Xu Beihong’s horses are unique in the painting world, and no one can compare with them. Among his personal artistic achievements, his horse painting is the most outstanding. He devoted his life to the reform of traditional Chinese painting, and the highest achievement of his traditional Chinese painting reform is his galloping horse. He paid great attention to sketching, and had no fewer than a thousand sketches of horses, and he had learned the anatomy of horses. He knows the bones, muscles, and tissues of the horse well, and at the same time, he is also familiar with the horse's character and temperament. In terms of technique, he used Chinese ink as the main expression method, and also used Western perspective and anatomy methods to vividly depict the heroic posture of the horse. The pen is vigorous and powerful, and the ink is flowing and refreshing. The halo dyeing is all applied according to the body structure of the horse, and the ink color has different shades, which not only expresses the body of the horse, but does not affect the charm of the ink color. Xu Beihong's horses are the product of the fusion of Chinese and Western styles, and this fusion is extremely successful.
"Eight Horses" is one of his most famous works. It takes the eight horses of King Mu of Zhou as the theme. The eight horses are of different shapes, elegant and agile, and are rare treasures.
Xu Beihong
(1895-1953)
Modern painter and art educator. A native of Yixing, Jiangsu. He studied painting diligently when he was young, and later studied in France. He once took his modern Chinese paintings to exhibitions in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Soviet Union. During the Anti-Japanese War, his works were often exhibited and sold abroad to raise funds to relieve refugees in the motherland; he also participated in the democratic movement. He has been engaged in art education for a long time. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the chairman of the All-China Art Workers Association. In the creation of paintings, we advocate the pursuit of subtlety and grandeur; for Chinese paintings, we advocate that those who are good at ancient methods should keep them, those who are outdated should be inherited, those who are not good should be modified, and those who can adopt Western paintings can be integrated into them. Good at oil painting, Chinese painting, especially sketching. Character modeling, focusing on realism and conveying expressions. He has created historical paintings embodying progressive ideas such as "Nine Fang Gao" and "The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountain". The flowers, birds, landscapes and animals he painted are concise, lively and full of vitality. He is especially famous at home and abroad for his paintings of horses. Painting can combine Chinese and Western techniques to create its own look. Set up a memorial hall for painter Xu Beihong in Beijing.
Many other painters have paintings with the same title, such as:
Ai Qimeng, also known as Xing'an, a Bohemian. Born in 1708 (the 47th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty), he came to China in 1745 (the 10th year of the Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty). Together with Lang Shining (he also had a painting of "Eight Horses"), he was worshiped by the Qing Dynasty Painting Academy. He was good at He painted animals, flowers and birds, served in the Ruyi Pavilion, and was awarded the third rank. He died on October 16, 1780 (the 45th year of Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty) at the age of seventy-two.
Ai Qimeng’s paintings, like Castiglione, integrate Western painting techniques into Chinese meticulous painting, becoming a unique new style in the history of Chinese Qing Dynasty painting. "Eight Horses" is his representative work of realism. The eight horses painted are as big as real horses. They are all rare and famous horses that were paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty from Central Asia and other places. They have different shapes and lifelike shapes, which fully reflects the author's superb sketching skills. The work is on silk, and the picture is engraved with the imperial seal of "Treasure of the Emperor Qianlong's Imperial View" and the inscriptions of praise from important officials of the imperial court. Its large size, huge and sophisticated mounting are rarely seen in the history of painting, and it has high documentary and artistic value. The "Eight Horses" was originally for the imperial court and is now in the Nanjing Museum.
2. Tang poetry.
Written by the great poet Bai Juyi.
The whole poem is as follows:
The Picture of Eight Horses
-To warn against strange things and punish those who wander around
Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty
Wang Mu’s Eight Horses and Horses,
The love of future generations is written as a picture.
The back is like a dragon and the neck is like an elephant,
The bones, tendons, and fat are strong.
Traveling thousands of miles a day as fast as flying,
Where can King Mu ride alone?
The four wildernesses and eight extremes are trampled all over,
The thirty-two hooves have no rest.
The axle of the axle was broken before it was too late,
The grass in the yellow house was abandoned as if left behind.
I went to the Queen Mother's banquet in the west of Yaochi, but the seven temples have not recommended it personally for many years.
Visiting Bi Tainan with Sheng Ji,
Mingtang no longer faces the princes.
