Because of its unique climatic conditions and cultural connotation, Jiangnan Mountain Water occupies a very important position in the minds of traditional literati. Its long history and profound culture have given birth to a group of artists who play an important role in today's painting world. Mr. Ding Deyuan's works provide us with a good window on how to better interpret the artistic language of Jiangnan painters, so as to give them a more accurate position in the contemporary era.
Ding Deyuan's works break the tendency of other painters in Jiangsu to emphasize warmth, embellishment, simplicity, lightness, tenacity and massiness with its complex structure and strong visual perception. He respects the tradition, inherits the traditional method of using pen and ink, and expresses his understanding of Jiangnan through freehand brushwork.
The composition of Ding Deyuan's works has its distinctive uniqueness. This is different from the three-stage composition of literati paintings in Ming and Qing Dynasties. He painted the rainy scene in the south of the Yangtze River very close, which made the composition stand out. At the same time, he handled the relationship between misty rain and architecture through ink blocks. He paid attention to expressing his intuitive experience and broke the clear boundary between white walls and black tiles. He emphasized the authenticity of his feelings and experiences and expressed his understanding of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River in a unique way.
In terms of pen and ink, Ding Deyuan emphasizes "lightness" while "moistening" and pursues the heavy feeling of the picture. Especially in the performance of pen and ink, in addition to the free and easy use of pen and cursive script in the center, he also used the method of accumulating ink in many places in the picture to increase the thickness of the picture. In some paintings, he tends to make the composition of the whole picture exaggerated and abrupt, rather than the ingenious and unique composition method usually used to express the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River.
Sun Ke: Vice President and Secretary General of China Painting Society.
For Mr. Ding Deyuan's works, we should pay more attention to the exploration and breakthrough in the combination of Chinese and Western arts, rather than simply using China's traditional ideas to interpret them. His works, especially in the use of pen and ink, contain western impressionism and expressionism, and are not bound by the traditional norms of pen use. For example, his "Exotic Style" series works, while expressing western architecture and scenery with China traditional pen and ink, also have a strong western painting modeling structure; Another example is his painting of Jiangnan gatehouse, which shows the maturity of his sketching ability and modeling ability in the process of processing.
The intense and full passion in Ding Deyuan's works makes his works in a completely open state, rather than a gentle and elegant contraction state. His pictures broke the program of small bridges and flowing water in Jiangnan water town, but adopted bold brushstrokes and wanton superposition. His brushwork is not entirely China's traditional pen and ink, but absorbed the way of oil painting layer by layer rendering.
He also emphasized the richness of ink levels in his works. The ink color of Chinese painting is extremely rich and difficult to grasp. In modern times, especially after Huang Dynasty, the study of ink color has attracted more scholars' attention, and there is no doubt that he has his own unique method in understanding and grasping the level of light ink, which also reflects his profound skill in China's traditional pen and ink.
Chen Zui: Member Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, researcher at the Institute of Fine Arts of China Academy of Fine Arts.
From Ding Deyuan's works, I feel that his works can be summarized into the following three forms of expression: First, better use of sketches, colors and even focus perspective in western painting, focusing on the expression of intuitive feelings, such as "exotic customs" series. Second, completely follow the methods of traditional Chinese painting, such as flowers and birds. Thirdly, the combination of the two draws lessons from each other. The rhyme of traditional ink painting contains accurate sketches, such as the gatehouse in the series Time and Water Town.
From my personal point of view, the first form is my favorite expression, and it is also a more comfortable and skilled expression for painters. The painter's third and second forms of expression show that the painter's diverse creative styles reflect his spirit of active exploration.
The ancient literati's description of Jiangnan emphasized the interest of pen and ink and the beautiful freedom of pictures, while Ding Deyuan's theme works showed his talent and romance, while his landscape works gave people a thick and boundless feeling. The works are rich in content and durable. He is from Jiangnan, but some of his works paint the feelings of northern painters.
Wang Yong: Researcher, Institute of Fine Arts, China Academy of Fine Arts.
First, I think the whole or main tendency of Mr. Ding Deyuan's works should be summarized by modernity, which belongs to the category of modern ink landscape in China. His expression has a strong sense of modernity, which mainly comes from the painter's outstanding personality. In his works, some landscape paintings are more dignified, heavy and old. The reason is that this kind of expression, which is more like the North School painting style, should have a lot to do with the painter's personality. Secondly, I think the formation of this painting style is also related to the painter's personal experience. He used to work in stage art, so his paintings pay attention to big visual effects. As far as theme selection is concerned, I appreciate his series "City of Psychedelic", which is an important breakthrough in traditional landscape painting in China, especially in Jiangnan. Whether and how to express the modern urbanization in Jiangnan has become a problem that needs attention.
