Introduction to Xu Zhimo
[Edit this paragraph]
(1896-1931) modern poet and essayist. A native of Xiashi Town, Haining County, Zhejiang Province. The name is Zhang Qu, the courtesy name is Zhimo, and the small character is Youshen. Pen names he has used: Nanhu, Yunzhonghe.
Xu Zhimo is a representative poet of the Crescent School and a member of the Crescent Poetry Society. He graduated from Hangzhou No. 1 Middle School in 1915 and studied at Shanghai Hujiang University, Tianjin Beiyang University and Peking University. In 1918, he went to the United States to study banking. In 1921, he went to study in England and became a special student at Cambridge University in London, studying political economics. During his two years in Cambridge, he was deeply influenced by Western education and influenced by European and American Romanticism and Aesthetic poets.
In 1921, he began to write new poems.
After returning to the country in 1922, he published a large number of poems and essays in newspapers and periodicals.
In 1923, he participated in the establishment of the Crescent Society and joined the Literary Research Association.
In 1924, he founded the weekly "Modern Poetry Review" with Hu Shi, Chen Xiying and others, and served as a professor at Peking University. The great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore served as translator when he visited China.
In 1925, he went to Europe and traveled to the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, France and other countries.
In 1926, he edited the supplement "Poetry" of "Morning News" in Beijing, and launched the new poetry metrical movement with Wen Yiduo, Zhu Xiang and others, which affected the development of new poetry art. In the same year, he moved to Shanghai and served as professor at Guanghua University, Daxia University and Nanjing Central University.
In 1927, he participated in the founding of Crescent Bookstore. The following year, the monthly magazine "Crescent Moon" was founded and he became the editor-in-chief. He also traveled abroad to Britain, the United States, Japan, India and other countries.
In 1930, he served as a member of the Chinese Cultural Fund Committee and was elected as a member of the British Poetry Society. In the winter of the same year, he taught at Peking University and Beijing Women's University.
In early 1931, he co-founded the quarterly "Poetry" with Chen Mengjia and Fang Weide, and was elected as a director of the Chinese branch of PEN. On November 19 of the same year, while flying from Nanjing to Peiping, the plane crashed and everyone died due to heavy fog when it hit the mountains near Jinan.
Poetry collections include: "Zhimo's Poems", "A Night in the Green Green", "Collection of Tigers", "Wandering in the Clouds";
Prose collections include: "Falling Leaves", " "Scale Claws in Paris", "Autopsy", "Autumn";
The novel "Spring Traces" and the essay collection "Roulette";
The drama "Bian Kun Gang" (co-written with Lu Xiaoman ), diary "Ai Mei Xiaozha", "Zhimo Diary", translated "Mansfield Novels", etc.
His works have been compiled and published as "The Collected Works of Xu Zhimo".
Xu's poems have fresh words, harmonious rhymes, novel metaphors, rich imagination, beautiful artistic conception, elegant thoughts, and are full of changes. They pursue the neatness and beauty of the artistic form, and have a distinctive artistic personality, which is the new moon. The representative poet of the school. His prose is also of its own style and has achieved as much achievement as poetry. Among them, "Autopsy", "Want to Fly", "The Cambridge I Know", "Gossips about Living in the Feilengcui Mountain", etc. are all famous names handed down from generation to generation. articles.
Xu Zhimo graduated from Hangzhou No. 1 Middle School in 1915 and studied at Shanghai Hujiang University, Tianjin Beiyang University and Peking University. In 1918, he went to the United States to study banking. In 1921, he went to study in England and became a special student at Cambridge University in London, studying political economics. During his two years in Cambridge, he was deeply influenced by Western education and influenced by European and American Romanticism and Aesthetic poets.
