Badashanren was a famous painter in the early Qing Dynasty. He is good at ink painting, flowers and birds, with concise pen and ink and strong personality characteristics. Later generations have studied more on Badashanren's calligraphy and painting, but less on his inscription art. The author tries to sort out and interpret his inscription art from the aspects of poetry, calligraphy and seal cutting, so that readers can fully understand Badashanren's artistic aesthetic value and its influence on later generations.
There are few problems on Badashanren's screen, and most of them only have simple signatures. However, every question must have a profound meaning, and it is often intentionally implied. The art of Chinese painting pays attention to "qi" and the picture is full of momentum. There are two kinds of momentum: one is to extend outward, which makes people feel that there is painting outside the painting; One is to concentrate "Qi" in the picture. Inscriptions in paintings are used to disperse or condense the momentum in paintings. In order to express their depressed and passionate emotions, Badashan people arrange the objects to be depicted in the frame of the picture, and even push the picture into an imperfect shape, and then rely on inscriptions to complete the picture composition, forming an open or closed form.
The rocks, lotus flowers, flowers and birds in Badashanren's paintings have been simplified into various abstract schemata, and there is a blank between the title and the image, and the lower left corner and the upper right corner of the picture are also blank, which makes the momentum in the painting gather and disperse, and the reality and reality coexist. The word "Badashanren" also has endless meanings. The four words written together are like "crying" and "laughing", which means crying and laughing, expressing his cynicism and indescribable grief and indignation, and at the same time being helpless. Most of his works after the age of 57 use this topic, including the philosophy of "trying to argue but forgetting what he said" Needless to say, simple and precise words express deep feelings. He also has a common symbol, like the crane symbol, which means "March 19th", to commemorate Emperor Chongzhen who was hanged in Jingshan Park on March 19, to express his deep affection for the motherland.
This unpretentious and infinite vitality form is the ideal of Badashan people's artistic creation. Writing a few words in the corner of a simple picture has a flashy and superb effect. Although it is still so concise, it is a spiritual refinement, which makes people feel that they have entered a world of meditation.
"Painting difficult scenes is composed of poems; Poems that are difficult to recite are supplemented by paintings. " One sentence tells the relationship between poetry and painting, which complement each other. Badashanren's poems are very special in the history of literature, and there are many argots in his poems. To understand these argots, we should first consider his followers and his status as a monk. He lived in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and his value standpoint, lifestyle, political attitude and life belief were different. As a Buddhist monk, he is well versed in Buddhism, so his poems imply Zen and have the flavor of picking up the remains of Hanshan. It has strange images, far-reaching influence and strange game fun. The language of Zen is the natural expression of self. In the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Geng commented in the Collection of Paintings of Chinese Dynasties: "Badashan people are talented and hidden in calligraphy and painting, and their inscriptions are strange and incomprehensible." This is what makes Badashan people special.
"Peacock Bamboo Stone Painting Axis" is said to be the most combative work of Badashan people. The poem says: "Peacock is famous for its flower rain, but bamboo shoots are better than half ink. How to talk about three ears is like sitting on the second watch every spring. " In the picture, there are two ugly peacocks squatting on an unstable stone with three broken feathers on their tails. These three tail feathers symbolize the "three dazzling feathers" in the official system of the Qing Dynasty. He used "sitting in the middle of the night" to mean that the upright official waited for the emperor to go to court in the middle of the night. The peacock in the painting is no longer the prototype of the objective image in life, but an artistic image that has dissolved into the painter's subjective feelings and become a symbol, which is not clear enough. Coupled with a satirical poem, the painter's deep feelings are revealed. The tacit cooperation between poetry and painting with profound artistic image is an exaggeration and irony. Explain that there are poems in the painting, and the meaning outside the painting is stronger.
A close reading of Badashanren's works reveals a restrained spirit, showing a calm style, which is called "Eight Cold", but with a strong sense of life and rhythm. But the expression of obscure emotions is obviously much more complicated and difficult than direct catharsis. In order to make up for the lack of pictures, Badashan people not only quote classics, but also use poems, seals and paragraphs to express their feelings as much as possible, which is plain and complicated. For example, the title "Watermelon" said: "Melon never lingers, and the fruit is ripe and fragrant; Unlike the master's yellow leaves, I'll make up the west. " At first glance, this seems to be a natural phenomenon to praise the maturity of melons and fruits. In fact, it is a metaphor for people with melons, which has different meanings and contains a very subtle feeling of adherents. The painter used the historical allusions of Hou Zhaoping, the Dongling after Qin Dynasty, to plant melons in Qingmen, Chang 'an, as a metaphor for "adherents" and to express his thought of fleeing into an empty door in order to maintain integrity.
