I think the following article is well written. You can have a look. I hope it will help you:
Interpretation of Zhang Shiyan's Fate, Position, Field, Potential and Beauty —— Analysis of Painting Style
■ Yang Yuepu
Art, without art, there is no beauty.
Art is the body and beauty is the soul. Art is an artist's life, and it is precisely because of the artist's exploration, research, creation and development of art that there are many varieties and styles of art, and the continuation of techniques enriches the artistic tradition. Excellent artists find the true meaning of beauty by exploring techniques. Excellent art comes from superb technology, so Wei Tianlin, a famous oil painting artist, said, "Without high technology, there is no art."
Zhang Shiyan's Analysis of Edge, Position, Field, Potential and Beauty Painting Style is a monograph on techniques. He said: "The study of painting composition (composition) began in the early 1980 s and has not been edited yet." It is necessary to explain the background here.
Both Zhang Shiyan and I began to contact art in the early fifties when we were teenagers. At that time, there were few technical books, but I couldn't put them down when I got them. In those years, many people talked about such books and repeated their essence with familiarity.
The early 1980s coincided with the reform and opening up, and the art industry entered a new period of vigorous development. I often hear such an appeal at some meetings of China Artists Association: Pay attention to artistic techniques, because the improvement of artistic level must rely on technological breakthroughs, which leads to the emergence of neoclassical painting techniques, ink composition and deformation. At the same time, it also called for the publication of more books on techniques, because the publishing resources were limited at that time, and the old artists who could write techniques were actively participating in the creation, so it took time. However, with the increasing demand of the times and society, this task falls on the middle-aged artists who gradually mature and achieve creative results. Under this background, Zhang Shiyan tried to find a new way in technique, and wrote his own achievements of exploration, accumulation, precipitation and refining into a skill book, doing practical work silently. In the late 1980s, he published the monograph A Guide to Painting Composition (Shenzhen, Haitian, 1988). He has taught this course in Central Academy of Fine Arts, Gongmei (Central Academy of Arts and Crafts), Lu Mei (Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts), Guang Mei (Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts), Renmin University (Central Institute for Nationalities), Chinese Opera (Central Academy of Drama), Nortel (Beijing Film Academy), Teachers College and other departments. And social art institutions. " And "never stop" (see Zhang Shiyan's introduction). After entering the 1990s, the publishing industry expanded greatly, and technical books were gradually published. On the basis of academic achievements, Zhang Shiyan wrote "Analysis of the Composition of Painting in Realm, Position, Field, Potential and Beauty", which was published and put on the market. It should be a very meaningful publishing phenomenon.
This book is mainly about "painting rules". Composition is a practical problem in creation, and artists often prefer specific techniques such as lines, colors and textures in their creative practice, while ignoring the treatment of composition. The difficulty in solving the problem of composition lies in the accurate grasp of "reality" and "emptiness". "Reality" depends on technical means, while "emptiness" depends on the improvement of aesthetic consciousness, which also involves theoretical implications. Therefore, China's painting theories of past dynasties all involved "management standpoint", and they all had incisive expositions. Zhang Shiyan's breakthrough lies in: on the basis of the actual needs of modern society and modern artistic ideas, the composition is decomposed into several factors, such as edge, position, field, potential and beauty, which are analyzed in detail and explained in simple terms, with operability and uniqueness. In this way, the painter's "various shapes, gorgeous colors, edge+position+field+potential+beauty" after the completion of the work draws the painter's emotional rhythm and thinking judgment. The overall pattern and style of the painting after completion is also a whole. "(Book: 7 System Introduction)
In addition, what is commendable is the taste of this book. As a painter, Zhang Shiyan's narration in the language that painters like is vivid and straightforward, and he can communicate with the painter's psychology, get close to artistic prose and shorten the distance, which is undoubtedly a kind of luck for readers. When I read this book, I also like the words in the "notes" and "illustrations" in the book, and the style is relatively relaxed. As shown in Figure 7-3-0 1, he once created a mural, "In the painting, an ordinary young man and woman have many arms ... when I was facing the wall, I heard a lady behind me talking to herself with a Shandong accent:' Why do you want to draw so many? This means more work. More work to make money and spend. Who will pay you if you don't work!' I'll be right back. I am a sweeping girl in my fifties. She immediately asked me,' Is that what you mean?' I also immediately replied:' Yes! Yes! That's what it means! ..... women who have been wiped out in this era have at most a primary school education. She knows everything. Will anyone else not understand? Isn't my anxiety much ado about nothing? I'm so happy! This narrative, in my opinion, is another "composition" that Zhang Ming's painter grasps social appreciation and acceptance, and truly achieves "communication and interaction between the outside and the inside". As he said: "In this vast and complete painting art system, the functions, functions and tensions of various elements and components in the picture also extend to the carrier of the picture itself, to the object environment outside the picture and to the painter." You are absolutely right.
Of course, techniques are not theories, but techniques without theoretical significance will be difficult to inherit. Reading his book, I felt this strongly.