Huang Yongyu used to be a porcelain factory worker, a primary school teacher, a middle school teacher, a family education librarian, a troupe trainee artist, a newspaper editor, a film screenwriter, a tenured professor at Jishou University in Hunan Province, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and a vice chairman of the China Artists Association. Self-taught art and literature, a generation of "ghosts".
Huang Yongyu, whose real name is Huang Yongyu, changed "Yu" to "Yu" in order to save trouble in writing, and is a Tujia in Fenghuang County, western Hunan. After only two years in junior high school, he broke his dream of studying in the bonfire of the Anti-Japanese War, and had to drop out of school and travel around the society, not only traveling half of Fujian Province, but also visiting Jiangxi, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Taiwan Province and Hongkong. During this period, he worked as a coolie in a porcelain factory, a coolie on the dock, a teacher in a primary and secondary school, a dancer in a troupe, an editor in a newspaper and a film screenwriter. It was during this period that at the age of 17, he happened to meet Master Hongyi at Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou. This strange fate was later interpreted by people as his disciple ceremony to the mage and his true biography. And his own way of saying it is: an old monk found out when picking magnolia flowers on the tree, and reluctantly came down and went to the meditation room. At first, he didn't know that this obscure monk was actually a famous Master Hongyi. Although he didn't really learn from the teacher, the short communication still brought him some enlightenment and a lot of shock. Later, Master Hongyi left him a banner before he died, which read: "Do not seek happiness for all beings, I hope the world will get rid of suffering."
Society is the biggest school, interest is the best teacher, and survival is the strongest motivation. Huang Yongyu was able to support himself by woodcut at the age of 16. His intelligence is only one aspect, and I'm afraid it is more due to his diligent study and courage to practice. For the sake of art, he did not hesitate to climb mountains and forget to eat and sleep. When he was sketching in Suzhou, he was attracted by four ancient cypresses of the Han Dynasty in Situ Temple, which were called "strange and strange", and went early for three days in a row to sketch for him. In the future, people will be amazed at the four ancient cypresses that he showed on Zhang Er's big paper with accurate and smooth lines. In Florence, Huang Yongyu works more than ten hours a day. In midsummer, he carried a picture box on his back and sketched around in the scorching sun. When he was hungry and thirsty, he sat on the side of the road and ate some bread with him and drank a few mouthfuls of cold water. At that time, he was nearly seventy years old.
It is with this spirit that Huang Yongyu not only has profound attainments in printmaking, traditional Chinese painting, oil painting, comics and sculpture, but also is a poet and writer with a good talent. His published poems won the first prize of the annual creation of Poetry Magazine in one fell swoop, and his prose and travel notes are both poetic and full of wisdom. Autobiographical novels are serialized in the large-scale publication Furong in Hunan while writing.
Huang Yongyu is a legendary man. Some people say that he was an artistic prodigy when he was a child, and printmaking, oil painting, Chinese painting and sculpture were all taught by himself. Some people say that he was once one of the three disciples of Master Hongyi, and he learned his true story and practiced spiritual calligraphy. However, if we study his books carefully, appreciate his paintings attentively, and have a chance to talk with him, people will realize more about his profound knowledge, outstanding talents, honest and frank's stubborn personality, wise and witty conversation and tireless diligence after the magic color fades.
Ghost Tale
● Meet the "Ghost Tale in Painting" Huang Yongyu
In The Spring and Autumn Annals, it is said: "Life is 12 years, middle life is 1 years, and next life is 8 years." Therefore, eighty years old may not mean the loss of life value and creativity. For Huang Yongyu, who is regarded as a "genius in painting", it may mean a new beginning. Recently, at the age of 8, he has been traveling between Guangdong, Beijing, Hong Kong and other places, busy with his "Huang Yongyu Eighty Art Exhibition" tour. For him, the "Huang Yongyu 8-year Art Exhibition" is not only a staged summary of life, but also an end. Because he wants to finish his autobiographical novel, which is mainly based on the changes he experienced in China in the 2th century.