The songs of "White Clouds" and "Yellow Bamboo" are moving,
One person is desolate and happy, and ten thousand people are sad.
From Houji to Civil and Military in Zhou Dynasty,
accumulated virtue and made meritorious service through hard work.
How could he know that he is as talented as the fourth generation grandson?
He is as lighthearted as the king and his legacy is like ashes.
The reason is that beautiful things are not big.
If they can sway the king's heart, they will do harm.
Emperor Wen refused to take advantage of it, so he sent the thousand-mile horse to Han Daoxing.
King Mu got it and did not take warning.
Eight horses came to Zhou's house to destroy him.
To this day, this thing is treasured in the world.
I don’t know if the spirit of Fang Xing is a monster.
I don’t like the picture of eight horses.
Notes
"White Clouds" and "Yellow Bamboo": both are song titles. Legend has it that they were composed in harmony between King Mu of Zhou and the Queen Mother of the West.
The essence of Fangxing: Fangsu among the twenty-eight constellations, also called Tiansi, is the main chariot driver. The ancients believed that it was in charge of the human emperor's carriage and horses.
Appreciation
This poem is a satirical work that supports things.
According to ancient records, King Mu of Zhou drove eight horses to the west and had a long banquet with the Queen Mother of the West. When Dezong of Tang Dynasty fled west, he also rode eight horses, which was similar to the deeds of King Mu of Zhou Dynasty. People at the time often thought that the author's poem was alluding to Dezong. But according to the subtitle, its main purpose is actually to satirize Tang Xianzong based on ancient events.
"I went to the Queen Mother's banquet in the west of Yaochi, but the seven temples have not been personally recommended for many years. I traveled to the south of Bi Tainan with Sheng Ji, and the Mingtang no longer visited the princes." It pointed out that King Mu of Zhou lost his ambition by playing with things, and stabbed the emperor at that time. The article is sharp. .
" Emperor Wen refused to ride it, so he went to the Han Dynasty with a thousand-mile horse to make a fortune. King Mu did not take warning when he got it, and eight horses came to the Zhou Dynasty to destroy it. To this day, this thing is treasured in the world, and I don't know that Fang Xing's spirit is a strange thing. "." The sentence, while criticizing King Zhou Mu for playing with things and losing his ambition, placed his hope in a wise king to rejuvenate the country, which reflects the author's ideological limitations.
The eight horses of King Mu are: Chiji, Feihuang, Baiyi, Hualiu, Luoer, Juanjuan, Quhuang and Pirates.
"Eight Horses" is a painting that has been very popular since the Six Dynasties. The painting depicts the eight fine horses that King Mu of Zhou drove when he visited the Kunlun Mountains. As for the names of the Eight Horses, each book has different records. Wang Jia of the Jin Dynasty recorded in "Shi Yi Ji": "The names of the eight horses are: one is called Juedi, the second is called Fanyu, the third is called Running into the sky, the fourth is called Yueying, the fifth is called Yuhui, the sixth is called Chaoguang, and the seventh is called Tengwu. "Eight means holding the wings"; "The Biography of Emperor Mu" records it as: Hualiu, Lou'er, Chiji, Baixi, Quhuang, Yuolun, Taoli, Shanzi (Liu Zongyuan's "Illustrations of the Eight Horsemen" uses this method statement). By the time of Liu Zongyuan, many famous writers and poets suddenly wrote many poems and essays about "Eight Horses". Famous ones include "The Picture of Eight Horses" in Bai Juyi's "New Yuefu", Yuan Zhen's five-character poem "Picture of Eight Horses", Li Guan's "Preface to the Picture of Eight Horses by King Mu of Zhou", etc. This literary phenomenon may be related to Tang Dezong's "Wang Yun Zhao Ma". In March of the first year of Yuanxing, due to Li Huaiguang's rebellion, Tang Dezong came to Liangzhou and rebelled against Beijing in July. Regarding this matter, Yuan Zhen said in the preface to "Looking at Yun Zui's Horse": "Emperor Dezong used eight horses to travel to Shu, and seven horses died on the road. If he only looked at Yun Zui's coming and going, Zhenyuan died of old age in the stable." Li Zhao's " "The Supplement to the History of the State" also talked about this matter. He said that Wang Yunzhui said: "After old age and death in Feilong Stable, noble relatives often scrawled on it." It seems that the admiration for the "Eight Horses" at that time, through Dezong's love, reached A new climax.