-Li Tang talks about life, pen and ink, freehand brushwork and innovation.
Professor Wang Keyu visited Mr. Li Tang, a famous freehand brushwork painter in China. Teacher Wang talks about life, pen and ink, freehand brushwork and innovation, which really makes senior reporter Wang Keyu feel refreshed. The following is a special record for readers.
Q: Mr. Tang, the running script banner on the living room wall is a poem written by you. Please read it.
The wind and rain are heroic, ups and downs, refreshing;
With the tears of the eagle's mouth, I wrote the infinite soul of Jiangshan.
It's not awkward, untidy and full of laughter.
It's not that I'm frivolous or playful I have my secrets.
These are my two paintings in 2000. The first four sentences are about life experience, life experience. The last four sentences are about Zhu Da, Badashanren and Qi Baishi, and they are about my artistic pursuit and ambition.
Q: Your poems are full of passion and infatuation. Can you talk about your life experience?
A: Being engaged in art is first and foremost a talent; The second is broad and refined; The third is life experience, especially the baptism of setbacks and hardships; Genius is very fragile, often can not stand setbacks, a flash in the pan. Those who persevere in the storm will succeed in the end. In this sense, suffering is wealth. People with great hope have great despair, and people with great despair will cherish life and be diligent.
I was born in an artistic family and was influenced by good traditional culture since I was a child. 65438-0956 When I was 9 years old, my father drew a sketch for my second son, Li Tang. But the next year, my parents were beaten as "Rightists", and the whole family fell to the bottom, which was extremely tragic, until the Cultural Revolution ended in 1977. During this period, I studied drama, spared sheep, dug Chinese herbal medicines, planted fields, worked as coolies and bricklayers. In short, I have endured all the hardships in the world and spent my youth in humiliation.
1979, a newly restored Hubei Federation of Literary and Art Circles built an art museum. I joined the Federation in the name of understanding the infrastructure and being able to participate in the construction of art galleries. As a result, the funding for the art museum was not implemented, and I was placed in the exhibition department of the American Association. During this period, while working, I wrote flower-and-bird figure paintings and meticulous paintings according to my father's instructions. I work very hard and study late into the night every day, which can be described as "the lights are on at midnight" and I have made rapid progress. Only two years later, my work was selected by the Provincial Artists Association to attend the French Youth Salon Exhibition in Beijing. Two of the ten works in the province were selected by me, and four of them were selected for the Beijing exhibition. Two of my works are still in it, and one of them, Lotus Pond Standing Heron, is a freehand style.
Before entering Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, Chinese painting was better. I studied arts and crafts in Hubei Institute of Fine Arts. During my school days, with the approval of the Ministry of Culture, I was invited to hold solo exhibitions in Japan and Britain. At that time, the main paintings were colored ink landscapes, which were taken by foreign galleries. There is a "China Gallery" in Kanda Road, Tokyo, Japan, which is the largest Chinese painting gallery in Japan. The owner of the gallery is Mr. Takeo Sakata. There are paintings by Mr. Cheng Shifa, Mr. Chen Shifa, Mr. Chen Shifa and Mr. Lin in the gallery. One of my landscape paintings has been displayed in the gallery window for three years. Below the painting is "Li Tang-a cutting-edge painter of contemporary Chinese painting". I have also held art exhibitions in America, Singapore, Poland and other countries. I am the vice president of Hubei Landscape Painting Research Association. On a trip abroad, I saw many original works and famous paintings of western painting schools, and then I had some reflections. 1994 returned to China's cultural tradition after returning to China. During that time, I declined all entertainment and invitations, sharpened my sword for ten years, practiced calligraphy hard, studied the history of Chinese painting and painted freehand flowers and birds.
Q: Your father, Mr. Tang Wenxuan, is an influential painter in modern China. In his middle and old age, he was famous for his freehand brushwork of flowers and birds. You are also the most powerful representative painter among today's freehand brushwork flowers and birds. Is your painting style influenced by your father?
My father and I both draw freehand flowers and birds. I am greatly influenced by my father, and I am fortunate to be influenced by a unique subtle influence. But I am mainly self-taught, and I am far behind Ivy League, Eighth National Congress, Ewong?, Baishi and so on. In fact, my father and I have different life experiences and academic backgrounds, and the atmosphere presented on the screen is also different. My father and I held art exhibitions in Nanjing, Taiwan Province Province and Beijing at the same time. Others commented on my father's freehand flower-and-bird paintings, all of which are pure in taste, even superior. But the style, composition, pen and even the subject matter are different.
