Lead: The formation of Xu Wei's freehand brushwork style is related to his bumpy life experience and influenced by the social and cultural trend of thought in Ming Dynasty. Let me analyze Xu Wei's freehand brushwork flower-and-bird style and his aesthetic thought, hoping to help you.
[Abstract] Xu Wei, a genius in Paintings of Ming Dynasty, integrates poetry, calligraphy and painting, and paints with wild brushwork to express his anger and agitation. His works condensed his lonely life experience, formed a distinctive and wild artistic style, and created the freehand brushwork style of China's flower-and-bird painting, which had a far-reaching influence on later painters.
[Keywords:] Xu Wei; Great freehand brushwork; Flower and bird painting; Aesthetic proposition
Xu Wei, a painter in Ming Dynasty, had an unusual lonely life experience. With his unique artistic talent, he created the freehand brushwork style of China's flower-and-bird painting, and brought the pursuit of literati painting to the extreme, which was different from the elegant, implicit, quiet and indifferent literati painting in the past, and formed Wang Yang's wanton brushwork style, becoming the representative of Paintings of Ming Dynasty's innovation.
First, the unrestrained and pungent freehand brushwork style
Xu Wei can be described as an artistic genius in the Ming Dynasty. He was brilliant since he was a child and made outstanding achievements in poetry, calligraphy and painting. However, my life was bumpy, my fate was miserable, and I struggled for half my life. In the end, I missed my career, and I was brilliant but couldn't support myself. In his later years, he made a living by painting and calligraphy, and he was down and out. The unfortunate fate left him scarred, lonely and angry. He used poetry and calligraphy to vent his repressed feelings and the pain of not being able to display his ambitions. From his eclectic form and tense pen and ink, we can feel the depression and resentment in his chest. He integrated all this into his poetry, calligraphy and painting, forming a unique style with distinctive personality and strong emotion.
The formation of Xu Wei's freehand brushwork style is not only related to his bumpy life experience, but also influenced by the social and cultural trend of thought in Ming Dynasty. Social contradictions intensified in the late Ming Dynasty, and new changes took place in the ideological and cultural fields. In particular, Yangming's "Xue Xin" thought is highly respected. The field of cultural thought has broken through the shackles of Zhu Cheng Neo-Confucianism and feudal culture, attached importance to self-expression and personality liberation, and pursued self-expression, which has become an aesthetic trend since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and has also become an aesthetic trend believed by literati and painters. This artistic fashion with rebellious spirit and advocating the expression of true nature also influenced Xu Wei's painting ideological basis.
Xu Wei's freehand brushwork flowers also pay attention to absorbing the experience of predecessors. I learned Chen Chun's freehand brushwork of flowers and birds, Liang Kai's ink and wash restoration, Lin Liang's roughness and Ni Zan's simplicity. And they all learn from each other's strengths, but they are not limited by tradition and form their own family.
Influenced by the social ideological trend of attaching importance to self-expression and personality liberation in the Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei combined the strengths of his predecessors and changed the orthodox painting style of the ancients. His comprehensive and profound knowledge and extraordinary artistic talent, together with his bumpy life experience and cynical, lonely and arrogant heart, finally merged into his wild and unrestrained flower-and-bird painting style of Wang Yang.
Second, the combination of poetry and calligraphy and painting creation
Xu Wei is knowledgeable, well-cultivated, versatile and excellent in poetry, painting and calligraphy. The Biography of Wen Yuan in the Ming Dynasty recorded that Xu Wei was "an extraordinary genius". When he was a teenager, he wrote an Interpretation of Destruction by imitating Yang Xiong's article Laughing. His literary background is profound, and he is very accomplished in poetry and drama. His poetry creation is good at seven laws and seven ancient times. Yuan Hongdao, the leader of the "Public Security School" in Ming Dynasty, praised his poems and called him "the first poet in Ming Dynasty". In drama, Xu Wei was the most influential zaju writer in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. His zaju "Four Sounds Apes" is known as "a must between heaven and earth". There is also a book on Southern Opera in Song and Yuan Dynasties, Narration of Southern Ci, which is the earliest monograph on Southern Opera in Song and Yuan Dynasties in China.
Xu Wei has profound attainments in calligraphy. His calligraphy became famous before painting, and he rated his calligraphy as the first. There is a saying that "my book is the first, poetry is the second, writing is the third, and painting is the fourth". He said in the postscript to the book attached to the hall: "high books are not vulgar, but laity is not high books." This statement can also be told to knowledgeable people, but it is difficult to tell laymen. " His calligraphers were Zhang Xu, Huai Su, Su Shi and Mi Fei. , greatly influenced by Mi Fei, especially cursive script, which has the most individual characteristics. Xu Wei's cursive brushwork is detached and refined, wild and uninhibited, with uneven font size, natural, bold and unrestrained pen and ink, and natural composition. Cursive writing is also a catharsis of his inner feelings.
