Qiao Shiguang
Qiao Shiguang (1937——), a famous lacquer painting artist, a pioneer of modern Chinese lacquer art and one of the founders of lacquer painting. Hebei Guantao people. He graduated from the Mural Major of the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in 1961. After graduating in 1964, he stayed at the school to teach. He is currently a professor at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts (now the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University), a director of the Chinese Artists Association, and the president of the Chinese Lacquer Painting Research Association. He has held more than ten art exhibitions in China, Japan, France, the Soviet Union and other places. Qiao Shiguang's works focus on the unity of lacquer quality and painting quality, making modern lacquer painting continue to innovate while maintaining traditional cultural character, and gradually become independent. Known as the "Father of Chinese Lacquer Painting". His representative lacquer paintings include "Water Splashing Festival", "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau", "Beidou", etc.
Chinese name: Qiao Shiguang
Alias: The father of Chinese lacquer painting
Nationality: Chinese
Birthplace: Guantao, Hebei
p>Date of birth: 1937
Occupation: Lacquer painting artist
Graduation school: Central Academy of Arts and Crafts
Main achievements: Chinese modern lacquer painting One of the pioneers of Chinese lacquer painting
One of the founders of Chinese lacquer painting
Representative works: "Water Splashing Festival", "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau", "Beidou"
Introduction
Qiao Shiguang (1937.2—) lacquer painting artist. Good at lacquer painting and murals. Hebei Guantao people. Born on January 24, 1937 in a peasant family in Guantao County, Hebei Province. After graduating from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in 1961, he went to graduate school and began to study lacquer painting. He went to Fuzhou, the famous hometown of lacquerware in my country, to learn from a lacquerware craftsman. After graduating in 1964, he stayed at the school to teach. In 1986, he visited the former Soviet Union with the "Chinese Modern Lacquer Painting Exhibition". Since 1987, "Qiao Shiguang Lacquer Painting Exhibition" has been held successively at the National Art Museum of China, Fuzhou Arts and Crafts Museum, and Japan-China Friendship Hall Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan. He is currently a professor at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts and a director of the Chinese Artists Association. He has been engaged in the teaching and research of lacquer painting art for a long time. The work "South China Sea Fisherman's Song" was selected into the first Chinese Painting Exhibition of Members of the China Artists Association in 2004. Special painter and senior art consultant of Beijing Tangfeng Art Museum.
Main works
Including "On Lacquer Painting", "On the Development of Lacquer Painting", "New Flowers of Lacquer Art", "The Diverse World of Lacquer Painting to the Exhibition of Chinese Lacquer Painting" "After", "New Flowers in Lacquer Art Arrive and Carve Lacquer Paintings", "Talking about the Composition of Decorative Paintings", "Trying to Talk about the Image of Decorative Paintings", etc. The lacquer paintings he created and designed include "Water Splashing Festival" (won the second prize at the 5th National Art Exhibition, collected by the National Art Museum of China), "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau" (won the silver medal at the 6th National Art Exhibition, collected by the National Art Museum of China), "Beidou" "(won the Outstanding Work Award at the 1986 China Lacquer Painting Exhibition), "Bonfire" (collected by the Museum of Oriental Art), "Tibetan Girl Gathering Green Trees" and "Mooring", etc. He once went to the Soviet Union for exhibitions.
"The Complete Collection of Chinese Modern Art Lacquer Paintings" was published by People's Fine Arts Publishing House in January 1998;
"Lacquer Art" was published by China Academy of Art Press in August 2004;
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Lacquer Painting Art
Qiao Shiguang’s art comes from life and nature. He insists on taking nature as his teacher. Over the years, he visited Dai Village three times, entered Tibetan areas three times, traveled to the Yangtze River twice, and traveled south of the Yangtze River four times. He painted a large number of watercolors and gouache, ink and colored ink, sketches and sketches, which not only provided rich materials for creation, but also enabled him to His painting skills have been strengthened. Qiao Shiguang not only pursues the artistic form of his works, but also pays attention to the connotation and connotation of his works, and devotes himself to the study of materials and techniques. He advocates the unity of thought, art and technology; the unity of content, form and media; the unity of heart, eyes and hands. It has great reference value for young people studying art.
