Reporter: Today, I am very fortunate to sit with Mr. Xue and talk about some academic issues.
Xue Liang: to be precise, it should be art. The academic scope is too broad. Natural science and humanities belong to the academic scope, so it is better to talk about this part of art. In today's era of fast food culture, people are impetuous, and it is a luxury to talk about truth. Art is a matter of different opinions, besides, the word "art" in contemporary times has rotted away, been used and vulgarized, and each has his own words! Aesthetics is a diversified matter, and we discuss painting theory.
reporter: the key is aesthetic taste.
Xue Liang: There is an obvious sign that Chinese painting is different from other paintings, that is, it uses the brushwork of writing to shape the image: from the image in the eyes, to the image in the heart, to the shape in the pen. The process of improving the quality of China painters is a cyclic process from simulacra and mental image, and from mental image to image.
reporter: some people will never get through this hurdle.
Xue Liang: At present, some Chinese paintings are not painted by China at all, not by pen and ink, but by sketching, not by modeling, and they copy nature and compete with the camera. What a skillful craftsman! Some so-called freehand brushwork paintings are rude and have no humanistic content, but they are slick and have no style, not writing, but painting, wiping and brushing. It doesn't matter to me if I don't talk about it. I can only be alone.
reporter: some people can also win prizes.
Xue Liang: Aesthetic diversity, and the winning works can only represent one of the diversity, which is called exhibition painting. However, it is also excellent that the work can win the prize.
reporter: I heard that you always paint at night?
Xue Liang: After decades, habit becomes nature. At night, all thoughts are gone, and there is no distraction, returning to the original. Irritable during the day, calm at night.
reporter: your paintings, in particular, are very distinctive and different from others.
Xue Liang: I thought of it by painting, not by painting. My conception process is different from that of ordinary painters, who often consider what to paint. I first have an abstract feeling, and then rationally use the memory in my mind to organize the objects and structures that can express this artistic conception. Classical painting language can be used for reference, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as long as it conforms to the spiritual connotation of my works at that time. Run the picture without scruple, so the scenery arrangement of the picture may be unreasonable, as long as it is reasonable, the truth of art and the truth of life are two different things. In painting, "emotion" is the foundation of a painting, and reasoning is only a means and a physical thing. The creative process of my works can be expressed in such a simplified way. With the consideration of life, society and nature, I first have a non-concrete feeling and form the original impulse to create works. How to turn this non-visual emotion into a visible scene? There is a painting language: pen and ink, formal symbols, modeling elements, the layout of scenery, and the rational processing of subjective creation, which is a process from scratch in modeling. This process is to let the painting symbols of images bear the spirit of the subject, bear the creative mood at that time, form a harmonious picture, convey a kind of artistic conception, a kind of interest, and a way for me to interpret life, art and society. I strive to make my paintings have a soul, a god and a magnetic field, which is a life on paper. This life can tell readers what I think and feel. I try my best to make everything in everyone's heart and nothing in everyone's pen. This is the ideal realm that I pursue, which is both artistic and aesthetic. To sum up, this creative process is from abstract spirit to concrete schema, and then to the expression of pen and ink to convey the original spiritual connotation. This creative method is cyclical and reproductive. I think the works created by this creative idea have a little connotation, a little depth, can impress people, and can be inspired by the truth, goodness and beauty in the viewer's human nature, which may be precisely because of this special creative way that my painting appearance has been formed. From spirit to conception to material selection to creation, and then to releasing the connotation of this spirit to readers, it is actually a process of free release of the soul and a process of "spiritual fasting", and the appreciator can have spiritual communication and aesthetic interaction with the works. In addition, I personally feel that there are still many schema changes in my works. We often mistake a fixed painting method for style, but in fact, style is people, and style is the sum of the author's natural view, outlook on life, unique angle of understanding society and unique aesthetics. It's not a fixed painting routine, using pen and ink, and inertia in modeling and composition. It's still an old saying that style is people.
Reporter: These are the most valuable things in your artistic creation. It is no wonder that each of your paintings has a unique place in interest. This painting can be separated from that one in feeling, composition, pen and ink, interest and spiritual connotation.
Xue Liang: Actually, there are not many tricks in my painting method, and there is not much difference between the painting procedure and the traditional painting method. The basic painting language symbols are still traditional, but my creative mode is still dynamic and changeable. Why can you do this? I create scenery with emotion, and I live by emotion. People's emotions are ever-changing, and law is ever-changing with the changes of people's emotions. Law is not immutable, so Shi Tao said that "law is the supreme law when it is impossible". The subject spirit will also keep pace with the times, taking the subject spirit as the germinal point of a painting, rediscovering from the ancients and drawing lessons from the painting elements consistent with my subject spirit, rearranging, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, and integrating harmoniously. A series of works created in this way will be different in aesthetic taste, connotation, pen and ink, and composition between this painting and that painting because of the difference in spiritual directivity, but these are unified in the restriction of my personal world outlook, which is just the so-called style.
reporter: this creative mode is naturally formed after you have a deep understanding of art. It is very painstaking and unacceptable to realize this creative mode.
