Ma Shunxian is a highly cultivated painter in China. He is not only good at landscapes, flowers and birds, but also good at calligraphy inscriptions. Recently, I saw a batch of his new flower-and-bird paintings, which are elegant in style and catch up with the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Among them, such as "Turning into Spring Rain to Moisten Flowers", "Qiu Linya Collection" and "The Best Time of New Autumn", they have all absorbed the charm of nature and created a real and sensible landscape, which is enough for viewers to enter, linger and savor.
There is no doubt that his painting style belongs to the classical traditional style, but once it is injected into the blood of life, it will glow with vitality, which is rare at present. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the antique romantic poison has left a wide range of harm. Many antique people do not realize the essence of tradition, but only learn several methods of forming and dying. They don't understand the internal relationship between tradition and the times and the artistic development law of "pen and ink should follow the times" from their lives.
In the early 1980s, the innovative trend of thought in China's painting world accelerated the pace of Chinese painting's modernization and made it look brand-new. However, the understanding of innovation is far from deep and comprehensive. If you want to distance yourself from tradition, go to a general "anti-tradition"; For example, in order to pursue the visual impact of the picture, the cultural connotation and elegant and refined painting style are ignored; If we only pay attention to the reference of western modern art, we can't see the life gene that can lead to modernity inherent in Chinese painting. My reflection is not simply to return to tradition, but to broaden the road of modernization of Chinese painting, hoping to have a truly diversified artistic ecological structure.
Chinese painting is a modern life style and aesthetic taste determined by classical art forms, and it is not transferred by people's subjective wishes; At the same time, people's aesthetic stereotypes formed by history can only be gradually broken, developed and changed with the pace of the times, and no one's subjective will can be changed. In this long historical process, all successful innovation attempts and creations, and all the inheritance and development of tradition on the basis of life will become a part of tradition and be preserved and passed down. Therefore, modern (or contemporary) art is a system with the largest tolerance and the largest space for free creation, and it is a pattern of multiple complementarities.
Ma Shunxian inherited the flower-and-bird painting tradition full of commercial flavor in Song and Yuan Dynasties, rather than the so-called tradition blown up for retro since Ming and Qing Dynasties. That's just some dead leaves on the traditional big tree.
Ma Shunxian's paintings are skillful in pen and ink, complete in composition and subtle and elegant. This painting style, which completely conforms to the classical aesthetic taste, may not be humble in the exhibition, but it can last forever. The fundamental reason is that he integrated the vitality of nature into the traditional pen and ink form. He followed the old adage that "nature is made by foreign teachers, and the source of soul comes from China", and went to nature to observe his feelings and gain creative inspiration. This can be seen from his angry ink sketches that he really found the source of artistic creation and really understood the artistic spirit of the word "freehand brushwork" in Chinese painting. -Ma Shunxian's interpretation of freehand brushwork flower-and-bird painting attracted me to the extraordinary height he achieved in the field of freehand brushwork flower-and-bird painting. For example, his age is not long, and the strength of his pen and the profundity and brightness of his scenery are not only beyond his age, but also beyond the reach of many painters of the older generation, revealing a common atmosphere. No wonder Tsinghua University opened an advanced seminar on Chinese painting for him, and he served as the main instructor to recruit students and teach painting. It can be said that Ma Shunxian's artistic attainments are outstanding. Ma Shunxian is smart and elegant, brave in practice and thoughtful. Not long ago, I was invited to his studio and saw his latest paintings on display there, mostly six-foot and eight-foot large paintings with many screens. I am amazed at his ability to control the freehand brushwork of flowers and birds, and I also appreciate his clear brushwork, mysterious ink and high charm. There are both language refinement and meaningful improvement. He skillfully combined the traditional concise, stagnant, vigorous and spicy bone method formed by house leakage, cone-shaped sand painting, broken hair and insect erosion with