As Chen Lvsheng, an art critic, said, "He has the stubborn and unruly personality of Xiangxi people, and also has a light, romantic and lyrical literati sentiment. At the same time, he has always deliberately maintained a certain kind of detached relationship with the mainstream society. His experience and artistic style have a special' complexity'. " In China painting circle, Huang Yongyu is not only a "genius in painting circle", but also a rare "generalist". He is proficient in Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking, cartoon, woodcut and sculpture. His representative prints include The Statue of Qi Baishi, Ye Shengtao's Fairy Tales, Forest Group Paintings and Ashima. The representative works of ink painting include Owl and Shan Gui. In addition, he also designed the first round of monkey tickets for the zodiac, alcoholic bottles and so on. He has held dozens of art exhibitions and published dozens of paintings in his life. In addition to his artistic achievements, he is more obsessed with literary creation and writes excellent articles. Over the years, he has trained a large number of die-hard readers with his own essays, novels, poems and essays, and created poetry collections such as Six Chapters of Yongyu, These Melancholy Debris, Along the Seine to Fei Lengcui, and his new work, An Old Man Older than Me, became a best seller in 23. It can be said that he exerted his physical strength and intelligence to the limit, and even his dead uncle, Mr. Shen Congwen, could not help but praise his artistic and literary gifts. To this end, he was awarded the Supreme Commander Medal by the Italian President. In 23, he won the "Golden Award" for outstanding artists commended by the National Artists Association.
Every young man who yearns for great times and great achievements likes to look for answers from the details of history. The distance between people and times in the 2th and 21st centuries makes it difficult for us to penetrate the old man in front of us. The only clue for us to analyze him is to look for evidence from his paintings, buildings and words. Of course, fortunately, he is still alive and healthy. Autobiography: "The Wandering Man on the Worry-Free River"
As a painter, Huang Yongyu was more inclined to write in his later years. In recent years, he successively published prose collections, Scenery in the Sun, Phoenix in the Fire, An Old Man Older than Me, and poetry collections, and the autobiographical novel "The Wandering Man on the Worry-Free River" was also put on the creative agenda.
However, since the beginning of 29, the report that Huang Yongyu, a famous painter, has been writing his autobiography for more than ten years and is still wandering at the age of four, and his work is far from being completed, has once again aroused the attention of the outside world to this 86-year-old painter. Many people have raised questions. At this rate, when will Mr. Huang Lao's autobiography be written from childhood to sixty? Before preparing for this interview, I learned that Huang Lao's "The Wandering Man of the River without Sorrow" was finally written from the age of four to the graduation of primary school, but the number of words in the manuscript has reached as many as 3, words. Huang Lao said that this book was actually prepared to be written in the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War. However, because of the flight in the 194s, it was hard to get to liberation and went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Because of various social reasons, it was "afraid to write". Until now, I can "have the opportunity to write about interesting and lovely people around me."
nostalgia: "I am squatting in the trench alone"
A few years ago, in order to commemorate my old friend who died, Huang Yongyu sorted out the articles he had written for many years and published a collection of essays, The Old Man Older than Me. The book tells the stories of Qian Zhongshu, Zhang Leping, Li Keran, Shen Congwen, his good friends Huang Miaozi, Yu Feng and many others, who are nostalgic, sorry, sad or ironic, as if all these people have not left, and they are still living in the spiritual world of Huang Yongyu.
Among them, Yu Feng is the only woman mentioned in the prose collection. Speaking of her, Huang Lao jokingly said helplessly, "I tell you, this person, you are bored to death if you want to be with her. This person is extremely bored." However, in the face of the fact that many friends have left, Huang Lao recalled to reporters a poem he wrote when he was young. "I seem to be hiding in a deposited trench after a big war, and everyone is gone. My comrades are all dead. I am alone in the trench. I am the moon at eight or nine o'clock in the evening."
Art: "Make people happy, make people have no distance"
By the age of more than 8 years old, Huang Lao no longer has to compromise himself to keep up with the trend. He told reporters bluntly that he is not interested in talent shows and pop music that young people are keen on at present, and he also likes and dislikes China contemporary art, which is in full swing in the international market. What is the vitality of art? His answer is.
"My heart, only my heart"
Alas! I missed it all. Young people often miss the old people, and a string of stories, like dried fruits hanging on the treetops and withered in winter, are too painful to mention.
—— Huang Yongyu's An Old Man Older than Me (Supplementary Edition) February 27
I paint/make people happy/shoot and eulogize with poems/bear hardships with my shoulders/travel around the Jianghu with my feet/hug my friends with my hands/laugh at and express my love with my eyes/listen to the voice of the world with my ears/who wants it?
—— Huang Yongyu, Singing All the Way Back to Hometown, October 26.