Xue Liang: wisdom comes from quietness, and wisdom comes from reality. Therefore, there is no way but to cultivate feelings in the dead of night, and then translate these feelings into visual graphic pen and ink to create a picture. Here, pen and ink skills are just carriers and means, and they are physical things. A good painting should have metaphysical exquisiteness and metaphysical depth, and it should be able to express the most beautiful things in human nature, without any insincerity.
Reporter: At present, some landscape paintings are only the piling of hills and the arrangement of water. Full of images, I don't know what it means. In Li Keran's words, "such a painting should evoke the soul". A work without cultural quality is just a craft at best. Huang Binhong said that painting should have inner beauty, which probably refers to the depth of spiritual content, the height of cultural quality and the difficulty of artistic means.
Xue Liang: I agree with your comments on most of the current landscape paintings. After all, we are not arts and crafts, not crafts. Here, I have no derogatory meaning. In fact, craftsmen also have unique skills that they have practiced all their lives.
Reporter: Your personal language is strong. Some people say that your painting style is a little decorative.
Xue Liang: I think what you are talking about is something within the concept of painting. Decorative means stylization, which is the most prominent external feature of oriental art. China drama, folk art, China music and Chinese painting are all like this. In fact, the shape of Chinese painting is symbolic, imagery and decorative, and it is a schema formed after processing from the heart. Chinese painting is a painting characterized by decoration. Because it has humanistic content, spiritual content and moral content, it is different from the general concept of decorative painting. Regarding the decorative external characteristics of Chinese painting, we have clearly shown it in the green landscape of Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties and the modeling elements of ancient masters. I think that sensibility is the basis of rationality. Ignorant people are bold, knowledgeable people do something, and knowledgeable people do whatever they want. This requires a high degree of rationality. After years of strict and standardized art training, the painting method is precipitated in their subconscious, and a realm of freedom is reached. I still have a certain distance from this realm. The so-called transformation of painting needs to be pursued with lifelong energy, and it is the highest state that needs rational thinking to form a rational method, intentionally or unintentionally. Otherwise, the so-called painting that focuses on sensibility blindly and boldly is just graffiti, and ignorance is fearless!
reporter: it makes sense to think deeply.
Xue Liang: Actually, anything stylized is decorative. China's poems and songs pay attention to the integration, meter and antithesis, that is to say, it is a standardized and stylized art. Can you say that it is not decorative? Can you say that China's Peking Opera is not decorative? Beijing opera has a strong decorative meaning from facial makeup to costumes, to manners and even to singing. And seal cutting in China. Can you say it's not decorative? Zhan Ziqian's paintings, Li Sixun's paintings, Dong Yuan's, Ju Ran's, Liu's, Li's, Ma's and Xia's paintings, Ni Yunlin's paintings, Chou Ying's paintings, Qian Xuan's paintings, Chen Laolian's paintings, ancient great green landscapes and splendid landscapes, can you say that he is not decorative? Therefore, I think decoration is an excellent gene of Chinese painting, a gorgeous coat of China's art, and another obvious symbol that distinguishes it from western realistic painting.
Reporter: From your perspective, the works of eastern and western art masters are decorative, but their expressions are different. From Botticelli's symmetrical composition in the west, to the works of Renaissance masters, Rococo art, to modern cubism, fauvism, cold abstract painting, etc., from China's earliest extant You Chuntu to the works of Badashanren and Pan Tianshou, which are all freehand brushwork, there are inherent decorative elements. I see, as long as the works with deformed and standardized quality are decorative. However, the decoration of Huang Binhong's paintings is not obvious.