ink, water and color, and painted birds with spontaneous pen and ink, thus pursuing the unique lightness, moist, transparency and elegance of freehand flower-and-bird painting quality and realizing it. His flower-and-bird paintings are based on a wide range of materials, both recreating traditional themes and discovering flowers and birds. There are the capture of wild flowers and plants, as well as the capture of pastoral scenery; There are quiet and beautiful lotus ponds, as well as bright vines and sweet-scented osmanthus. There are willows swaying, banana leaves flowing, loquat hanging gold, pomegranate hanging fruit, red cockscomb, sunflower thriving and grapes smooth. There are birds perched between trees and stones, birds chirping, swallows flying, ducks swimming, chickens foraging, Yuanyang intimacy, and the metaphor of birthday belt ... flowers are affectionate, birds are interesting, branches are rhythmic, ever-changing and pictures are different. Those vivid images in my mind, without exception, are looming in the moonlight, clear as water and quiet as nature, as if there is nothing, and I want to show them and hide them. It is not only simple and perfect in form, but also exquisite in pen and ink, simple and light, with a strange opening, ethereal and quiet, beautiful and distant. It can be seen that in Ma Shunxian's mind, the life of flowers and birds and the nature of the universe are integrated. What he pursues is not only the charm of birds and flowers, but also the lyrical expression of his reverie, especially the purification and cultivation of the spiritual realm of his works, all of which express the clarity and unique feelings that people yearn for. This is the uniqueness of Ma Shunxian, which is also ignored by quite a few contemporary flower and bird painters. The artistic language he uses is not single, but complex, and his value orientation is diversified. The information carried by his freehand brushwork flowers and birds is not only the elegance of large freehand brushwork flowers and birds, but also the vivid modeling and gorgeous colors of small freehand brushwork flowers and birds. There are traditional flowers and birds with broken branches, "bringing forth the new through the old" (Su Dongpo's language), and there are also strange rules composed of western methods, "standing outside the predecessors" (Lv Wang's language). Ma Shunxian's flower-and-bird painting has broken all the stereotypes, and his new method is "clear pen and mysterious ink, blending ancient and modern". The specific way is to adhere to the elegance of classical style and pursue modern publicity; I love the simplicity of the field and the richness of my vision. He sometimes emphasizes the lightness of ink illusion, sometimes pays attention to the massiness of pen and ink, and sometimes is interested in the elegance of pen and ink color; Sometimes he is meticulous in the vital expression of "form", and sometimes he is devoted to the description of the spatial relationship of "meaning". His eclectic painting method makes his works have many possibilities-he can combine work with writing, color with ink painting, realism with freehand brushwork, boneless with sketching, and line with surface. That is to say, the impact of pen and splash water permeates each other, breaking through the original strokes, watermarks and ink spots, and introducing the ink expression between control and non-control into a new realm, showing that Ma Shunxian combined a variety of aesthetic interests on paper, combined with a variety of expressions in his pen, and created a unique artistic conception of contemporary freehand flower-and-bird painting. Writing and meaning are two important features of traditional flower-and-bird painting. The so-called "meaning" is to express the "meaning" of literati's spiritual integrity through the choice of flower and bird themes, which is subjective and individual. The so-called "writing" is to explain the theme to be expressed through personalized pen and ink, which is related to "painting with books" and "painting with calligraphy". "Rewriting" and "emphasizing meaning" are an important aspect of Chinese painting. Because of "rewriting", the quality of lines is very important, so we should pay attention to making lines full of strength and expressiveness with pens, which has aesthetic value of independent appreciation, but it is also a expressive discourse related to theme, artistic conception and content. Because of "respect for meaning", "painting must first have an idea to locate." If the meaning is strange, high, far, deep and ancient. Mediocrity is mediocrity, and vulgarity is vulgarity "(Fang Xun's" On Painting in a Quiet Mountain "). In Ma Shunxian's flower-and-bird paintings, "rewriting" and "respecting meaning" are the direct manifestations of his pen and ink personality. He imitated the calligraphy of the "two kings" for a long time, and then wrote the