My father is old and subtle, vivid, bold and unconstrained with his pen, and his picture is thick and heroic. Whether it's people, landscapes, flowers and birds, animals, etc. Every painting has to go through repeated drafting and conception. He is a typical creative painter. At that time, it was emphasized that art should serve politics, pay attention to going deep into life and show real life. I live in an era of fierce collision between eastern and western cultures, and I choose to embrace tradition. My paintings are all traditional themes. I don't draft, but pursue the passion of pen and ink and the interest of the soul. The picture is scattered and relaxed, full of enthusiasm. Someone commented that there is a sense of pride in my painting. An expert looks at the doorway, their paintings are put together, but the person who knows the difference has eyes.
Q: How to treat the dispute between pen and ink in China painting circle and how to understand the inheritance of pen and ink?
A: I haven't paid much attention to the dispute between pen and ink in China painting circles in recent years. The pen and ink I am concerned about belongs to the mode of "technology", that is, technology and technique.
The long tradition of Chinese painting makes it classic, and the key is pen and ink. Pen and ink are like life to China painters, just like singing, doing, reciting, using hands, eyes, body, usage and steps of traditional Chinese opera actors. Although it is skill and kung fu, it is the foundation of artistic charm. The pen and ink of Chinese painting is a lifelong cultivation process of a devout artist. Knowing pen and ink and not knowing pen and ink, the atmosphere presented in the painting is completely different. Badashanren, Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Huang et al. They are all masters of pen and ink.
Ink is colorful, black is mysterious, "mysterious and mysterious, the door of Wan Qi." Every stroke of Chinese painting depends on spirit, skill, knowledge and character. Pen and ink are the cultural essence refined by the sages of past dynasties after thousands of years of tempering. It is absolutely unique in the world. Among them, mechanical knowledge can only be understood and cannot be expressed in words. Can only be said to knowledgeable people, not to vulgar people.
Q: It is generally believed that flowers and birds are the most difficult of the three subjects of landscapes, figures and flowers and birds, but in meticulous freehand brushwork, meticulous brushwork is easy to freehand brushwork, and great freehand brushwork is even more difficult. At present, there seems to be a crisis in freehand flower-and-bird painting. What do you think of freehand brushwork?
A: It is the difficulty of freehand brushwork that makes it precious, bright and charming. I have a soft spot for freehand brushwork.
The "big" of freehand brushwork is not the so-called big pen, big ruler, big theme and big scene, but the avenue. Qi Baishi painted radishes, cabbages, frogs, mice, etc. Full of small themes and small scale, but they have a great atmosphere, because he has great knowledge of Tao. Art must return to Tao. The so-called Tao is natural, which is a big article. Great freehand brushwork is extensive and profound, integrating poetry, books, paintings, literature, history and philosophy.
Freehand "writing" refers to the calligraphy pen, that is, the life state and emotional expression in the process of writing, and the pen and ink are sent to the spirit. Nature in hand, brand-new, too mysterious mind, complacent intonation. Or spring silkworms spin silk, or dragons and tigers leap, or gallop freely, or have romantic feelings. Great painters are proficient in calligraphy, and masters of Chinese painting are great calligraphers.
The "meaning" of freehand brushwork can be interpreted from three aspects: first, artistic conception and poetic meaning. Painting is about the soul, and the environment is born from the heart, emphasizing the transcendence of life. This is the spiritual tradition of China's art, and the second is the spirit, which is the painter's breath, spirit and meteorology from the inside out, and it is presented as verve in the picture. "Vivid charm" is the first rule to appreciate the beauty of Chinese painting since Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties. The third is interest. "A great achievement is lacking", "a great benefit is rushing", "a great skill is clumsy" and "an elephant is invisible" (Lao Zi). "The pen is only one or two, and the elephant has responded! From the perspective of painting, when you see the absence of autumn, it is not a good writing style, and it is intentional "(Tang? Zhang Yanyuan), "I didn't mean it. I didn't want to look like it. I talked to amuse myself!" (Ni Yunlin), "Beauty is alike but different" (Qi Baishi) and so on are the purport and soul of China literati's freehand brushwork.
Realism is the basis of freehand brushwork, which is the sublimation of realism. The core of freehand brushwork has two points: first, poetic romance and profundity; Second, simplicity and exaggeration in form.
Freehand brushwork is the core of China's art, which has the same roots as China's classical philosophy. Among the numerous art categories in China, only freehand brushwork can bear the profound culture of China for 5,000 years.
I think freehand flower-and-bird painting is one of the top disciplines in the field of Chinese painting, which represents the highest level of Chinese painting and has produced great Badashanren and Qi Baishi in this field.