In 1921, he began to write new poems. After returning to the country in 1922, he published a large number of poems and essays in newspapers and periodicals. In 1923, he participated in the establishment of the Crescent Society. Join the Literary Research Society. In 1924, he co-founded the weekly "Modern Review" with Hu Shi, Chen Xiying and others, and served as a professor at Peking University. The great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore served as translator when he visited China. In 1925, he went to Europe and traveled to the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, France and other countries. In 1926, he edited the supplement "Poetry" of "Morning News" in Beijing, and launched the new poetry metrical movement with Wen Yiduo, Zhu Xiang and others, which affected the development of new poetry art. In the same year, he moved to Shanghai and served as professor at Guanghua University, Daxia University and Nanjing Central University. In 1927, he participated in the founding of Crescent Bookstore. The following year, the monthly magazine "Crescent Moon" was founded and he became the editor-in-chief. He also traveled abroad to Britain, the United States, Japan and India.
In 1930, he served as a member of the Chinese Cultural Fund Committee and was elected as a member of the British Poetry Society. In the winter of the same year, he taught at Peking University and Beijing Women's University. In early 1931, he co-founded the quarterly magazine "Poetry" with Chen Mengjia and Fang Weide, and was elected as a director of the Chinese branch of PEN. On November 19 of the same year, while flying from Nanjing to Peiping, the plane crashed and died when the plane hit a mountain near Jinan due to fog.
He is the author of poetry collections "Zhimo's Poems", "A Night in the Emerald Green", "Collection of Fierce Tigers", "Wandering in the Clouds", and essay collections "Falling Leaves", "Scale Claws of Paris", and "Autopsy" , "Autumn", the novel and essay collection "Roulette", the drama "Bian Kungang" (co-written with Lu Xiaoman), the diary "Aimei Xiaozha", "Zhimo Diary", the translation of "Mansfield Novels", etc. His works have been compiled and published as "Collected Works of Xu Zhimo". Xu's poems have fresh words, harmonious rhymes, novel metaphors, rich imagination, beautiful artistic conception, elegant thoughts, and rich changes. They pursue the neatness and beauty of artistic forms, and have distinctive artistic personalities. They are the representative poets of the Crescent School. His prose is also of its own style and has achieved as much achievement as poetry. Among them, "Autopsy", "Want to Fly", "The Cambridge I Know", "Gossips about Living in the Feilengcui Mountain", etc. are all famous names handed down from generation to generation. articles.
1. Studying at a young age due to family background
[Edit this paragraph]
On January 15, 1897, Xu Zhimo was born in Xiashi Town, Haining County, Zhejiang Province. Arranged according to the genealogy, he was named Xu Zhangqu, with the character (zuomu, upper right, unitary and lower right) Sen. Because his father's name was Shenru, he also had the small character Shen. His pen names include Nanhu, Shizhe, Haigu, Gu, Dabing, Yunzhonghe, Xianhe, Shuiwo, Xinshou, Huanggou, Eer, etc. Shima was another name given to him by his father when he went to study in the United States in 1918. It is said that when he was a child, a monk named Zhihui rubbed his head for him and predicted that "this person will become a great person in the future." His father was eager for his son to become a dragon, so he changed his name to this.
Xu Zhimo is the eldest grandson of the Xu family and has lived a comfortable and affluent life since he was a child. He studied at home when he was young. At the age of eleven, he entered the Kip Shek Kai Zhi School and studied under Zhang Shusen. He laid a solid foundation in ancient Chinese prose and always ranked first in his class.
In 1910, when Xu Zhimo turned fourteen, he left his hometown and came to Hangzhou. After being introduced by his cousin Shen Junru, he was admitted to Hangzhou Fuzhong School (renamed Zhejiang No. 1 Middle School in 1913) and was in the same class as Yu Dafu. He loved literature and published an essay "On the Relationship between Novels and Society" in the first issue of the school magazine "Yousheng". He believed that novels benefit society and "should be vigorously promoted." This was the first work in his life. At the same time, he is also interested in science. He also published articles such as "Radium Ingots and the History of the Earth".