Apart from satirizing and quoting classics, Badashan people's poems on paintings also contain poems that express their life sighs. For example, The Book on Magnolia: "There are more than 80 magnolia flowers, and the Jade Temple is divided equally. The earth crowned the nine poles in the sky, and the door was forbidden in the province where my love came too late. " "Leave a fragrance for a white song banquet, and cherish the words to sing and clear your temples. Plum blossoms bloom and fall, and peony grows together. " It is an objective natural law to associate the blooming magnolia with the blooming plum blossom and peony, which means that good flowers don't last long, prosperity is just a cloud in the sky, lamenting that life is impermanent and humiliation is short.
In order to record the time of their creation, predecessors often used the year number of heavenly stems and earthly branches or the emperor to draw money to record the year. However, Badashan people have a special case. He often writes only about heaven and earth, but not about earthly branches, which shows that without land, the country will be ruined. For example, Axis of Amphibia was written by people from Bashan in winter, Peony Map was written in March, and Ancient Meitu was written by Koharu. In these years, the Ministry only wrote about heaven and earth, not land. Here, it contains the author's deep sadness and feelings for the collapse of the country, which directly reveals his dissatisfaction with the Qing Dynasty.
It turns out that the seal with the bell seal is the customary expression of keeping our promise. It not only shows that the painter is serious about his own creation, but also the strong contrast between the thick and steady crimson seal and the black and white red formed by black and white paper and ink can produce special artistic effects on the picture. Calligraphy and painting works are incomplete without it, and at the same time, the author's thoughts and knowledge can be seen in the printed words. So we can't ignore its auxiliary function. Badashanren's seal cutting is unique in form, content and seal position. "Seal is the seal of the soul". Many pictures of Badashan people have no words on them, only spare chapters. However, "the leisure chapter is not idle." They have unique ideas, novel business locations and unique meanings, which make the picture change and emotional overflow. But many of his idle chapters don't know what they mean without knowing the context. For example, the composition of the lotus in the Eleven Flowers and Birds Atlas is diagonal, with the center of gravity at the upper right of the whole picture. There is not a word in the whole picture, and a spare chapter is engraved in the lower left corner, which reads "Eight Returns". From the form of composition, lotus leaf and lotus leaf stem have momentum to the lower left corner. In order to gather this momentum, the artist put this chapter in the lower left corner to make it echo the main object in the upper right corner, so as to balance the unbalanced space in the picture and also play a role in making up for the vacancy. In terms of content, it has a profound meaning. "Eight-homing" has three meanings: First, "Eight-homing Debate" refers to all the changing phases in the world, each in its place, and there are eight kinds. Two, "eight" is "eight", "return" takes the meaning of "return is good" in Laozi. Third, the meaning of "returning my Daming Jiangshan". If you don't know its origin, you can't understand its meaning.
It is said that the composition of Badashanren's works is extremely dangerous, but he is not blindly taking risks. He will still put a seal or inscription on a certain part of the picture to make it balanced. In the picture of two birds, two birds are playing on the left side of the picture, and the center of gravity is here, which is dynamic. There are inscriptions on the right side of the picture: "I like eating" and "Badashanren", but it seems that there is still a feeling of insufficient weight, and the overall composition of the picture is not satisfactory. Therefore, the lower right corner is printed with the "involved" seal in white, which solves the strange danger of picture composition and balances the imbalance. Badashan people also have many grotesque and gibberish seals, which are full of Zen, such as: Ten Virtues, Donkey House, Tiaodian, Buddhist Disciples, and Immortality, all of which are embedded in the paintings and complement the Zen in the paintings. Some also show emotional interest, such as: Baiyun amuses himself, is indifferent and distant, just laughs, and waves are famous for their ears, white paintings and laziness. These casual chapters seem ordinary, but in fact they have endless meanings. It is beneficial to read it carefully.
In a word, the stone carving art of Badashan people, like their painting art, has a unique aesthetic taste. In this contemporary environment, painters can't be as comprehensive as their predecessors in poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing, but understanding Badashan people's stone carving art has important reference significance for contemporary painters.
(Author: Hunan Industrial Vocational and Technical College)
Editor in charge: Yang Jian