Because of Xu Wei's rich knowledge and cultivation, poetry, calligraphy and painting permeate each other and complement each other in his painting creation, giving full play to the lyricism and pen and ink interest of literati painting and forming his artistic personality of painting.
First, the combination of poetry and painting, lyrical, vent the gas in the chest. Xu Wei often inscribed poems on his paintings, which deepened the artistic conception and ideological connotation of his paintings and blended poetry and painting. The most familiar "Ink Grape Map" takes ink as the color, with thick ink and light ink interwoven at will, and the grape branches outlined by ink lines are covered in various ways. Ink blocks with different wet and dry sizes show leaves, during which several clusters of grape fruits with alternating density and depth are randomly dotted with ink dots, which are crystal clear and fresh. There is a cursive poem at the top of the picture: "Half-life becomes an Weng, and self-study cries at night;" The pearls at the bottom of the pen have nowhere to sell, but they are thrown into wild vines. " Poetry and painting blend together, setting each other off into interest, expressing the sadness of being down and out for half a life and having a bumpy fate, and venting the loneliness and anger of being incompetent and helpless. The Real Figure of Pomegranate draws a full and cracked pomegranate with a freehand brushwork, and there is a poem entitled "Weeds" on it: "Pomegranate is ripe in the mountains and opens its mouth to the sun; There are few people in the mountains, and pearls go. " In the same way, poems are used to enhance the meaning of the picture, and topics are used to express emptiness and frustration that talents are not appreciated. Even if the picture composition is complete, it is lyrical and meaningful with poetry. Xu Wei directly expressed his feelings by combining poetry and painting, which not only expressed his anger at the unfair fate, but also satirized the dark regime in the late Ming Dynasty and sympathized with the people. The poem in "Huangjiatu" reads: "Jiangcun fish, cooked and fat, are as green as halberds; Turn it over on the paper and you should be able to see the navel of Tuan Tuan Dong Zhuo. " Metaphorically, just like Dong Zhuo, a traitor in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The poem in "Ink Flower Map" "Old game ink drops, flowers and plants will always mix; Don't be surprised that there are two strokes in painting. Heaven has been poor enough recently. " Boldly accuse the Ming regime.
Secondly, it breaks through the limitations of traditional literati painting. Miscellaneous Flower Roll is his masterpiece of long scrolls and freehand brushwork flowers, including peony, pomegranate, chrysanthemum, lotus, phoenix tree, banana, wisteria, plum blossom, narcissus, pumpkin, beans, grapes and bamboo branches. Four-season flowers and trees 13 species. The theme of flower-and-bird painting has been greatly expanded, whether it is light and elegant Meilan bamboo stone or ordinary flowers and fruits in four seasons, it has become the materialization of his personality and agitation.
Third, the brushwork of weeds is integrated into freehand brushwork, which is unrestrained, heroic and chic. The combination of cursive brushwork and flower-and-bird painting is one of the characteristics of Xu Wei's crazy and strange painting style. Zhao Meng, a painter in Yuan Dynasty, strongly advocated "painting with books", which was accepted by literati painters. Before the Ming Dynasty, regular script, official script and cursive script were mainly used for painting, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, cursive script was even advocated for painting. He believes that cursive script is more varied and expressive, and it is more favored by literati and painters. His "Miscellaneous Flower Scroll" is painted with wild brushwork, dripping with ink and unrestrained, and forms a ups and downs rhythm with dense, dense, vigorous and restrained composition and pen and ink. Xu Wei is well aware of the fact that calligraphy and painting are interlinked, and thinks that the development of freehand brushwork benefits from cursive script. He once said: "When covering the Jin Dynasty, I would pay attention to it. The brushwork of the local generation was fine, even and neat, and the ancient seal writers were not as good as it was. Later Zhang Sengyou, Yan, and finally Wu Daozi and Li, that is, they will change slightly and still know this sect. The popularity of cursive script began with freehand brushwork and changed again. " He also believes that his freehand flower-and-bird painting is due to his calligraphy cultivation, and the cursive hand-and-foot brushwork and the big freehand brushwork complement each other, which makes his freehand flower-and-bird painting bold, vertical and horizontal, vigorous and powerful, and the combination of painting and calligraphy pushes the ink-and-wash freehand flower-and-bird painting to an unprecedented height.