"Water Splashing Festival" is his masterpiece. The composition of this painting is unique. The artist shows the scattered back figures of Dai women in festive costumes in the foreground. The dragon boat race in the river and the excited crowd on the other side serve as the background, creating a warm festive atmosphere. The rich craftsmanship reflects the painter's mastery of lacquer properties. He used eggshell inlays to express the white top, and the colorful skirt combined the silver foil cover paint grinding method and mother-of-pearl inlay techniques. The mud-silver painted water surface is also gorgeous. The characters provide the best background. The whole painting is graceful, exquisite and elegant.
Qiao Shiguang's lacquer painting creation has gone through a journey of forty-six years, from his humble beginnings to becoming the father of Chinese lacquer painting.
The painter's life and artistic path are not smooth. During this period, there are twists and turns. There are ups and downs. He seeks in the twists and turns, and advances in the ups and downs. From excitement to loss, from pain to transformation, from reflection to standing up again, he has experienced history and reality. The changes and ebbs and flows of culture and art. No matter how Qiao Shiguang's creations migrate and change in history, his steadfast efforts and singing like the cuckoo's cry of blood will always linger around the land where he was born and raised. He will never forget the influence of the people on him, and this will take root deeply. The life root of the Chinese nation. At the same time, the painting art cultivated in the fertile land of lacquer culture allowed him to grow into the modern time and space and breathe the modern atmosphere, thereby constructing his unique style of lacquer painting art that connects tradition and modernity. Such lacquer paintings not only have modern aesthetic value, but also have important historical significance and humanistic value.
The road to lacquer painting
"It was lacquer painting that made Qiao Shiguang successful, and it was Qiao Shiguang who made Chinese lacquer painting possible." Was it because of the murals that prompted Qiao Shiguang to choose lacquer painting? , I think, assumptions were not allowed in the past. The existence and dependence of art made Qiao Shiguang the best choice, and he made it clear that this choice is wise, it is a trend, and it is also objective.
In the early spring of 1962, Qiao Shiguang went to Fuzhou to study lacquer art for a year and a half under the leadership of Mr. Lei Guiyuan. From the understanding of the properties of lacquer, the use of tools, the basic techniques of painting and grinding, to the art of lacquer painting, painting, gold tracing, to red treasure sand (a type of variable painting technique), "shavings" (metal inlay (tin inlay), "kiln transformation" (a kind of imitation ceramic kiln transformation in variable painting), and then eggshell inlay. Faced with hundreds of lacquer technique samples, its ever-changing techniques and mysterious and magical effects made Qiao Shiguang seem to have entered a maze. , once again strengthened his determination to devote himself to the art of lacquer painting.
This summer, on my second trip to Fuzhou to learn lacquer art, I was stranded in Hangzhou because the train was blocked. When I saw the huts, bamboo bushes, paddy fields, shepherd boys, fish ponds, and sail shadows in the south of the Yangtze River, I felt This peasant boy from the North felt so familiar and fresh that he suddenly became interested and painted his first lacquer painting, "Yumi Township". This is the "high-quality product" that Qiao Shiguang made after repeated deliberation and trial production after learning certain lacquer techniques.
Now it seems that his creative mentality at that time is still unreservedly displayed in front of everyone. The pure soul that longs for beauty, the persistence, the pursuit of upward youth, are all reflected. It is vivid and vivid: the fish swimming freely in the fish pond, the cheerful shepherd boy on the field ridge, and the quiet and comfortable thatched cottage form an interesting farmhouse scene. Although, as far as the painting itself is concerned, the painting skills are not yet skilled and the details are slightly rough. It’s more of something that lacks its own personality. However, the spiritual elements he contains, the artistic language he reveals, the formal instrumentation he pursues, and the techniques for controlling materials and tools have actually covered up the shortcomings of the picture itself. On the contrary, people strongly feel the sincerity and lush art revealed from it. Talent, this is not difficult to provide a better explanation for his future status as the father of Chinese lacquer painting.
