Wu Puao
Wu Puao, male, was born in Shanxi in September 1959. He has been in the army for 21 years and now works for China Aviation Oil. He started photography in 1981. He is a member of the Chinese Photographers Association, a member of the Chinese Art Photography Society, a fellow of the China Folk Photography Association, the executive director of the Chinese People's Photography Society, and the chairman of the Shanxi Photographers Association. He has held many personal photography exhibitions at home and abroad. Many of his photographic works have been collected by museums, and he has won more than 100 gold, silver, and bronze awards in various photography competitions across the country. He is hailed as a "Desperate Warrior" by insiders. In the past 30 years, I have used a large-format camera in my spare time to record the relics of ancient murals, ancient painted sculptures and ancient buildings in Shanxi from a new perspective and an attitude of recognizing family treasures from a new perspective, which has been well received and affirmed by experts and scholars. It has left precious wealth for the inheritance of the history and culture of the Chinese nation.
Chinese name: Wu Puao
Nationality: Chinese
Ethnicity: Han
Birthplace: Yuncheng, Shanxi
Date of birth: 1958
Occupation: Chairman of Shanxi Photographers Association
Main achievements: More than 100 awards in national photography competitions
Representative works: Wu Pu Ao Mural Photography Exhibition
Personal Life
The original intention to convey the beauty of Wu Pu Ao and Shanxi Ancient Mural Photography
1 Origin
2013 On May 21, 2019, while browsing Weibo, a piece of information from @ Central Academy of Fine Arts caught my attention:
"'Recognizing Family Treasures with Different Eyes' Exhibition of Hundreds of Ancient Mural Sites in Shanxi Province" It is on display in Hall B on the 3rd floor of the museum until May 25. The exhibition features more than 300 photos of Shanxi mural sites taken by Wu Puao. The exhibited pictures record more than 200 paintings in Shanxi from the Northern Qi Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. All the ancient mural sites in temples, ancient temples and villages cover many aspects such as religion, art, politics, economy, farming, and drama in different historical periods of ancient Shanxi."
Get a different perspective on family treasures. Shanxi ancient murals. These two sets of keywords touched my professional nerves. Then "Baidu". Artist Cui Zimo’s Weibo on May 19, 2013: “Look what kind of ball the guy above is playing? On the Yuan Dynasty murals at the Water Temple in Hongdong County, Shanxi Province, you can see that Chinese people played golf in the Yuan Dynasty. Some of the fine murals have become dust, and the photographic works have become unique copies." Move the mouse, and there is a comment like this: "Shocking! Watching the exhibition, you can have a deeper understanding of the artist's great achievements in composition and composition. From the perspective of the use of lines and traditional techniques, art historians will tend to examine the development of figure painting and the changes of the times in the face of these clear "first-class authentic" mural photos. The goal should be achievable." News pictures also show that famous painters and art educators such as Zhou Lingzhao, Jin Shangyi, Chang Shana, Hou Yimin, Yuan Yunfu, Ouyang Zhongshi, Xu Bing, Yang Xiaoyang, Chen Danqing, etc. went to visit the exhibition and praised Shanxi's ancient murals. Poet and calligrapher Liu Zheng wrote "San Jin Mural Song" for this purpose. Sculptor, calligrapher and artist Qian Shaowu and artist He Jiaying praised the exhibition after visiting the exhibition: "It can be said to be a lifetime spectacle." I decided to interview this photographer from Shanxi.
Search, query. Describe the motivation for the interview. About an hour later, when Mr. Wu's mobile phone number was dialed, a hoarse Mandarin with a slight Shannan accent came: "I'm sorry, I'm not in Taiyuan. I'm in my hometown. My mother passed away."