In the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Dai said in the Postscript of Xu Qingteng's Small Paintings: "It is strange to see the paintings of Qingteng today. The charm of vigorous posture is similar to the strange rise of his calligraphy. People used to say,' There is a picture in poetry, a picture in poetry, and a poem in painting'. I mean the book of ivy, which contains paintings, paintings of ivy, and books in the paintings. " Xu Wei's calligraphy and painting * * * said by all sentient beings.
The third is the aesthetic proposition of "not seeking the rhyme of existence"
Xu Wei has no special works on painting, and his aesthetic thoughts are scattered in his poems, inscriptions and various comments, and also reflected in his creative practice. Xu Wei attaches great importance to expressing his own temperament in his artistic creation. His images are full of his pains and vicissitudes. His paintings, poems and calligraphy all reveal his inner loneliness and frankness.
Xu Wei emphasized the originality of art, and the printing and publishing industry began to develop in the late Ming Dynasty, and various painting spectra appeared one after another, such as plum spectrum, bamboo spectrum, feather spectrum and stone spectrum. Xu Wei doesn't want his creativity to be tied down. The poem "Painting Plums" just reflects his emphasis on originality: "Without looking at the plum score, his fingertips have their own gods. Look at the thousands of trees in Qian Qian. When the east wind blows, it becomes spring. " "Not looking at the plum blossom spectrum" does not completely rule out the excellent tradition of predecessors, but "fingertips have their own spirit" is similar to Xu Wei's "not seeking rhyme".
Xu Wei's pursuit of aesthetic propositions of "likeness without rhyme" and "pleasing shadow without likeness" embodies his artistic modeling view, thus emphasizing the freehand brushwork of painting. "Nothing in the world is samadhi. I always joke about painting flowers, having long arms and wide arms, and being drunk. Gourd can't be wiped off, it can go with the flow, and it doesn't need to be shaped like the rhyme of survival. All the roots were planted by my five fingers. Hu Weiwei, just cut branches and leaves? Don't guess, it's raining. " Xu Wei's creative ideas and techniques can be seen from Painting a Hundred Flowers Scroll and History Nephew. Freehand brushwork is not "pruning leaves", nor "gourd style", but "following nature". Xu Wei is nature-oriented, not seeking form, but seeking charm. Grapes, pomegranates, flowers and fruits, melon beans, fish and crabs, etc. In his works, he does not pursue modeling, but is lifelike, full of vitality, concise and general, vivid in spirit, incisively and vividly, smeared vertically and horizontally, and natural. "The pen is not enough, but the shape is not prepared and the spirit is complete." Xu Wei not only pays attention to the external image of natural things, but also pays attention to the internal essence and spiritual connotation of things, as well as the inner world of the creative subject and the expression of personal interests. It not only conveys the charm of objects, but also reaches the highest level of "avoiding brushwork and not seeking similarity" pursued by literati paintings.
Xu Wei's theory of poetry, calligraphy and painting contains his aesthetic view of artistic image. For example, for his understanding of "shadow", we can refer to his bamboo painting poem "Writing Bamboo Songs for Li Changgong": "Mountain people write bamboo with a simple shape, and only the meaning of the bottom of the leaf is used as a hint. For example, if you look at the bushes in the shadow, you must write it clearly. " It can be seen that he is good at expressing "shadow" in painting; There is also appreciation of "shadow" in the painting. In the inscription and postscript of "Xia Gui Lin Shan Tu Juan", the evaluation of Xia Gui is "pale and clean, making people feel beautiful." "Zan Xia Gui Shan Lin Tu" can make viewers forget the shape of the mountain forest and enjoy the beauty of its shadow. Xu Wei also emphasized "true colors" and wanted to see "true temperament" and express his mind directly in his creation, which also contributed to his freehand brushwork style.
Xu Wei combined the tradition of emphasizing the subjective interest in writing in the theory of literati painting in Song and Yuan Dynasties with the characteristics of the era of personality liberation in the late Ming Dynasty, absorbed the advantages of literati painting in Song and Yuan Dynasties, Liang Kai, Lin Liang and Chen Chun, and incorporated the brushwork of weeds into freehand brushwork, thus breaking through the limitations of the subject matter in a crazy form. Painting is often arbitrary, ups and downs, slightly similar, full of ink drops. He created the freehand brushwork style of flower-and-bird painting and completed the transformation of freehand brushwork techniques, which made later flower-and-bird painters worship. For example, Shi Tao said that "the ink of the green vine is precious in the world" and Zheng Xie said that "it is amazing that all artists who create are unique." Ivy paintings can be associated with God ... and say that he wants to go to "cows and horses under ivy". Later painters such as Zhu Da, Shi Tao, Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics, Shanghai painters and even modern Qi Baishi and Li Kuchan were all influenced by him, from which we can see that Xu Wei's creation and freehand brushwork style inspired and inspired future generations.
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