There is a poem inscribed on a painting by the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China: "There are not many ink spots but many tears, and the mountains and rivers are still the same as before. The forked coconut trees in the troubled times have been left to be copied carefully by writers." This first sentence " "There are not many ink dots and there are too many tears." Master said to himself, describing the artistic characteristics of his paintings and the thoughts and emotions contained in them in the most concise and concise manner. Only by following this clue he hinted can we truly understand and appreciate the greatness of this painter. Works of art.
There is pain hidden in the weirdness and obscurity
Due to his special life experience and the background of the times, Bada's paintings cannot express his feelings directly like other painters, but through His obscure and incomprehensible poems on paintings and strange deformation paintings are used to express this. For example, the fish and birds he painted, with only a few strokes, either elongate their bodies or shrink into a ball, which seems to be true and false. Especially the pair of eyes, which are sometimes oval-shaped, are not the eyes of the fish and birds we see in life. The eyes of fish and birds in life are round, and the eyeballs do not move in the center. The eyes of Bada's fish and birds can move, and sometimes they will roll their eyes and stare at people. The rocks he painted were not like those painted by ordinary painters. They were round, big at the top and small at the bottom, top-heavy. He could place them wherever he wanted, regardless of whether they were stable or not. The trees he painted have old dry branches and only a few coconut branches and a few leaves. Among the tens of thousands of trees in the forest, there is no one like this. The landscapes, mountains, and bare trees he painted were swaying, desolate, and desolate. If such a place existed, I don't think anyone would want to settle here.
Also, the poems, signatures and seals on his paintings are also strange. For example, he called himself "Bada Shanren", which has been interpreted by many people, and scholars still have different arguments to this day. He has a seal with an engraved inscription. Some people say that it is composed of the four characters "Bada Shanren", while others are cautious and call it "a clog-shaped seal" because it is shaped like a clog. As for the poems on his paintings, many of the sentences are even more difficult to understand.
However, the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly told us: "In troubled times, we are left to fork coconut trees and ponder carefully." He also said: "I want to see people interpret the pictures." He really hopes that people can understand the meaning of his paintings. Therefore, many scholars have deduced a lot of true information from his paintings and words through careful research. For example, he has a painting inscription, which for a long time people have called it a turtle-shaped painting because its shape is particularly like a turtle. Only later did I discover that it turned out to be a deformation of the words "March 19th", which happened to be the day when the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen, committed suicide, marking the demise of the Ming Dynasty. So this painting also represents the commemoration of the death of the country.
In the 21st year of Kangxi's reign, he once painted an "Ancient Plum Blossom Picture". The trunk of the tree has been hollowed out, its roots exposed, a few bare branches of coconut trees, and a few sparsely decorated flowers, as if it has been weathered. What life looks like after a thunder and lightning disaster. There are three poems inscribed on it, the first of which reads: "Plum Blossoms to the Taoist Wu, no blind date in Zhai Zhai. Between the south and the south of the mountain, I have to burn fish to sweep away the dust." "Plum Blossoms to the Taoist Wu" refers to the painter of the Yuan Dynasty Wu Zhen calls himself "Plum Blossom Taoist". The words in the box were obviously deliberately cut out by collectors at that time or later to avoid the disaster of text inquisition. It is not difficult to guess that this character is either "Hu" or "". The founder of the Qing Dynasty used the Manchu people to dominate the Central Plains, and these two words were the most taboo. In order to sweep away the "Hu dust" in the "north and south of Nanshan", Badashan people very clearly expressed his thoughts of resisting the Qing Dynasty and restoring the country. The second poem reads: "It's not the end of the day when you have your roots. There was no time when the earth was thin and the sky was fat. Thinking about the figures in the plum blossom painting, how the monk is like picking weeds." Two allusions are used in the poem. One is from the early Yuan Dynasty. Zheng Sixiao, a survivor painter, lived in seclusion under Wu after the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty. He painted orchids and dew roots instead of sloping soil. When people asked him why, he replied: "Don't you know that all the land has been robbed by others?" The second one is Boyi, a survivor of the Yin Dynasty. After Shu Qi destroyed Yin in Zhou Dynasty, he was too ashamed to eat Zhou millet and lived in seclusion in Shouyang Mountain to pick weeds and eat until he died of starvation. It turns out that the "Ancient Plum Blossom Picture" of the Eighth National Congress, with exposed roots and no sloping soil, was modeled after Zheng Sixiao's painting of orchids, implying that the land was robbed by the Qing Dynasty. The reason why he, a descendant of the Ming Dynasty clan, became a monk is just like Boyi, Uncle Qi Caiwei refused to submit to the new dynasty like Shouyangshan. The country was destroyed, the family was destroyed, and there was no hope of restoring the country, which forced him to "cry thousands of tears".