inscription of Han Li, occasionally imitating Li Beihai. His flower-and-bird pen benefited from his calligraphy attainments, and his vigorous and oblique writing style formed his frank, rigid and freehand brushwork characteristics. It is this characteristic of using a pen that, although rough and light, is clear and muddy, shows the artistic personality of clearness, smoothness, simplicity and leisure. Among the painters of the same age, there are not many painters whose pen and ink skills are comparable. In Ma Shunxian's flower-and-bird paintings, we can often read such sentences as "Hui Feng and Chang", "Indifferent life", "Always be idle and enjoy peace", "Good people live together" and "Purple gas comes from the east". These feelings come from the painter's emotion and heart, and often contain specific life experiences, so we can appreciate the painter's painstaking cultivation of the environment. What it conveys is not the sense of hardship and self-help of cultural people, but the vibrant posture of flowers, trees, birds and flowers, giving people the spirit of loving nature, caring for life and embracing life. And its aesthetic base point should be to praise the beauty of nature, so there are so many vivid images that can't be seen in the brushes of the ancients entering his sight. Obviously, Ma Shunxian's freehand flower-and-bird painting has great learning environment, brushwork and charm, and won the essence of traditional literati painting, but it is vivid, free and leisurely. Each of his paintings is simple and elegant, with ink and wash as the main color. The light and pleasant flowers and birds in the paintings seem to melt in the boundless universe, where they grow and swim freely, showing an ethereal and bright atmosphere. His paintings emphasize interest, less madness, more escape and less embarrassment. Therefore, his paintings have eight virtues, but they are neither cold nor lonely, with Qi Baishi's deep affection, but more subtle. Therefore, Ma Shunxian's clear brush and mysterious ink originated from the Eighth National Congress, flowed in Wu Changshuo, fell on Qi Baishi, and was collected from left to right, creating a light and detached realm. This is not unrelated to the silence of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China in the early years of Baishi. Finally, he also saw the combination of Beijing school and Shanghai school, which was manifested in the overflowing of pen and ink, revealing the fullness of business. Its schema is light, the brushwork is interesting, the western composition is wonderful, and the modern ink painting experiment is interesting, fashionable, innovative and highly. Ma Shunxian's foundation lies in his extremely clear, simple and elegant painting style. Undoubtedly, Ma Shunxian's freehand flower-and-bird paintings show the exploration of ontology culture in contemporary Chinese painting with pen and ink language. Before him, not many flower-and-bird painters were able to establish the literati painting's respect for the simplicity and elegance of pen and ink on the connection point between tradition and modernity, not many painters could show the quiet meaning and elegant artistic conception of the flower-and-bird world with clear brushwork and mysterious pen and ink, and not many flower-and-bird painters could show such a strong bookish spirit in the freehand language and realm. Like the literati painter in China, Ma Shunxian attaches great importance to the cultivation and tempering of "painting external skills", not only painting the scenery with sparse flowers and simple leaves, but also conveying his cultural feelings and style through the freehand brushwork of branches and leaves, flowers and birds. His works, like his elegant impression, not only show the charm of flowers and birds, but also convey the delicate, euphemistic, gentle and elegant temperament and heritage of flower-shaped birds. Therefore, his works are beautiful, gentle, simple and dissipated in the overall aesthetic orientation. In the realm of free and easy simplicity, there is an indifferent attitude towards life and feelings of drifting with the flow. This aesthetic orientation and personality realm all show the influence of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi. What they pursue together is the aesthetic taste and artistic conception of China's philosophy and poetry culture, which is manifested by combining the spirit of China culture with the exploration of pen and ink language of Chinese painting. Ma Shunxian's ontological cultural exploration of the language of freehand brushwork flower-and-bird painting has undoubtedly created a new look for the development of contemporary freehand brushwork flower-and-bird painting. There is no fixed method for the law, which is precious to the innovative development of China's contemporary freehand flower-and-bird painting without a prescribed model.
20 14 12.6 in Wang Fu garden.