In the summer of 1915, Xu Zhimo graduated from Zhejiang No. 1 Middle School, and then was admitted to Shanghai Baptist College and Theological Seminary (the predecessor of Hujiang University, now the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology). In October of the same year, his family arranged , married Zhang Youyi, the daughter of Zhang Runzhi, a wealthy man in Luodian, Baoshan County, Shanghai.
Xu Zhimo, who had an active nature, did not finish his studies at Baptist College in peace. In the autumn of 1916, he left Shanghai and went north to study law at the preparatory course of Beiyang University in Tianjin. The following year, the Law Department of Beiyang University was merged into Peking University, and Xu Zhimo also transferred to Peking University. During the two years he spent at university in the north, new content was added to his life and new factors were injected into his thinking. In this institution of higher learning, he not only studied law, but also studied Japanese, French and political science, and dabbled in Chinese and foreign literature, which rekindled his interest in literature. During this period, he made many friends and celebrities. Introduced by Zhang Junmai and Zhang Gongquan, he became Liang Qichao's disciple and held a grand apprenticeship ceremony. Liang Qichao had a great influence on Xu Zhimo's life, and his position in Xu Zhimo's mind was very important. Although Xu Liang has a close master-disciple relationship, the ideological differences between them still exist. Xu Zhimo, who has accepted the ideas of bourgeois democracy and freedom, desperately pursues his ideal life at the risk of his own life. He wants to fight for marriage and love. free.
When he was in college in the north, he personally experienced the scenes of warlords fighting and witnessed the tragic massacre of innocent people. He hates this society that "can wipe out the purple of the western mountains at dusk, nor can it erase the shame of people turning into beasts" (Xu Zhimo: "Man Transforms into Beasts" Battle Hymn No. 2). He is determined to study abroad and seek to change the reality of China. Prescription to implement his "ideal revolution".
Xu Zhimo left Peking University with the patriotic enthusiasm of "making good use of what he has learned to benefit our country" (Xu Zhimo's "Starting for the United States" on August 14, 1918). On the 14th, I set off from Shanghai to study in the United States. In his first year of studying abroad, he entered Clark University in Uster, the United States. He entered the history department and took courses such as sociology, economics, and history, hoping to become a Chinese "Hamilton" in the future. He graduated ten months after enrolling and received a bachelor's degree and a first-class honors award. But he was not satisfied with this. That year he transferred to graduate school at Columbia University in New York and entered the Department of Economics. Xu Zhimo gained extensive knowledge of philosophical thought and political science.
That year, the wave of the "May 4th" revolutionary movement also spread to Chinese students studying in the United States, far away from home. Xu Zhimo was also driven by patriotism and participated in patriotic activities organized by local foreign students. He often read "New Youth" ", "New Wave" and other magazines. At the same time, his interest in learning gradually shifted from politics to literature, so he obtained a master's degree in literature.
Xu Zhimo stayed in the United States for two years, but he was tired of the madness, greed and material gain of the bourgeoisie in American capitalist society. He was also attracted by the British philosopher Russell , finally "got rid of the temptation of Columbia's doctorate and bought a boat to cross the Atlantic. Unexpectedly, unexpected changes occurred in Russell's personal life, which prevented him from fulfilling his long-cherished wish to study with Russell. As a result, he "spent half a year in the London School of Economics and Political Science." When he was feeling bored and wanted to change his way, he met Lin Changmin and his daughter Lin Huiyin, and due to Lin Changmin's introduction, he met the British writer Gosworthy Dickinson. Thanks to Dickinson's introduction and recommendation, Xu Zhimo became acquainted with Lin Changmin. With special qualifications, he entered the Royal College of Cambridge University.