It turns out that On May 19, 2013, on the day of the opening ceremony of "Beautiful Shanxi - Recognizing Family Treasures with Another Eye" and "Duoying Exhibition of Hundreds of Ancient Mural Sites in Shanxi Province", Wu Puao's 87-year-old mother passed away. He hurried to his hometown - Yuncheng, Shanxi. "I have to go to Beijing again in two days. When the photography exhibition is over and I return to Taiyuan, I will call you to contact you." His voice sounded a little tired. At around 4 pm on May 27, 2013, I received a call from Teacher Wu and made an appointment to meet the next morning. On May 28, 2013, it was drizzling. At 9 a.m., he picked me up by car and headed to his unit, the Shanxi Branch of China Aviation Fuel Co., Ltd. at Wusu Airport.
When I did my homework before the interview, I saw a piece of news that said "People from China Aviation Oil Corporation recognize family treasures with new eyes" and learned that Mr. Wu Puao worked for China Aviation Oil Corporation. However, when I saw the information he handed over, When the small characters after the name on the business card read "General Manager, Secretary of the Party Committee", "I didn't expect" almost blurted out.
He looks thinner than in the news photos, and exudes a rigorous and capable temperament. "I joined the army when I was 18. I have been in the army for 21 years." No wonder, he has a very special mixed temperament.
2 Cherish
The Central Academy of Fine Arts website recorded the following paragraph after the academic symposium on the afternoon of the opening ceremony on May 19, 2013: Mr. Yuan Yunsheng started from the "Chinese Dream" From the perspective of "Chinese Dream", in terms of culture, to realize the "Chinese Dream", we urgently need to not only preserve excellent traditional works, but also inherit the spiritual and humanistic values ??behind them.
Chinese murals flourished in the Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties, and they are considered to be the largest in the world in terms of the size of the surviving ancient murals.
The days of the ancients were leisurely and slow, and they seemed to live a more "artistic" life. There was always exquisite beauty that amazed us. They painted beautiful murals everywhere, splashing them freely without even having to outline them in advance, with horse-drawn carriages and maids in the palace, all with air.
Shanxi is one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization. The total number of existing ancient murals exceeds 24,000 square meters. Their large number, long history, and artistic essence are second to none in the country and are the essence of Chinese cultural heritage. It is also a valuable resource for the development of Shanxi culture.
Among the ancient murals in Shanxi, one mural is highly praised by experts, and that is the Jin Dynasty mural "Picture of Restaurant Market Well" in Fanzhi Yanshan Temple. Many experts call it the "Picture of Along the River During Qingming Festival" on the wall. Experts say that if this painting were painted on a scroll, it would be comparable to "Along the River During the Qingming Festival". The murals at Qinglong Temple in Jishan are regarded as masterpieces of paintings from the Yuan and Ming dynasties. The "Seven Buddhas" of Xinghua Temple in the Palace Museum in Beijing is the work of the famous painter Zhu Haogu of the Yuan Dynasty and his disciple Zhang Boyuan. The painting level is extremely high and is very similar to the "Eighty-Seven Immortals Scroll" painted by Wu Daozi of the Tang Dynasty. The Yongle Palace murals are a culmination of murals from all previous dynasties, especially the Tang Dynasty religious murals that directly inherited the Tang Dynasty style of open figures, rigorous proportions, meticulous brushwork, vivid gestures, smooth clothing patterns, and majestic momentum. Specifically speaking, they completely inherited the style of the Tang Dynasty religious murals. The orthodox painting tradition of the Tang Dynasty represented by Wu Daozi. Therefore, the Yongle Palace murals provide a good copy for deciphering the appearance of Tang Dynasty murals during the peak period of Chinese religious figure painting. It connects the past and the future, shakes the past and inspires the present, and continues the past and opens up the future. Not only did it become an independent religious figure painting system independent of the "Four Schools of Yuan Dynasty" literati landscape painting, but it was also the final end of Chinese religious murals.
In Mr. Wu Puao’s office, he showed me the album he brought back from Beijing, and the words at the opening ceremony written by Mr. Hou Yimin, the honorary president of the Chinese Mural Society and the chief planner of the exhibition. Speech: "Wu Puao is my friend. Over the decades he has taken tens of thousands of pictures of ancient Shanxi murals. I have also been to Shanxi. The most representative Shanxi mural is of course Yongle Palace. But when I I was shocked when I saw the pictures he took. Facing these mural remains, what I thought of was that quite a few Shanxi murals were really well painted, not just one or two, nor even average. But it’s really good!”