This way of expressing the psychological feelings and emotional personality of contemporary cities in the picture is commendable, but in the form of expression, we can absorb more the essence of traditional pen and ink and learn from the long pen and ink characteristics of contemporary landscape painters.
Chen Weiya: Deputy Director-General of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games.
In 1970s, Mr An Deyu was admitted to Huaibei Art Troupe as a director. I often follow him and watch him draw figures, sketches and colors. His hard and simple persistent study and good attitude have made him come all the way.
When we look at his paintings today, we can feel that his inner world is rich and delicate at the same time. He splashed ink with heavy colors, and he decorated it just right, embellishing the little color in his heart.
Zhao Lizhong: Researcher of China National Painting Academy.
In my past impression, when it comes to Jiangnan, most of them are exquisite and moist, with small bridges and flowing water. After reading Ding Deyuan's works, people feel that it is vigorous and vast, but more northern, full of momentum and tension. My thinking is, is the painter describing the gentle and beautiful scenery in the south of the Yangtze River and what is behind the small bridge and flowing water?
Judging from Ding Deyuan's personal experience, he was engaged in stage art when he was young, and his study of painting may be limited to one thing, one image and one theme. However, the stage scene emphasizes a broad vision, and on this basis, there may be a combination of the painter's personal thinking and temperament, which leads to such works. The second feeling is that the burning passion in Ding Deyuan's chest can be felt behind his photos. This creative passion can always exist in artists' works, which is very valuable. Through a large number of works, it can also reflect the painter's tireless efforts on the road of creation. Thirdly, through understanding, I know that Ding Deyuan has been engaged in landscape painting for nearly ten years. From his paintings, we can see that the painter is still exploring and looking for something thematic, not the theme, but the theme of painting language.
Chinese painting will eventually find its own position through long-term exploration. Art is not science, art is accumulation, and it is the final result that tests the artistic value.
Ma Hongzeng: Former Deputy Director of Theoretical Committee of China Artists Association.
I have two great impressions of Mr. Ding Deyuan's works, one is vigorous, and the other is ink painting. His landscape theme is based on "momentum", water town theme is based on "charm" and city theme is based on "meteorology", all of which run through the word "qi".
I think to give play to his specialty, his advantage lies in the tension and momentum in the picture, that is, the sense of movement. All three themes are full of strong sense of movement. Most of Jiangsu's works are full of charm but lack tension, so many works with diverse styles can't be danced in the exhibition, resulting in a strong visual impression. Ding Deyuan, on the other hand, solved the problem of insufficient tension among Jiangsu painters. He absorbed the style of northern painting school, the modeling features of the west and the expression forms of modern painting. How to retain the essence of Jiangsu painting will be the problem he will face in the future.
Liu Longting: Editor of China Fine Arts Publishing House.
Chinese painting has a long history, but now the painters' paintings are very old, which makes people sleepy. I think Mr. Ding Deyuan's paintings are full of vigor, youthful vigor and development space. What exists in nature is drawn through description, and what does not exist in nature can be expressed through imagination and pen and ink skills. Excellent works should be artistic originality and generality. Ding Deyuan's painting themes include foreign sketches, modern cities, water towns in the south of the Yangtze River and other rich contents, and the forms of expression include tradition, modernity, concreteness and abstraction. The development of Chinese painting to the contemporary era requires continuous in-depth exploration of artistic themes and artistic language, so that such works have room for development and a sense of the times. Ding Deyuan is such a painter who has the courage to explore and achieved great success. With the rapid development of science and technology, developed imaging technology has left figurative painting far behind. I think figurative painting is not as good as abstract painting. China's ink painting, combined with China's calligraphy skills and poetic rhyme, can be said to be unparalleled in the world, and is not afraid to compare with any art form.
Gong Zheng: Deputy Director of the Institute of Fine Arts of China Academy of Fine Arts.
Mr. Ding Deyuan is a painter who is good at exploration and brave in exploration in contemporary painting circles in China. This spirit of exploration comes from the painter's thinking and positioning of himself in the process of creation. Ding Deyuan's works have changed from a natural landscape to a modern city, which is a change of theme. What is the painter's thinking point in the process of theme change? For mountains and rivers, we can feel the constancy of nature. Based on this, we can gather the pen and ink experience precipitated by the long-term development of China landscape painting. This tradition is very rich, and its most important point is the constancy of time. The scenery of Ding Deyuan also has this constant thing, in which a grand and deep charm is expanding. However, his "exotic customs" and "psychedelic city" series have different effects from the former, and the time has changed in his paintings. He highlights what he shows by expressing illusory things such as starlight and lighting, and gradually reduces the aesthetic experience brought by constant objects.