Xue Liang: Actually, I prefer Huang Binhong's paintings. He pays more attention to writing. When we study it carefully, his modeling symbols are actually very decorative, but his interpretation of these symbols is not so definite, vague, explicit, implicit and hidden. In fact, Huang Binhong's painting style is not suitable for my personality, and what suits me is good. Everyone has a different face, and my fingerprints are different from everyone else in the world. This is a person. Many things come from personality, so there is no need to force them. Now there are many people in the country who learn from Huang Binhong. In fact, Huang Binhong is the last one to learn. He has already arrived in the kingdom of freedom. How can you learn anything you want? If it works, it will often go into the magic road. In the 198s, I spent several years studying Huang Binhong to some extent, and created a work with his brushwork and ink method, which won a gold medal in the whole country. Nevertheless, in my later creative career, I found that this road could no longer be sublimated, so I returned to the classical tradition. My traditional intervention method is different from the general way of typing in and typing out. I am in and out, and I can go out and enter. When I encounter a bottleneck in my creation, I first ask about tradition, but I will never follow the old rules. The tradition has given me a lot of inspiration. With the deepening of artistic experience, I am more and more awed by the classic tradition, knowing what it is but knowing why it is, and never blindly following it.
reporter: in fact, you still think a lot about painting.
Xue Liang: Of course, we should think more about art. In fact, everything we do is based on rationality. Any social behavior of people needs rationality, otherwise it will be an animal.
reporter: rationality is dominant, and artistic creation should conform to the law.
Xue Liang: I admit this point. Just like a person's dress, the dress that shows no trace is the brightest dress and the most painstaking dress. Otherwise, can you be called a master? Carving without carving is the direction of my future efforts. Of course, this requires a process of hard practice. There are three realms in Zen: seeing mountains is mountains and seeing water is water; Seeing mountains is not mountains, and seeing water is not water; See mountains or mountains, see water or water; I may be at the second level before my eyes, but whether I can step onto the third level depends on my talent, efforts and energy. I am in the process of rational cultivation, and I can't practice it to a certain extent, but it all conforms to the law. In addition, some things in predecessors' paintings can be rediscovered. The key is to carry forward the fine genes of traditional art with their own unique eyes. For example, many painters may only inherit the line beauty of calligraphy, but turn a blind eye to the structural beauty of calligraphy. The composition of calligraphy has accumulated the aesthetic concept of Chinese civilization, moral concept, and understanding the natural view of everything in the world. The so-called indication, understanding and pictograph are the three major elements that constitute China's calligraphy. It would be a pity if you let this go! Here I reveal a little secret. The composition or composition and layout of my works are all obtained from the beauty of calligraphy. Know white and keep black, count white and be black, and learn from the beauty of Chinese characters, that is, the beauty of structure. I often hide this kind of beauty in the natural image of the picture. We still have to rediscover the tradition and reinterpret it with a big vision.
Reporter: Finally, it shows that it not only distinguishes the old traditional model but also develops and creates the tradition. The great framework of Chinese civilization has been built and perfected by generation after generation.
Xue Liang: In some people's eyes, tradition is a program or a routine and an inherent painting style. In fact, tradition is a whole cultural concept. We should grasp the tradition as a whole, instead of sticking to one's own words and generalizing the whole.
reporter: are you drawing every day now?
Xue Liang: I paint every day and never stop. Drawing is a state in my life. What can I do if I don't draw?
reporter: nowadays, the art world is rather impetuous, and few people really make great efforts and make achievements.
Xue Liang: No achievements. I just like painting and do my best. To achieve the so-called achievements, we need to combine heaven, land, people and ourselves, which is very helpless. Let's see God's will.
reporter: I don't think there are any special materials on your drawing table. Can you tell me something about your painting method?
Xue Liang: Actually, Chinese painting is nothing more than those materials, such as pen, ink, paper and color. Personal brush is used to it, and they all have their own preferences. In fact, ink is still a bit of a statement. Grinding ink, Japanese ink, Yidege ink, Tessai Weng ink, Su Mo, etc. Each ink has different ink properties, and there are slight differences. How to use it skillfully is different, and personal know-how is only understandable, but unspeakable, which needs everyone's careful understanding. Besides the problem of water, the ancients were actually very particular about water use, which was discussed in the ancient painting theory. The ancients concluded that well water, river water, glue, paste water, cold water, hot water, etc. have different water properties. Therefore, I think that painting ink painting should first understand the concept of water, rather than simple ordinary water. You should know that water is different from water. In addition, regarding paper, I choose paper according to the needs of the picture, so that I can get twice the result with half the effort. With regard to color, technology is developed now, and there are many kinds of colors. We don't have to pedantically think that non-Chinese painting colors are not needed, and colors produced in all countries in the world can be used for me as long as they suit us. Besides, the existing colors of Chinese paintings have long lost their natural characteristics, and they are all made by chemical methods, which are a bit crude. It is imperative to improve the colors of Chinese paintings and expand the types of colors used in Chinese paintings. I sometimes make some colors myself, and I am half an expert in this respect.
reporter: I see that some paintings of rocks, trees, clouds and water on your screen seem to have the shadow of the ancients.