Xu Zhimo also lived in the UK for two years. This period of life in the UK, especially in Cambridge, had an important impact on his life's thinking. , was a turning point in the development of his thoughts. In Kangqiao, he deeply felt that "the beauty, tranquility, and harmony of nature are unexpectedly submerged in your soul in the tacit understanding of starlight and waves" (Xu Zhimo: "What I Know" "Knowing Cambridge"). Xu Zhimo forgot about Cambridge and was addicted to nature because he thought that the real society was ugly and life was painful, and only nature was pure and beautiful, in order to save this society and people. , the best way to cure the current embarrassment of life is to leave the fallen civilization and return to the simplicity of nature. Only by getting close to nature can human beings regain their innocence, and there is hope for alleviating the diseases of society.
He received a bourgeois aristocratic education in Cambridge and accepted the "smoking culture". He admired Britain so much and was so nostalgic for Oxford and Cambridge. He liked to associate with British celebrities, and he extensively studied various celebrities in the world. He also came into contact with various ideological trends. During this period, his political concepts and social ideals were nurtured, and his self-awareness—idealism—was born. He himself wanted to become an "unteachable individualist." This environment not only contributed to and formed his outlook on society and life, but also stimulated his thirst for knowledge and triggered his creative ideas. He began to translate literary works, and he translated several works by the British writer Mansfield. A short story, the German novel "The Children of the Eddy" by Fugou, a French medieval story "Wu Jiarang and Ni Alan", the Italian writer Denon Schou's "Dead City" and Voltaire's work "Candide" . At the same time, he flourished in poetry and wrote many poems. His "furious tide of spiritual revolution washed over both sides of your charming river" (Xu Zhimo: "Goodbye, Cambridge"), an idol he admired. The image is no longer the American Hamilton, but the British Shelley and Byron. He "changed his path" to join the ranks of poets)
Xu Beihong (1895-1953), Yixing, Jiangsu. His original name was Shoukang. He was one of the founders of modern Chinese art and an outstanding painter and art educator. His father was a well-known painter who studied Chinese ink painting since childhood. He served as a tutor for the Painting Research Society of Peking University. He studied in France in 1919 and later moved to Berlin and Belgium to study sketching and oil painting. Learn painting and sketching, observe and study Western art. He returned to China in 1927 and successively served as the director of the Fine Arts Department of Shanghai Nanguo Art Institute, a professor of the Art Department of Central University, the dean of the Art School of Peking University, and the president of Peking Art College. After the founding of New China, he served as chairman of the first All-China Art Workers Association and president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Xu Beihong adhered to the path of realist art and created a series of outstanding works that had a huge impact on the development of modern Chinese painting and oil painting, such as "Tian Heng Five Hundred Soldiers", "Nine Fang Gao", "Ba People Drawing Water", and "The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountain". It has played a huge role in connecting the past and the future in the history of Chinese art.
The master’s artistic path
[Edit this paragraph]
Learning painting from a young age is a difficult journey
There is a system in Yixing County, Jiangsu Province The river is called Tanghe, and there is a stone arch bridge on the river named Qiting Bridge. Xu Beihong was born in a civilian family in Qitingqiao Town on July 19, 1895. His original name was Shoukang, and he changed his name to "Beihong" when he grew older.
His father, Xu Dazhang, was a private school teacher. He was good at poetry, calligraphy, and taught painting by himself. He often painted at the invitation of local people and made small profits to supplement the family income. Mother Lu is a simple working woman.