From Ding Deyuan's works, I feel that he pays more attention to pen and ink. I think the painter may notice a "form-quality" relationship between pen and ink and modeling. For example, he is a landscape painter, but he painted a series of lotus flowers. In the aspect of expressing the relationship between pen and ink of lotus and the relationship between pen and ink of Jiangnan Bridge, the relationship between pen and ink is unified with the form and quality of lotus, and the relationship between form and quality dilutes the differences in subject matter. No matter whether the painting is lotus, wooden house or natural landscape, the problems of the object itself are diluted and dissolved in this pen-and-ink structure, which emphasizes a pen-and-ink relationship.
Ding Deyuan has been exploring and practicing on his own artistic road, and has also put forward other topics worthy of further discussion. For example, the relationship between pen and ink and color, the relationship between pen and ink and modeling and so on. These issues have been debated in the 20th century in the transformation of China's painting. Faced with these problems, Ding Deyuan put forward his own solutions from his own creative practice.
Wang Zhichun: Researcher of Beijing Painting Academy.
Mr. Ding Deyuan's paintings have a very distinct personal appearance, and his personality is vividly displayed, giving people a vast, heavy and powerful feeling. His artistic path is all the way from western painting, and it is a change to intervene in Chinese painting from western painting. As far as his current works are concerned, each one is based on the painter's unique feeling of the landscape rather than the experience and routines from others. For example, the main body of his picture structure is the structure of western painting, and the picture level is expressed by the depth of ink, and there are few stylized pens. These are all worthy of recognition and can show his own personality. This is related to his artistic experience, and it is also a very precious trait of the painter. As far as the development of Chinese painting is concerned, it is difficult for painters who take the traditional road and come out of a certain family, a certain genre and a certain region to turn the traditional program into their own intuitive feelings. Artists are loyal to their feelings and construct their own pen and ink language with their own personality as the center, which is a core thing in the development of contemporary Chinese painting. Whether it is absorbed from tradition or transformed from foreign western paintings, the most important thing for a work is to have personality, passion and feelings.
In the exploration of artistic path, I think it is necessary to form my own language. Starting from self-feeling, it is Ding Deyuan's advantage to constantly strengthen and clarify his own language. Watergate Building's painting method highlights his solid realistic rendering ability, and the depth of performance and the final effect are rare. The attempt at the level of picture structure has made the landscape in his works have a strong sense of heaviness and vastness, which shows that he has a profound ability to control ink painting.
Yang: Executive Editor of Art Magazine
For Ding Deyuan's works, I want to talk about some of my own views from the intuitive feeling of the picture. Ding Deyuan's works are very attractive. He can transform his emotions into strong visual feelings and convey them to readers and audiences, and bring the emotions of the viewers into his works quickly.
First of all, the topic of this exhibition-writing about Jiangnan is the core of this topic, which embodies the essence and essence of Chinese painting. It is intentional writing rather than actual writing. This theme closely corresponds to the painter's works, which proves that the painter really creates his works according to the spirit of intentional writing and through his own intuitive feelings. Ding Deyuan's paintings reflect his present situation, and I think he is advancing in a state of movement and contradiction. He has no stereotype, and he doesn't have too many procedural constraints, which is worth appreciating. In today's China painting world, no matter what language is used, the works that can move people's hearts are the most worthy of appreciation, which is the most prominent feature of Ding Deyuan. Starting from his own feelings, he absorbed and used for reference traditional ink painting, western painting modeling and even modern language. But obviously, the painter emphasized the freehand brushwork spirit of ink painting. As can be seen from the picture, the painter is not limited to pen and ink, but pays more attention to the understanding of meaning and rhyme and the absorption and digestion of spirit.
Wang Ping: Director of Information Research Center of China National Academy of Painting.
Great changes have taken place in China painting in the 20th century, especially in the traditional literati painting, and everything has entered the performance of Chinese painting. Painters in Ming and Qing Dynasties seldom express their thoughts and wishes through painting. In the 20th century, this phenomenon has changed a lot, and modern painters began to use painting as a way to express themselves and express their feelings.
In the process of exploration, it is relatively easy to inherit China's paintings if you are conservative. If they are innovative, even a slight expansion of a theme needs great hardships. The value of Ding Deyuan's painting lies in his sense of direction and the goal he strives for. Direction is the key. With the direction, even a small step forward is still a gradual development. If there is no direction, it is like a lonely boat in the sea, and it can only drift with the tide. This is the sorrow of artistic creators. Ding Deyuan's works also reflect his attempts and explorations in many aspects, such as the abstract combination of traditional Chinese painting and modern painting, the combination of traditional pen and ink and color, and the attempt and exploration of new theme forms. Through today's exhibition, from my personal point of view, such exploration and direction are of great academic value.
Xu Peijun: Executive Deputy Editor of China Art Museum.
