Professor Li Gongming of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts said: "In the process of transforming New Chinese painting, the achievements of Li Keran's sketching landscapes and red landscapes in this new tradition are of original significance." The following is I have compiled the celebrity stories about Li Keran's apprenticeship for everyone. They are for reference only. You are welcome to read them.
Celebrity stories about Li Keran’s apprenticeship
In 1946, after being introduced by Xu Beihong, Li Keran met the 80-year-old Qi Baishi, whom he had admired for a long time, and expressed his desire to become an apprentice. In the spring of 1947, he brought 20 paintings to visit Qi Baishi for the second time, which led to a touching story.
At that time, Qi Baishi was relaxing on a recliner. When the painting was brought to him, he took it. At first he was still half-lying and reading. After looking at two paintings, he sat up involuntarily. When he continued to look, Mr. Qi's eyes shone brightly, and he stood up. As he looked, he said, "This is freehand brushwork!" Qi Baishi had a habit in his later years of recognizing paintings but not people. After reading the paintings, he He turned his attention to Li Keran and asked, "Are you Li Keran?" Li Keran hurriedly agreed. Mr. Qi was happy and praised: "I saw Xu Qingteng's original work 30 years ago, but I didn't expect to see the paintings of a young man like you 30 years later." Xu Qingteng, also known as Xu Wei, was a famous flower-bird and landscape painter in the Ming Dynasty. His writing style was bold and unrestrained, free and elegant, and he was famous for a while and had a great influence on future generations. Qi Baishi admired Xu Wei very much in his life, which shows his appreciation for Li Keran.
Then, Mr. Qi said with deep meaning: "But I think your portrait is written in cursive script. I have wanted to write cursive script all my life, but I am still writing in block letters..." Just like that, the two of them Using the painting as a bridge, we suddenly became very close. When Li Keran left, Mr. Qi invited him to eat, but he repeatedly refused. Mr. Qi got angry and said loudly to Li Keran, who was about to step out of the door: "Let's go!" At this time, Mr. Qi's family signaled, Keran, you want to Listen to the old man and stay. From then on, Qi Baishi and Li Keran formed an indissoluble bond.
Li Keran attached great importance to the apprenticeship ceremony and believed that the apprenticeship ceremony must be solemn, so it was delayed for a while. Qi Baishi couldn't wait any longer. Once he asked Li Keran: "Are you willing to become a teacher?" Li Keran hurriedly said: "You have been my teacher for a long time." : "Li Keran, this young man, will not ask me to be his teacher. His achievements will be very high in the future."
This word reached Li Keran's ears, and he hurriedly went to see Mr. Qi to explain the reason . Mr. Qi was outspoken and kept saying, "I don't need anything, I don't need anything." Li Keran was suddenly enlightened and on that day, accompanied by Mr. Qi's third son Qi Ziru, he performed the disciple ceremony. Qi Baishi quickly stood up and helped Li Keran up. Although he was happy, his eyes were a little moist, and he murmured: "You are an eternal person!"
After that, Li Keran officially became Qi Baishi. A proud disciple of Qi Lao, he spent 10 years mastering the essence of Qi Lao's art.
Introduction to Li Keran
Li Keran, formerly known as Li Yongshun, was born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province. He was an outstanding painter in modern China and a disciple of Qi Baishi.
Li Keran has been fond of painting since he was a child, and learned to paint landscapes when he was 13 years old. At the age of 43, he became a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. At the age of 49, in order to revolutionize landscape painting, he traveled tens of thousands of miles to sketch. At the age of 72, he served as vice chairman of the Chinese Artists Association and president of the Chinese Painting Research Institute. In his later years, he became more sophisticated in writing. He is good at painting landscapes and figures, especially cows.
Representative paintings include "Scenic Scenery of the Li River", "Thousands of Mountains Are Red", "Jinggang Mountains", etc. Representative painting collections include "Li Keran's Ink Painting Collection", "Li Keran's Chinese Painting Collection", "Li Keran's Painting of Cows", etc.
Li Keran’s painting style
1. Advocacy
In terms of landscape painting, Li Keran advocated that “those who value are courageous and those who want are souls” and “use the greatest skill to go in” , fight it out with the greatest courage", giving the ancient art of landscape painting a new life. [6] He also emphasized that when making landscape paintings, one should start from nothing, from something to nothing, that is, from simplicity to richness, and then from richness to simplicity.
In terms of sketching, Li Keran believes that sketching is the science of studying images, and the only purpose of sketching is to accurately reflect the objective image. The accuracy of image depiction, as well as the scientific principles of decency, light and shade, and light, can only be beneficial to the development of Chinese painting, and will never be harmful.
Li Keran also put forward the idea of ??"picking one and refining ten". That is to say, mining is hard, and smelting requires a hundred times more labor. Real artistic creation must combine the hard work and diligence of both miners and smelters.
2. Characteristics
Landscape
Li Keran’s landscape paintings attach great importance to the cohesion of imagery. His landscape works in the 1940s were linear brush and ink structures. The works after the 1950s have changed from linear brush and ink structures to lumpy brush and ink structures, mainly ink. The whole is simple but rich in content, thick and vigorous, deep and dense.
Li Keran’s landscape paintings introduce light into the painting, and are particularly good at expressing the backlighting effect in the morning and evening in the mountains and forests, giving the works a hazy, confused, and lingering quality. Overall, Li Keran's landscape paintings are closer to the perceptual reality of the objects than those of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which in a sense weakens the independence of meaning and formal interest. In this regard, critic Wang Jinyu said that Li Keran combined tradition, Western methods, and nature to create a unique, thick and vigorous "Li Family Landscape".
Characters
Li Keran's figure paintings are dynamic and subtle, the images are exaggerated but not ugly, simple but not clumsy, full of humor, wit and interest in life.
Cows
The cows painted by Li Keran are full of interest in life. They are either walking, lying, or lying in the water; Talk, or race across the river, and with just a few strokes, a simple yet vibrant pastoral scene is sketched out.
Qi Baishi
Qi Baishi (January 1, 1864 - September 16, 1957), formerly known as Chunzhi, with the courtesy name Weiqing and the pseudonym Lanting. Later, he changed his name to Huang and the courtesy name Binsheng. , named Baishi, Baishi Shanweng, Laoping, Hungry Sou, the owner of the borrowing mountain chanting hall, the old man in Jipingtang, and the three hundred stone seal rich man. His ancestral home is Dangshan, Suzhou, Anhui. He was born in Xiangtan, Changsha Prefecture, Hunan (today's Xiangtan, Hunan). In modern times Master of Chinese painting and world cultural celebrity.
He worked as a carpenter in his early years, and later made a living by selling paintings. He settled in Beijing when he was fifty-seven. He is good at painting flowers and birds, insects and fish, landscapes and figures. His pen and ink are vigorous and moist, the colors are bright and bright, the shapes are concise and vivid, and the artistic conception is honest and simple. The fish, shrimps, insects and crabs created are full of natural interest. Qi Baishi died in Beijing Hospital on September 16, 1957.
Qi Baishi’s calligraphy skills in seal script and official script were based on the Qin and Han dynasty tablets. He specializes in seal cutting and is good at writing poetry. He once served as honorary professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and chairman of the Chinese Artists Association. His representative works include "The Sound of Frogs Ten Miles Out of a Mountain Spring" and "Ink Shrimp". He is the author of "Baishi Poetry" and "The Narrative of the Old Man Baishi".