Mr. Wu took out two more volumes of works and spread them carefully on the ground. I saw: The Ming Dynasty murals of Duofu Temple in Taiyuan City showed life scenes such as welcoming etiquette, greetings to friends, and hunting in the mountains; the drama pictures on the murals of Shuishin Temple in Hongdong County and the folk customs in Pingyang area Pictures of selling fish, beating pills, playing chess, etc. show the secular life at that time.
For more than 30 years, Mr. Wu Puao visited many sites in Shanxi Province that are difficult to see by ordinary people, and took nearly 10,000 large-format films, covering the period from the Han, Tang, and Five Dynasties to the Song, Liao, and Murals from the nine dynasties of the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties restore ancient Shanxi murals in new forms, bringing together things scattered among the people, making the murals content that can be seen, touched and learned. While recording the tradition, he also saw that today's murals are seriously dilapidated due to poor protection.
He turned on the computer and clicked on the works he had taken one after another, and said to me, "You see, due to the influence of natural and man-made factors and changes in the environment where they exist, these rare and rare cultural relics have been seriously affected, with fractures, A considerable number of them are in serious danger of suffering from various diseases such as cracking, hollowing, dryness, shedding, and contamination. I hope to take the opportunity of this exhibition to better protect Shanxi's ancient murals and let more people know about our ancestors. These are precious legacies left to us.”
“On the afternoon of May 25, as we were preparing to dismantle the exhibition, a German muralist scholar stood for three hours, grasping the last words. Time to watch." He pointed it out to me.
But we have indeed not yet turned our cherished eyes to these thousand-year-old paintings.
3. Glimmer
In the final analysis, it is the responsibility of the artist, awe, and these lasting glimmers in the long life that are more worth pursuing.
Wu Puao fell in love with photography when he was a soldier in the army. After changing his career, he used his holidays and spare time to travel to many shooting locations in Beijing and other places, spending almost all his transition fees and wages. All prizes and bonuses will be used for photography expenses. After he returned to Shanxi to work in 2009, his wife was worried about his health and sometimes came to Taiyuan from Beijing to take care of him, but he was either going to the countryside to shoot or looking up information in his study. Mr. Wu’s friend, the famous calligrapher Mr. Yang Zaichun, recorded this incident in a blog: “At a photography exhibition, I went to Mrs. Pu’o specially and said a lot of words of gratitude to her. Without the understanding and support of my family, Support, it is difficult for him to achieve what he is today. He has severe diabetes, but he rarely cares about himself and is always willing to help others. Every time he goes out to collect photos, Wu Puao’s own photography equipment weighs dozens of kilograms, but he still grabs it. He has been climbing mountains and ridges with my camera bag. He has lost a lot of weight recently, but his energy is still incomparable to that of ordinary people.” There is also a blog post written on August 22, 2011: “Let’s talk about my trip to Chongfu, Shuozhou, Shanxi last week. It is not easy to photograph the Jin Dynasty murals in the temple and preserve them for more than a thousand years. My good friend and photographer Wu Pu Aoru worked hard like Saburo to shoot all the ancient murals in Shanxi with 8×10 film. He said that he would wait for time. The race is getting damaged day by day!”