The eight major poems on painting are the key to unlocking the meaning of his paintings. However, they are mysterious and difficult to understand, and many scholars have worked hard to decipher them. For example, "The Book of Flowers and Birds in Jiazi" written in the 23rd year of Emperor Kangxi's reign (now in the collection of Princeton University Museum, USA), on the seventh page, there is a picture of a starling standing on a dead branch, with a poem: "The kingfisher calls brother, and calls round brother. The meaning of this poem is that after the death of "Guo" (specified), Professor Jao Tsung-i of the Chinese University of Hong Kong concluded: "This poem is a mockery of "Guo" (specified) after its death, loyal ministers are like partridges. It’s rare to see people’s aspirations towards the south.” This means that in addition to the general emotional expression of the destruction of the country and the family, Bada’s works sometimes also have specific references. "Melon Moon Picture" is also a work of reference. After inscribing the poem, he recorded: "I have already moistened what I painted on the 15th night of August." Facing the full moon in the sky and eating moon cakes with every household in the world, his heart was touched. So what did he "gain"? The poem on the painting says: "Looking at the cakes, the moon is full and the watermelons are on time. Everyone points to the moon cakes, the time when the melons are ripe in the year of the donkey." According to the custom of eating moon cakes, someone said that the custom of eating moon cakes comes from the folk story of anti-Qing rebels passing on uprising signals. Bada is looking forward to this day.
But what year do we have to wait (the Year of the Donkey)? "The year of the donkey and the month of the horse" is a common saying, which means that there is no fixed time. If this is the case, then the Bada's thoughts are not just the lingering pain of the country's demise.
Representatives of the peak of freehand ink painting
Bada is good at freehand ink painting, which is a painting method that has emerged since the Song and Yuan Dynasties. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, many literati masters of freehand ink painting emerged, among which the Eight Great Masters were epoch-making figures.
In ink freehand painting, there is a distinction between those who are good at landscapes and those who are good at flowers and birds. The eight majors are good at both. His landscape paintings were closely studied by Dong Qichang and far away from Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, Guo Xi, Mi Fu, Huang Gongwang and Ni Zan. For example, in the "Album of Calligraphy and Painting" (collected by the Shanghai Museum) written in the 41st year of Kangxi's reign, *** painted six landscape sketches. It can be seen that he was deeply influenced by Dong Qichang. The roundness of his long strokes has the influence of Dong, Ju and Huang Gongwang. The traces and ink techniques refer to Mi's Cloud Mountain, and the combination of certain trees and rocks is obviously taken from Ni Zan. However, when we appreciate these works, we strongly feel the personality of Bada Shanren. The above-mentioned laws of the ancients are just what he picked up to serve himself. Those mountains, rocks, trees, grass, as well as thatched pavilions, houses, etc., are written carelessly, seemingly carelessly, picked up casually, and the dry and wet shades, density and reality, distance and height, the brushstrokes are beyond the rules, and the artistic conception is complete. Within the law. This state of lawlessness is a high degree of combination of emotion and skill, which brings artistic creation into a kingdom of freedom.
Compared with landscape paintings, Bada’s flower-and-bird paintings are more typical of his style and personality. "Zhuanqi Sketches" written in the 16th year of Shunzhi (collected by the National Palace Museum in Taipei) and "Ink Flower Scroll" painted in the 5th year of Kangxi (collected by the National Palace Museum in Beijing) are the early works of the Bada, from which you can see his freehand ink painting of flowers and birds. His creation was deeply influenced by Shen Zhou, Chen Chun, and Xu Wei. His brushwork is relatively square and firm, and his subject matter and layout do not deviate from the stereotypes of his predecessors. However, the arrogant spirit and eclectic bold tailoring shown in the paintings, such as It does not seek the completeness of the object, but it already indicates his future development.