After seeing this exhibition, Mr. Ding's works gave me the following impression. First of all, this is a painter with a broad vision. Although the theme of my creation is the mountains and rivers in the south of the Yangtze River, I don't stick to a certain genre or brushwork, but write my own intentions. There is no fixed formula for his paintings, and no one has ever painted them before. Although it was built in the Qing dynasty, the painters at that time did not take this theme as the main body of creation. Describing water towns, especially in the form of ink painting, began in recent ten years, but the creation of such themes has accumulated a certain schema and even formed a certain fixed French style. Ding Deyuan obviously discovered it himself, and learned from his predecessors or contemporaries, trying to express it with pen and ink. His outstanding advantages are broad vision and unrestrained technique.
One more thing, I think it is worth learning. Although it is not accurate, at least this technique is worth promoting. Now we look at the buildings in landscape paintings, regardless of geographical restrictions and architectural features, most of them show the same style. The eclecticism of Chinese painting also makes this kind of problem a common problem. I think since it is a description of objective things, we should respect objective reality and learn from nature. Otherwise, there will be more and more stylized elements in the works. This is Ding Deyuan's work, and I was deeply impressed by two points.
Famous critic Mou Jianping
Based on this exhibition, I can feel that Mr. Ding Deyuan's landscape painting has traditional elements, drawing new ideas without losing the pen and ink of Chinese painting, and at the same time, it has the characteristics of western composition and color. The shadow that can be seen in Huang's early works, he is very particular about online use. His landscape paintings blend into the hazy artistic conception of the west, and combine China landscape paintings with western landscape paintings perfectly, thus creating a new way to integrate Chinese and western landscape paintings. Secondly, the Jiangnan water town in Ding Deyuan is different from what I remember. It combines the beauty and elegance of the southern landscape with the heavy atmosphere of the northern landscape. The Jiangnan water town written by Wu Guanzhong is beautiful and agile, while the Jiangnan water town in Ding Deyuan pursues the atmosphere and is vigorous, which is also a very rare way in artistic style.
In Ding Deyuan's works, the trees on the mountain are completely diluted and tend to develop into abstract landscapes. This is also a direction of landscape development. In short, the exploration of landscape painting is very difficult. I think we can further explore color and make greater achievements in the future.
Zhao Quan: deputy editor-in-chief of Art Watch magazine.
I will talk about my views from the conceptual category of Chinese painting. In recent decades, another painting category, modern ink painting, has emerged, which uses the tool materials of Chinese painting.
I think Ding Deyuan's works, if named as ink painting or color painting, may better reflect the characteristics of the works. For example, ink painting and color painting also use brush, rice paper and ink, but they have different pursuits from traditional Chinese painting. The former pays more attention to the effect of the picture and the expression of the painter's personal feelings. The latter has its own pen-using norms and conventions, and the painting process does not overemphasize the expression of the painter's emotional passion, but more contains some rational things. In this sense, although Ding Deyuan's works use brush, they are different from traditional Chinese painting in the use of pen and ink. In this respect, we are not limited to the traditional brushwork, but pay attention to the expression of personal feelings. Traditional painting has its own methods in shaping objects, such as rocks, trees and houses, including lotus flowers. Dante Deyuan was not bound by these traditional norms and methods, but created new things through exploration.
Zhou: Executive Director of Yanhuang Art Museum
I want to talk about the reason why I am willing to hold this exhibition for Mr. Ding Deyuan. Mr. Ding Deyuan's works are very innovative and contemporary. He can produce new works and bring new visual experience about modern Jiangnan water towns to the academic circles and Beijing audience. It is also our responsibility to hold exhibitions for such works. More importantly, I want to open a window for the future development direction of China fine arts through this exhibition, which is also the purpose and purpose of introducing this exhibition.
For the understanding of Ding Deyuan's works, besides the visual language of art has its own personality, as a contemporary painter in China, his creation answers not only an aesthetic question, but also the artist's visual thinking on modern art and some insight into social issues, which is important for the future of art. Through my communication with the painter and his works, I think he has his own thoughts on the current environmental and social problems. It avoids the artificial beautification and modification of landscape painting and pursues the infinite artistic conception of primitive ecology. He raised some social problems and expressed them in artistic language. The water town where he lives has entered the stage of modernization, and the rapid economic development is accompanied by environmental problems. His artistic conception of water town looks fresh, simple, quiet and smart. I think he tried to keep and reproduce the pristine feeling of primitive water towns in the process of urbanization and modernization. Is the current living environment what people expect and yearn for? I think Ding Deyuan also has his own views and understanding on this issue. His works contain the artistic conception of poetry and the sense of rhythm of music, expressing the pulse of the times and the voice of the public. I think contemporary artists should think more deeply from his point of view.