Although lacquer painting is related to craftsmanship, craftsmanship, and folk art, it belongs to painting, and it has the same characteristics as all painting forms. While most painters devote their entire lives to turning their attention to painting itself, as for lacquer painting, Qiao Shiguang also needs to care about the possibilities and overall harmony brought to him by lacquer art technology. If he only understands lacquer art, he will not understand You can't become a lacquer painter by painting, and you can't be a lacquer painter by just knowing painting and not understanding lacquer art. The amphibious nature of lacquer painting has been attributed to the uneven and rugged artistic path of practitioners from the very beginning.
Due to the desire to explore the various possibilities of lacquer painting and the need for teaching, Qiao Shiguang went to Yangzhou to learn lacquer carving and flat grinding of mother-of-pearl, to Chengdu to learn carving and filling, and to Pingyao to learn "color rubbing" ”, he also cooperated with the master in Beijing to try gold-cutting and lacquer carving, and in Xinjiang, Shanxi, he cooperated with the master to try “cloud carving” (a type of lacquer carving). These all left a series of footprints on his path to lacquer painting. Since then, the combination of heart and hand, and the collision of soul and thought have pushed his skills to maturity, and also served as a transition and pavement for the perfection of his art in the future.
While teaching at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, the painter Yu Wen’s soul, following the trend of Su style realism, began to collide with the radiance of his inspiration. He felt like he was reborn. . Faced with the impact of Western literary and artistic trends, the Chinese painting community is reflecting. As one of the most representative pioneer painters of the avant-garde tendency of that era, Pang Xun_ and Lei Guiyuan had a profound and positive influence on Qiao Shiguang.
The quality of folk art formed the basis of Qiao Shiguang's lacquer painting, which to a certain extent also defined the style of his lacquer painting. However, the formal rules and artistic language of painting have no national boundaries and are influenced by people's subjective aesthetic taste. China at that time In terms of culture, we propose the absorption method of "taking the essence and discarding the dross", blending all the good things and integrating them into our own nation. Of course, there are also many wrong behaviors that regard other people's discarded garbage as treasure. It is under such an uncertain era that Qiao Shiguang, on the basis of striving to respect Chinese national culture and traditions, is inclusive and emphasizes the decorative nature of lacquer paintings, striving for balance, echo, symmetry and harmony, and focusing on the picture. The beauty, flatness and stylization of space. Through his own actions, he has undergone a transformation in a deeper sense. He insists on being a teacher externally and does not rely on classroom teaching to maintain the original essence of a painter. This is also the necessary artistic posture and style for a true master of art.
Not long after, the Cultural Revolution broke out, and the atmosphere in the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts was tense. The teachers were on tenterhooks and everyone was in danger, fearing that they would be labeled "bourgeois formalism" or "formalism." However, As a result, Pang Xun_ was still said to be an advocate of formalism because of the Juelan Society he organized in the 1930s, while Zhang Ding was criticized as the "Picasso City God Temple". Witnessing the farce unfolding, Qiao Shiguang began to dare not take a step beyond the realm of possibility. Especially after experiencing the purgatory of "inspiration explosion", the artist's self-gains and losses, successes and failures seemed less important, prompting him to have great courage. He picked up a brush and painted a series of lacquer paintings such as "Shaoshan", "Yan'an", "Beijing", and "Portrait of Mao Zedong in Jinggangshan Period". Some commentators at the time believed: "Qiao Shiguang's works of this period were completely pandering and showing off in a pan-political form." I disagree with those who hold this view. The aesthetic existence of any art is bound to It has its special characteristics of the times. In a special environmental background, it is difficult for people to be independent from the constraints of time and space. On the contrary, they can integrate the perspective of art into social life and keep pace with the times. Only such works can Only with artistic tension can it withstand the test and elimination of history. Art itself should not be divided into right and wrong by "catering and showing off". What is more important is human factors and provocation. The painter's psychological contradiction and existence at that time can no longer be restored. In this way, at a higher aesthetic level, he integrated simple rural and ethnic themes into the social reality. This is not simply jealousy of external remarks, but his Inner understanding of artistic heritage; I think it is an improvement in terms of the breadth and depth of subject matter, as well as horizontally and vertically.