Mr. Wu Puao is known as “Desperate Wu_” in the photography circle. "This stems from my childhood experience. When I was in middle school, I lived on campus and my family was poor. Every time I went to school, I could only bring a small bag of raw sweet potatoes, and I didn't even have food money to pay to the school. Therefore, I developed the spirit of self-improvement and self-reliance from an early age. He has such a character that he always finds a way to solve any difficulties he encounters. Coupled with his 21-year military career, he has the drive to fight to the end no matter what he does. Once, in order to return to Shanxi for filming, family leave was just approved. I couldn't wait to put my bag on the train and walked dozens of kilometers non-stop after arriving at the station. I didn't rest for 6 days. I was really determined to not give up until I reached my goal. In May 1999, two friends and I went up the mountain to take pictures. We hiked up the mountain road that had not yet been repaired, carrying heavy photography equipment. At that time, we estimated that the mountain road could not be very high or far, so I took hypoglycemic pills in advance. Unexpectedly, we would be walking for 8 hours. It was bad. When I got to the mountain, my face turned pale, I was sweating all over my body, my eyes were spinning, and my blood sugar was too low. I slumped on the ground, thinking that this was the end of me, and my friends quickly stuffed sugar and sugar into my mouth. It took more than half an hour to regain my composure. Thinking about it now, I still feel a little scared.”
Professional books such as “An Outline of the History of Chinese Murals”, “An Outline of the History of Oriental Murals” and “Lectures on the History of Chinese and Foreign Art”. and county annals from various parts of Shanxi, occupying a considerable space in Mr. Wu Puao’s four bookcases. Wu Puao has unique insights into mural photography: "The photography of murals is different from ordinary subjects. It reproduces the artistic value of ancient murals through the documentary characteristics of photography, so authenticity is the first element. I have to do everything before shooting. Prepare carefully, study carefully, be familiar with the essence of the subject, determine the picture, choose the machine and lens according to the content shown.
Usually I use a 4×5 or 8×10 large-format landline camera. The advantage of this kind of camera is that the front and rear frames can be raised and lowered, and the axis can be shifted left and right to adjust the perspective caused by the different angles of the lens to the mural being photographed during the shooting process. Deformation, and use a smaller aperture to ensure the depth of field and clear range of the mural. It is best to choose a header that is consistent with people’s visual habits. The second, more important factor is that color reproduction must be accurate. It should not only show the unique earthy texture and the dust of time that the ancient murals had, but also reflect the physical lines and elegant colors of the ancient murals. This requires that during the shooting process, the shooting angle and lighting must be mastered. I often choose the camera to shoot parallel to the mural, and use reflectors to brighten the light source. For this purpose, I specially made five or six extra large reflectors. When lighting, I mostly use side lighting to enhance the depth of the mural. When shooting, remember to strictly prohibit exaggeration, distortion and modification. The third element is that clarity must be guaranteed. A tripod must be used when shooting, which is beneficial to composition and focus, avoids jitter caused by hand-held shooting, and truly presents the solemn, tranquil, heavy and simple artistic characteristics of ancient murals. ”
Mr. Wu Puao’s works cover a wide range of subjects. He likes innovation and pursues perfection, and has won hundreds of awards. He said: “Photography has helped me understand life, society, and art. "
"Beautiful Shanxi - See Family Treasures with Another Eye" and "Duoying Exhibition of Hundreds of Ancient Mural Sites in Shanxi Province" will also be exhibited in the provincial capital. After that, Mr. Wu Puao will give away all the exhibits To the Chinese Mural Society “I want to build a house for these mural photography! "Mr. Hou Yimin said loudly and waved his hands at the end of his speech at the opening ceremony.
4. Echo
I think if you can be deeply affected by someone, something, or a situation, you can probably understand it. For the sake of echo logic. In the week after interviewing Mr. Wu Puao, in this logical system and in this connection of facts, the world is playing a friendly role, but every scene is about you. It’s all me.
“Please change your perspective and re-examine these precious works from the perspective of painting, art history, and especially the development of Chinese figure painting. "Remains". I seemed to hear these sincere words from Mr. Hou Yimin.
There are more echoes that we have not collected yet. They have been ringing softly, maybe you will hear them tomorrow .
Personal experience
On May 19, 2013, Wu Puao’s mural photography exhibition "Knowing Family Treasures through Another Eye" will be exhibited at the Central Academy of Fine Arts
2013 On October 9, 2013, photographer Wu Pu'ao held a photography lecture on "Understanding Family Treasures through Another Eye"
On November 12, 2013, photographer Wu Pu'ao was invited by Hantu Image to give a lecture on "Shanxi History and Photographic Art》