Xu Beihong officially started to learn painting from his father when he was 9 years old. After lunch every day, he copied a painting by the famous late Qing artist Wu Youru, and learned painting skills such as color mixing and coloring. When he was 10 years old, he was already able to help his father fill in the secondary parts of the picture with color, and he could also write Spring Festival couplets for the villagers such as "Peace and prosperity, life will be prosperous". At the age of 13, he moved around rural towns with his father, selling paintings to support his family. Although the life away from home was difficult, it enriched Xu Beihong's experience and broadened his artistic vision. When he was 17 years old, Xu Beihong went alone to Shanghai, the most prosperous city at the time, to sell paintings to make a living. He wanted to take the opportunity to learn Western painting, but a few months later he had to return to his hometown because his father was seriously ill. The ambitious Xu Beihong came to Shanghai again when he was 20 years old and started a new start in life. With the support of his friends, he was admitted to Aurora University sponsored by the French Catholic Church, which laid a certain foundation in French for his future study in France. During this period, I met the famous oil painter Zhou Xiang, and representatives of the Lingnan School of Painting, Gao Qifeng and Gao Jianfu. I received their praise and guidance on my paintings, which enhanced my confidence in painting creation. He also met Kang Youwei, the leader of the reformist group, and established his own creative ideas under his influence. Under the influence of Kang's artistic concept of "despising the Four Kings and admiring the Song Dynasty", he belittled the "Four Kings" who only emphasized pen and ink and did not seek new ideas. He believed that only Wu Daozi, Yan Liben, and Li Sixun of the Tang Dynasty, and Huang Quan of the Five Dynasties, The realistic paintings of Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and others in the Northern Song Dynasty were profound and wonderful. With Kang Youwei's support, he observed the ancient rubbings of various famous steles, and devoted himself to copying the "Jingshiyu", "Cuanlongyan Stele", "Zhangmenglong Stele", "Shimen Inscription", etc., and learned the essence of the Beibei Stele, and his calligraphy was improved. Make progress. Later, he received funding to study fine arts in Tokyo, Japan. In Japan, Xu Beihong browsed a large number of public and private collections of fine works, and deeply felt that Japanese painters can understand creation and be realistic and realistic in creation, but they lack the Chinese literati in creation. The brushstrokes and ink rhyme of the painting are simple and majestic.
After returning from Japan, Xu Beihong was hired as a tutor at Peking University's "Painting Technique Research Society". During his stay in Beijing, he successively met celebrities from all walks of life such as Cai Yuanpei, Chen Shizeng, Mei Lanfang and Lu Xun. He was deeply influenced by the ideological trend of the New Culture Movement and established the ideas of democracy and science.
Studying tirelessly in Europe
With funding from the Beiyang government, 24-year-old Xu Beihong went to France to study painting. At the beginning of his arrival in Europe, he visited the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy Exhibition in the UK, and the Louvre Museum in France, where he saw a large number of outstanding works since the Renaissance. Xu Beihong deeply felt that the Chinese paintings he made in the past were "the body was not refined and the hands were loose, and the movement was not on the rope, just like a horse without a rein and it was difficult to control." Therefore, he studied painting assiduously and was admitted to the Paris School of Fine Arts to receive teaching. With Mr. Flamanger, he began to receive formal education in Western painting. Flamanger was good at figure paintings with historical themes. His paintings did not focus on the depiction of details but focused on the harmonious matching and mutual contrast of colors. They had a huge influence on the formation of Xu Beihong's future oil painting style.
Xu Beihong enjoyed training in the basic skills of Western painting every day. He studied at the Paris School of Fine Arts in the morning, went to the Lyon Institute to paint models in the afternoon, and sometimes took time to observe various exhibitions. During this period, he was fortunate enough to meet the art master Da Yang, a disciple of the famous painter Corot, and he would bring his paintings to Yang's studio every Sunday for advice. Da Yang's artistic thoughts of "Don't admire fashion, don't settle for trivial matters" and his emphasis on silent painting had a great influence on him. He did not follow the increasingly prosperous modernist painting style in France at that time, but instead studied the art styles since the European Renaissance in a down-to-earth manner. Academic art, while inheriting the rigorous and perfect modeling characteristics of classical art, has mastered skilled painting skills. After studying abroad for 4 years, Xu Beihong's painting level has reached a level comparable to that of European artists of the same period. His oil painting "Old Woman" was selected into the French National Art Exhibition (Salon).
