Art history is an eye that wakes up late. It doesn't care about people who live only for themselves from the beginning. The acceptance, discovery and appreciation of the silent genius are always late.
Fortunately, Chang Yu's art itself, with its talent and amazing talent, has gained a firm foothold in the history of art like a naughty boy who likes to hide and seek. He told us to stay a little longer, be more patient and spend more time looking for it, and then suddenly said to him in surprise, Ah, Chang Yu, are you there?
Born, Chang Yu was very lucky. Scholarly family and rich family have laid a good foundation for his cultivation and study of calligraphy and painting, otherwise he would not have the conditions to talk about art extravagantly.
Nanchong Shunqing, a remote place in the northeast of Sichuan Basin at the beginning of last century, is a small place, but it has a strong temperament and humanistic heritage unique to Sichuan and Sichuan.
Chang Yu's father, Chang Fang Shu, is a man who loves calligraphy and painting. He is far-sighted among the squires, extremely concerned about the cultivation of his children, feeding on jade and teaching people to cultivate themselves. Everything at home is prosperous, and knowledge determines literacy. As expected, the children have taught several good talents who can do business and research. Only the essence of Chang Yu is different from Chang Junmin, the eldest brother with a developed business mind, and Chang Bicheng, the second brother who graduated from Waseda University with a rich academic mind. He is frank and lively, lacking rigor and self-discipline. He has been partial to art since he was a child and is extremely sensitive to lines and colors. He always writes and draws with his father, and soon shows his extraordinary artistic talent, which makes his father overjoyed.
When Chang Yu was a little older, his father invited Zhao Xi (1877- 1938), a scholar in Sichuan during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, to personally teach Chang Yu poetry and calligraphy. No wonder, no matter how many years Chang Yu left China, no matter how much he knows about western modern art, there is always a delicate humanistic atmosphere in his painting brushstrokes, which is rich in oriental meaning.
From the age of 9 to 14, Chang Yu studied calligraphy and painting with the talented Mr. Zhao Xi for five years.
I've heard a lot about taking a break, but that's fundamental. 14-year-old boys are getting more and more proficient in calligraphy and painting, so they can be sent out to see the bigger world. Chang Yu was sent to Shanghai Fine Arts School thousands of miles away.
China's old school pays more attention to the cultivation of children's talent and temperament, which is spontaneous. Compared with ordinary families, richer families pay attention to cultivation and knowledge. Education funding has never been a problem. Chang Junmin, the eldest brother, is a brother in the family. He is good at business and has a wide sense of modernity. He introduced Japanese machinery and equipment to set up factories and set up silk weaving factories in Sichuan, earning a lot of money. Brothers who love each other are also kind. Those who want to study are for study, those who want to go abroad are sent abroad, and those who want to paint are painted. To say that Chang Yu was a playboy later, he didn't know the preciousness and loveliness of money, and he didn't know how to concentrate on pursuing his own art, which was also the natural temperament of joining the WTO raised by his family all the way. I can't change it at all. Before going to art school, Chang Yu's paintings were quite good, and calligraphy was even better than painting, so that he felt that he didn't need to stay in art school for a long time. After studying in an American school for a year, he often goes to Japan to visit his second brother Chang Bicheng. At that time, his second brother had graduated from Waseda University and was engaged in silk business in Japan. After only one year in Japan, my second brother returned to China to set up a factory, and Chang Yu, who was inseparable from his relatives, came back to play a role in my second brother's newly opened toothbrush factory in Shanghai, advertising and packaging design for products. Although he only stayed in Japan for a short time, he didn't have much time to study and do things in Shanghai. But the clever Chang Yu naturally gained more knowledge about oriental art, which laid the foundation for his unique painting art in the future.