Freehand brushwork flower and bird is also called meticulous flower and bird. Know the white and leave the black, replace the real with the virtual, simple, simple. With the simplest modeling and the least brushwork, it shows the most vivid image and rich spiritual realm. Freehand brushwork is often done in one go, and it is a highly condensed talent, spirituality, talent, skills, education, experience and mind. A true freehand painter is a natural genius, and often becomes a Buddha on the spot. This is an epiphany, and no one can learn it. Both Ba Da and Bai Shi are geniuses. It is difficult for great freehand painters to help spirituality, and it happens naturally that they accumulate wealth and make little money. This is a step-by-step cultivation. It is not good to be eager for success, nor can you seek to get rid of it too early. Great painters often succeed late. A dynasty can't produce a few real freehand brushwork masters. Huang said: "Everyone comes once every few decades, sometimes once every hundred years." There are thousands of so-called freehand painters, but only a few can really enter the art history.
The freehand brushwork of Chinese painting coincides with African art and western impressionism. In the development of world art, it has the characteristics of the times (harmony between man and nature, authenticity and nature), scientificity (conciseness and profundity) and classicality (sublimation of truth, goodness and beauty), which not only has no crisis, but also has great development space.
Q: Some people say that China's freehand flower-and-bird painting has reached the peak of Qi Baishi, and it is impossible to develop it any more. It will only go downhill in the future. Do you agree with this statement?
A: In the long history of Chinese painting, it is precisely because of masters like Badashanren, Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi that they are so magnificent and magnificent, and Chinese painting shows such elegance and classics. Badashanren, Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi were the peaks of their time. They selflessly dedicated their talents to future generations, so that future generations can see further on the platform they built. We study, study and inherit their art with gratitude. But art is endless. These masters are all human beings, not gods, and no one is perfect. In art, they also have the limitations of the times and will certainly have shortcomings. When an artist cultivates a normal mind, he can not only deeply understand the artistic essence of these masters, but also objectively and rationally see through the shortcomings in his art, then you have the possibility of development and innovation. Besides, does Qi Baishi have learning conditions? Look at the ten complete works of Qi Baishi and the five complete works of Badashan people in my bookcase. I can visit all over the world and see the original works of western classical and modern masters. What a wide field of vision. I think most of the original works of Badashanren that Wu Changshuo saw in those years are fakes. When he saw a primitive pine tree painted by Badashan people, he was excited and praised again and again: "This is the true face of Lushan Mountain". The Forbidden City and art galleries can always see the original masterpieces of their predecessors, and the learning conditions are so good. We should be able to make breakthroughs, develop and innovate on the basis of our predecessors. Of course, the development of the times also puts forward new opportunities and requirements for artists today. In art, apart from the past and the present, it is also necessary to connect China and the West.
Q: Some people say that the flower-and-bird paintings of Mei, Lan, Zhu and Ju are old-fashioned, but how can they be innovative if the theme remains the same? Some people think that Chinese painting can only be innovated by learning from western painting. what do you reckon ?
A: At the beginning of the article "The Birth of China's Artistic Conception", Mr. Zong Baihua wrote: "The world is infinite, life is infinite, and artistic realm is infinite. Adapting to me without innovation' is the artist's feeling about the world. The times are always new' is the brand of all great works. " "Reviewing the past and learning the new" is the proper attitude of artistic creation and artistic criticism. A step forward in history is often accompanied by a step back to explore the root causes of poverty. "
What does it mean to "review the past and learn the new"? Looking back on the past is to learn and study traditions, and then know how to innovate; What is "the times are always new"? Refers to the eternal theme of literature and art, mountains or mountains, water or water, flowers or flowers, people or people, and so on. Because different times, different objective environments and different spiritual realms of people can all produce new artistic realms and techniques different from those of their predecessors.
Take drawing an eagle as an example. From the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties to the present age, there are many eagle painting masters. Badashanren's eagle is modeled after Liang Lin's painting in Ming Dynasty, but Lin Liang painted the eagle delicately and vividly. Badashanren's eagle is vigorous and round, and his expression is shocking, so as to show his aloof and lonely thoughts and empty his mind. Pan Tianshou's eagles are different, mostly vultures, or pale ink, or Jiao Mo, mostly finger painting, with rigorous modeling, but the painting style is "bullying the weak and fearing the hard" and "strengthening the muscles and bones", showing a straightforward personality. Li Kuchan is good at drawing eagles. His eagle is exaggerated and full of ink interest, which is different from his predecessors. I have a "Cloud Scene", which depicts an eagle climbing high and overlooking, with the intention of sitting and watching the changing situation. The eagle in the picture is made of thick ink. Compared with my predecessors, my shape is simpler, the eagle's back is blank, and the virtual and the real are born together. A chalk line floats at the eagle's feet. What line is this? Shan Ye? Ye Yun? It leaves the viewer with imagination, which is different from the famous British sculptor Henry? The spatial division and entity infiltration in Moore's works are wonderful. Painting is the imprint of the heart, and this work is my pursuit, "nothing but new to me".