Because the Beiyang government temporarily suspended tuition fees, Xu Beihong was forced to move to Berlin, Germany, where the consumption level was lower. There, Xu Beihong still missed every learning opportunity. He sought advice from the painter Camp, went to museums to copy the paintings of the famous painter Rembrandt, and often went to the zoo to paint lions, tigers, horses and other animals to improve his sketching ability.
When Xu Beihong regained funding for studying abroad, he immediately returned to France from Germany to continue his studies.
He seized every inch of time, and under the formal and systematic training of famous teachers and his tireless efforts, his painting level gradually improved, and he created a series of excellent sketches and oil paintings with portraits, human bodies, and landscapes as the themes, such as " Portrait of Cat Caressing", "Old Man Holding Stick", "Self-Portrait", etc.
In the final stage of his travels in Europe, Xu Beihong also visited Brussels, the capital of Belgium, Milan, Florence, Rome and Switzerland in Italy. He was intoxicated by the beautiful exotic scenery, and benefited a lot from the masterpieces of European painting masters. His eight-year stay in Europe shaped his aesthetic taste, creative concepts and artistic style throughout his life.
Integrating Chinese and Western skills into the history of famous paintings
Xu Beihong returned to China when he was 32 years old and began to devote himself to art education in China and develop his own art. cause. He participated in the "Southern Society" organized by Tian Han and Ouyang Yuqian, and actively advocated the "Southern spirit" of "seeking truth before pursuing beauty and goodness." He successively created large-scale paintings based on history or ancient fables. These paintings refer to the past and present, and the viewer can strongly feel the painter's sincere love for the motherland and people. In 1931, when the Japanese invasion of China intensified and the nation was in danger, Xu Beihong created the traditional Chinese painting "Nine Fang Gao" in the hope that the country would pay attention to and recruit talents; in 1933, he created the oil painting "The Empress of China" to express the suffering people's desire for a virtuous king. In 1940, he completed the traditional Chinese painting "The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains" to praise the Chinese people's perseverance and tenacious will to win the final victory against Japan. In addition, he also created works with realistic themes such as "Ba People Drawing Water" and "Poor Women of Ba", landscape themes such as "Spring Rain on the Li River" and "Tianhui Mountain", as well as a large number of portraits and animal themes. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, while taking up government and administrative work, Xu Beihong continued to create, passionately describing new people, new things, and new looks in the construction of New China. He painted portraits of fighting heroes, went to Shandong Daoshu Renovation Water Conservancy Project site to experience life, painted model workers and migrant workers, and collected materials that reflected the construction of New China bit by bit. Unfortunately, all these artistic activities came to an abrupt end when the painter passed away prematurely.
Xu Beihong's works, whether they are oil paintings, traditional Chinese paintings or sketches, occupy an important position in the history of modern Chinese art. His greatest achievement in oil painting was to combine the expression of light and color of Impressionism with the strict and perfect modeling of Classicism. Among the early Chinese oil painters, Xu Beihong was the most outstanding. In terms of sketching, Xu Beihong made outstanding achievements. His sketches are not only exercises for painting training, which laid a solid foundation for his traditional Chinese painting and oil painting creations, but they are also works of art with appreciation and research value. During his lifetime, he drew more than a thousand sketches of human figures alone. Xu Beihong also has profound attainments in traditional Chinese painting. He is an innovative artistic practitioner of traditional Chinese painting. On the basis of inheriting traditional painting, he was the first to integrate European classical realism techniques into traditional Chinese painting creation, creating a new traditional Chinese painting with a sense of the times. Take the well-known painter's horse paintings as an example. From such works, you can not only appreciate the beauty of line shapes and pen and ink in traditional Chinese paintings, but also observe the decent shape and light and shadow of the object.
With his genius, wisdom, perseverance and lifelong efforts, Xu Beihong has become one of the few art masters in the modern Chinese painting world who can fully master Eastern and Western painting techniques.