Of course, at that time, Chang Yu was just an ignorant young man, unable to understand this kind of experience and the nourishment of the environment intellectually and emotionally. This is precisely the beauty that art produces in one's subconscious. Life is beautiful at first, but you can't know it at a glance and you can't understand it at a glance. Only by moving forward step by step and honing inch by inch can a person's self-confidence be slowly revealed and his new atmosphere be born. His loving father and good friend, and his deep love for the whole family gave him a lot of confidence. From 65438 to 0920, 20-year-old Chang Yu officially went to France to study. Studying abroad in China at the beginning of last century is a new thing for new schools. Chang Yu, who is full of romantic artistic temperament, has a solid family background and has received a new artistic trend. It is a matter of course to go abroad. Xu Beihong, a contemporary young talent, met Jiang Biwei in Paris and had no worries on his way to France. What's more, many modern artists from China gathered in Paris at that time, and the stars were bright! Lin Fengmian, Pan, Pang Xunqin, Liu Haisu, Wang Jiyuan, etc ... We are all the first students to study abroad. Most of them are very familiar with Chang Yu, who went to Paris to work and study. A group of people help each other from time to time, cooking and eating, and are close. At the same time, Xu Zhimo, Shao, Xie, etc. It is also closely related to Chang Yu in literary and academic circles. At that time, Paris, the art capital of the world, was full of artistic schools, which not only brought together groups of oriental artists, but also some world-renowned western modern painting masters, such as Matisse, one of the founders of French Fauvism, Braque, Picasso, Swiss sculptor giacometti, and Japanese painter Fugita, who all had contacts with Chang Yu, which was of great benefit to Chang Yu's artistic thought and vision expansion.
Chang Yu, an energetic young man, was really in high spirits when he first came to France with a large group of artists and the most beautiful big studio. The significance of studying abroad, for a real work-study student like Xu Beihong, is to seize all the time and opportunities to practice painting, watch masterpieces, buy albums, accept new artistic concepts, and compare the similarities and differences between eastern and western artistic and cultural values. There is also a hazy and energetic ideal, that is, to return to China after graduation and make a modest contribution to the fine arts cause of the motherland. A little time is as precious as gold. We should always overcome material embarrassment and fight against occasional hunger. Chang Yu, on the other hand, doesn't have to worry about bread at all, go to art school for further study, paint day and night like an ascetic monk, race against time on the road of art, behave richly and calmly, and walk slowly with his own rhythm and thinking according to his usual living habits.
He likes Paris. His observation of western modern art and his grasp of the context of French modern art are more captured and obtained from the coffee bars, art exhibitions and daily life of Parisians in Paris. He prefers to draw what he wants in these places: women, flowers or animals.
His artistic way of thinking has never been focused, only a scattered perspective, not a focused perspective. Is it the ease and superiority of life that makes his artistic thinking move slowly all the way? Otherwise. His personality is slow and unique, and his personal values have hardly changed from beginning to end.
Ten years after he arrived in France, the silk factory run by Chang Junmin, the eldest brother in China, was greatly affected by the dumping of Japanese raw silk in China and closed down. Eldest brother died in the following year, Chang Yu lost his financial resources and the most distressed relatives, and his life went into nothingness.
But he is not in a hurry to catch up. He wants to make a big change in his previous life and artistic style. With a small inheritance, Chang Yu still lived a comfortable life as usual, and then began to support himself formally like an adult. But the way to survive doesn't come out of thin air. Man's ability is not only nourished by nature, but also limited by nature. Chang Yu also made efforts in other aspects, but they were not as good as painting.
He sold several paintings, but he didn't want to formally cooperate with the gallery. He has no consciousness of running his own business in his mind. He just wanted to stop the broker from making money by himself, but he didn't think that it might be a win-win relationship, so he was greatly bound materially.
However, no matter how constrained you are, you will never ask a beautiful woman to be a model in order to save money. When the French philosopher Camus wrote the Spanish aristocrat Don Juan, he said: Time goes hand in hand with him ... He doesn't want to "collect" these women, but wants to exhaust countless women and life opportunities with them.
Under Chang Yu's brush, men can hardly get into his eyes. Even he has never painted a self-portrait, which is rare among artists who use local materials.