The most prominent feature of the Eight Flowers and Birds paintings is "little", or in his words, "honest". Few, firstly, there are fewer objects depicted; secondly, there are fewer pens used to shape the objects. For example, in the "Book of Flowers, Fruits, Birds and Insects" written in the 31st year of Kangxi's reign, the painting "Involvement" only painted one petal, and only seven or eight strokes were needed to complete a painting. In Bada, every fish, a bird, a chick, a tree, a flower, a fruit, even without a single stroke and only a seal, can form a complete picture. It can be said that So little that nothing can be less. The predecessors said, "Cherish ink like gold", and also said, "A little is better than a lot." Only the Eighth Congress has truly achieved this. It can be said that it is unprecedented and difficult to succeed.
Fewer, maybe someone can achieve it, but less but not thin, less but not poor, less but not monotonous, less but flavorful, less but interesting, and giving readers an infinite thought through less Space, this is difficult for anyone to achieve, but the Eighth Congress has the above requirements. There is a lot to write about here. The first is his skill in using pen and ink. His brush strokes change from square to round, and the combination of saturated ink and brush strokes gives people a rich and rich feeling with just one stroke. He was the first painter to take full advantage of the characteristics of raw rice paper to enhance artistic expression. Raw rice paper has strong water absorption capacity and can easily cause ink to spread (bleed). This was originally a disadvantage, but Bada turned it into an advantage. It not only opened up a broad prospect for ink freehand painting, but also created people's interest in ink freehand painting. The new concept has made an everlasting contribution.
The second is image creation. The shapes of the eight flowers and birds are not simple deformations, but a close combination of shape, interest, skill, and meaning, so we will not feel thin and lonely when appreciating them. The third is his layout, which pays special attention to the placement of some objects in the two-dimensional space. The trick is to make full use of the white space, which is what the predecessors called "calculating white and treating black". At the same time, the role of balance, symmetry, density, virtuality, and reality in the layout of the inscription, signature, and seal was fully mobilized. He is not like ordinary painters who first draw the painting and then inscribe and stamp it at the appropriate location. Instead, he has an overall planning and vision so that every point plays a decisive role in the layout, no more, no less, no more. Luxury, no frugality. For example, "Flowers and Birds Landscape Album" (collected by the Shanghai Museum) painted in the 33rd year of Kangxi's reign, the first painting only depicts a chick. The chicken is placed on the lower right side of the picture. The center of gravity of this position divides the picture into four large spaces. Each space is different in size, balanced and varied. Since the head of the chicken is facing left, the title poem is placed in the second large space on the right, which makes the empty background suddenly come alive, visually breaking the balance and enriching the content. The depiction of the chicken is vivid and expressive, and the movements are like a child just learning to walk, and the waddling is very cute. The chicken is wary of the front with its big eyes, especially the three curls behind the eyes, which are like radio waves, as if there is some sound coming from the front, making the chicken frightened. We can understand this little chick as it has just emerged from the eggshell, showing surprise and vigilance towards the world; it can also be understood as that it has lost its group, cannot find its mother, feels lonely and scared, how to understand it is up to people's imagination. Wings, so sometimes painting less can actually increase the capacity for thought.
Less is not an end but a means. Otherwise, the less the better, and art will go down another evil path. Less is relative. For example, "Birds Bathing in Willows" painted in the 42nd year of Kangxi's reign (collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing) is "more" than the above-mentioned works, but compared with the works of ordinary painters dealing with similar themes, it is less Much, much less.
For example, his treatment of willow branches, which takes up about twelve strokes, occupies the entire upper space of the painting, not only expresses the quality of the old trunk and new branches of the willow, but also expresses the force of the branches facing the wind. In the spring breeze, the myna is washing its feathers and about to fly. This small scene of life shows unlimited business. "Flowers on the River" (collected by Tianjin Art Museum), painted in the 16th year of Kangxi's reign, is the only long-form masterpiece among Bada's lifetime works. It is also the one with the most pen and ink and the most complex layout, but he still embodies the principle of less. For example, there are no more than thirty strokes in the lotus clump when the book is opened. The number of strokes is reduced but the meaning is complex, making it fascinating as soon as the book is opened.
The Eight Great Masters are inherited from the ancients and inspired by those who come later. The old man Baishi once wrote in a poem: "Qingteng (Xu Wei) was born in the snow (Badashanren) far away from the mortal world. Old Suo (Wu Changshuo) was very talented back then. I used to be a running dog in Jiuquan, and I came from three families." This is how he fell. . Today, with the exchange of Eastern and Western cultures, more and more people appreciate and understand his art.