After the publication of "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art", Comrade Mao Zedong put forward the view that literature and art serve politics. Compared with catering to literary forms that are more suspicious, the simple subject matter tendency of painting can only serve as a reflection of a phenomenon symbol. The price Qiao Shiguang paid was heavy, and this heavyness did not seem to be realized by him. When he was doing the interior decoration work of the Beijing Hotel expansion project, his flattery was aborted due to the "Gang of Four" criticizing the "black paintings". Still appears to be steadfast and unyielding. Yes, this is Qiao Shiguang! This is the unchangeable painter Qiao Shiguang!
However, it goes without saying that all Qiao Shiguang's creations here are just opening the way for higher-level exploration in the future. He is good at collecting materials and practicing sketching. He is not limited to painting only lacquer paintings, but also oil paintings, traditional Chinese paintings, sketches, and sketches. This is because he understands that the essence of sketching is not only for practicing and collecting creative materials, but also for directly creating works. Different from the general purpose of sketching, Qiao Shiguang's sketching pays more attention to artistic feelings and personal expression. In particular, he tries to introduce traditional Chinese literature, music, and calligraphy techniques to enrich his paintings. For any artist who is good at controlling the overall situation, this is an important step for him to reach a higher level. It can even be said to be an important shortcut.
In representative paintings such as "Water Splashing Festival" (1978), "Guangzhou Peasant Movement Workshop" (1977), "Dai Girl Dressing" (1978), the diversity of art has been very obvious. Taking "Water Splashing Festival" as an example, the artist chose the backs of several women as the foreground, and used the boiling crowd and the fierce scene of the dragon boat race as the background. The people in the painting are watching the scenery, and the outsiders are watching the people in the painting. The near shore, the opposite shore, and the dragon boat are all made horizontal, while the figures of several women are upright, and attention is paid to the changes in gathering and dispersion between them, their mutual correspondence, and their staggered heights. This intertwined structure of horizontal and vertical, warp and weft, seems natural, but in fact it is deliberately arranged.
In terms of craftsmanship, eggshell inlay is used to express the white clothes of Dai women, mother-of-pearl inlay is used to express the pattern on the skirt, silver foil cover paint is then ground to express the gorgeous dress, and the water surface is painted with clay silver. The overall effect is bright and luxurious, as if There is Tang style. In addition to painting, the artist cleverly borrowed the poetic conception of "You stand on the bridge and look at the scenery/The people watching the scenery are watching you upstairs//The bright moon decorates your windows/You decorate other people's dreams" in Bian Zhilin's "Fragment of Chapter" , pushing the artistic language of painting to another high level.
In 1979, "Water Splashing Festival" participated in the 30th Anniversary Art Exhibition of the Founding of the People's Republic of China (the Fifth National Art Exhibition) and won the second prize (the first prize was not judged) and was collected by the National Art Museum of China. This is the result of Qiao Shiguang's pursuit of art and his emphasis on life.
Historical evaluation
Qiao Shiguang’s lacquer paintings are accompanied by the national meaning of modernity. It originates from life, transcends life, and deeply integrates many traditional and Western factors and personal subjective colors at a higher modern aesthetic level. It realizes its modern transformation from within national culture, or folk cultural form. Different from any previous period, his paintings strive to capture the truth and purity of real life, explore the wisdom contained in this real and pure life, and deeply think about the possible reflections of this wisdom of life. The eternal light of life philosophy. Whether it is memories of life, doubts about fate, reflections on history, or daydreams about nature, they are all closely linked to the exploration of human society and the ultimate concern for mankind.
Integrate art with life,
Integrate tradition with modernity.
This is the mission of Beijing Lacquer Art Research Association,
This is the position of lacquer art workers in the capital.
We are coming from all directions,
We are going in all directions.
——Qiao Shiguang
This is Qiao Shiguang’s speech at the Beijing Lacquer Art Exhibition. This is not only a poetic extension, but also a true representation of Qiao Shiguang’s soul. In fact, life is not external, art is not external, it is in your heart, in your alienated humanity. Looking for a home that returns to nature is to return to the true nature of human life. The awakening of the painter's subjective consciousness is an ontological factor and internal mechanism of his artistic creation.