-Comment on Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird paintings
Professor Li Changbai is another meticulous flower-and-bird painter after Yu Feian and Chen Zhifo.
Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting is characterized by deep and quiet rhyme, which goes deep into the Song and Yuan Dynasties and has a unique style of "quiet beauty, ethereal freshness". This style is to understand the spirit of "meticulous brushwork" in flower-and-bird paintings in Song and Yuan Dynasties, enter the essence of the beauty of flower-and-bird modeling, brushwork and color in Song Dynasty, reach the realm of "quietness and precision" and open up a new era style. This is obviously another elegant and refined style of contemporary meticulous flower-and-bird pursuit tendency. It is full of reality, depression, excessive pursuit of technological innovation and rapid production, and it is both gaudy and complicated. Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird paintings have that kind of purity of mind, which is beyond the reach of people who are eager for quick success and quick success and impetuous mood.
The style features of Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird paintings, such as camellia streamer (as shown in figure 1), golden rooster (as shown in figure 2) and peony (as shown in figure 3), are far from the characteristics of Yu Feian represented by the northern style. The so-called "northern style" refers to the artistic style of the northern region. Due to the long history of palace-style flower-and-bird painting in the north, apart from the Tang and Song Dynasties, Beijing, where the court is located, has been the center of the development of palace-style flower-and-bird painting for hundreds of years from Yongle 19 in the Ming Dynasty to the demise of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, this place in Beijing has accumulated a deep foundation of courtyard flower-and-bird painting. The whole northern region, from Bianluan in the Tang Dynasty and Huangquan in the Five Dynasties to Hui Zong in the Northern Song Dynasty, from Bianjingzhao in the early Ming Dynasty to Lv Ji in the middle Ming Dynasty, and from Lang Shining in the early Qing Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty, basically formed a complete historical system of palace-style flower-and-bird painting, which greatly influenced the northern region and became a representative artistic style in the north. The meticulous flower-and-bird bred by Yu Feian inherited the tradition of Tang and Song Dynasties, and it has the characteristics of straightforward brushwork and simple blooming technique. For example, the axis of Yu Feian's "Chrysanthemum Map of Dali" (Figure 4) collected by the Central Academy of Fine Arts is a representative work to illustrate this point. Thick ink hook line especially focuses on the rigidity and strength of pen rotation and pen transportation. The hook line between the flowers and the leaves intentionally emphasizes the contrast between light ink and thick ink, especially the thick ink hook line beside the leaves, which is specially attached with gold thread, showing a decorative "plain" feeling. In terms of color setting, the Dali chrysanthemum is mainly vermilion, and the leaves are basically dyed with light ink, which reflects the style characteristics of Yu Feian's "vigorous and tough, vigorous and simple" in the sense of "plain" decoration everywhere. In addition, the strength and brushwork of engraving the thin gold book in Luotuo strengthened the feeling of toughness, rigidity and toughness, and deepened its style characteristics. Therefore, it has become a typical performance of modern northern meticulous flower-and-bird painting. However, Li Changbai's brush strokes are hidden in the soft lines of light ink, with layers of faint colors or heavy smudges, as well as a sense of Shen Feng that pays attention to the situation in modeling, and an ethereal vision that is empty and white in layout, which gives people a refreshing and strong feeling.
Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird style is completely different from Chen Zhifo's innovative meticulous flower-and-bird style combined with Japanese pattern painting. Japanese pattern painting is the expression of artistic conception after stylized pattern changes of objective images. Although Chen Zhifo's meticulous flower-and-bird painting is based on the tradition of studying Song people, it has the most iconic characteristics by absorbing Japanese pattern painting. For example, his paintings of pomegranate flowers and camellia flowers are often not as objective and natural as those of Song people who pay attention to vivid details, but obviously have stylized elements of patterns. He painted pigeons, chickens, parrots, ribbons and other birds. , so it has the elements of pattern processing. Although the layout of the picture pays great attention to the opening and closing principle and density of traditional composition, the obvious penetration of plane and decorative things in Japanese pattern painting is still clear at a glance. Such as lotus bird, plum blossom bird, baby care, rose pigeon, lotus mandarin duck, litchi ribbon, magnolia parrot, tea in Mei Xue, peony butterfly, spring flower, Meijiang warm, Meijiang welcoming spring, etc., the vivid and changeable characteristics of painting make Japanese pattern painting flat and decorative, which makes Chen Zhifo's "ponding method" of painting tree trunks a typical representative of Chen Zhifo's meticulous flower-and-bird technique. Although Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting also has elements of planarization and decoration, its style is obviously different from that of Chen Zhifo because it always walks within the framework of pure traditional meticulous painting in the Tang and Song Dynasties, that is, it pays attention to the natural and vivid changes of objective details, and at the same time strengthens the essential difference from patterns.
Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting is different from that of Yu Feian and Chen Zhifo, and his artistic conception is unique.
As we all know, Yu Feian and Chen Zhifo have different styles of meticulous flower-and-bird painting, but because of their political enthusiasm, their creative mood is similar to that of a generation. In this respect, apart from the breath of their works, they obviously have a sense of the times that has flourished since the founding of New China, and their words have left expressions. For example, page 78 of Yu Feian's "How to draw meticulous flowers and birds" published by 1957 said that "flower and bird painters should first have political enthusiasm", and the preface of Yu Feian's "meticulous flowers and birds" published in the same year also said: "Since liberation, I have gradually awakened, and I am no longer worried about the lack of courtyard style, craftsmanship and elegance. The more you learn, the harder you feel, and the more you try. At the same time, I also realize that people's rich spiritual life is complicated, which is indirectly beneficial to people and naturally beneficial to socialism. Although my flower-and-bird painting is an old flower covered with rain and dew, after further cultivation, I believe it may be more beautiful and vivid than the collection in this booklet. Of course, most of the works in this booklet are the results of more than seven years of irrigation. "
Similarly, Chen Zhifo also said in "Some Experiences in Learning Flower-and-Bird Painting" that "self-appreciation can no longer be the purpose of our painting", and that "simply pursuing artistic creation and" art for art's sake "is by no means the right way for the development of socialist art. At the same time, I also believe that although the flower-and-bird painting art lacks the function of educating people in images, it can make people happy and comfortable with an artistic beauty, make people feel healthy and cultivate good sentiments. Therefore, we must also fully demonstrate the beautiful national style and characteristics, and fully demonstrate the era atmosphere of the great new era. " "I deeply feel that a painter's political stance, thoughts and feelings will be reflected in his works. The political stance and ideological views have changed, and the artistic conception of the painting will also change. "
The above words are the heartfelt words of Yu Feian and Chen Zhifo's meticulous flower-and-bird creation mood. They are their works, such as Yu Feian's Red Apricot Mountain Pomfret (dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China), Pink-toned Spring Blossom, Peony and White Dove's Spring Blossom, Begonia's Pink Drunk Spring, Shi Qing's Magnolia and Oriole's Beautiful Sunshine Spring Breath, and Chen Zhifo's Tenth Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China. Indeed, this completely put an end to the imperialist aggression and ravages of the Chinese nation for more than a century, and to the deep feelings of everyone in China after the rule of the corrupt old government, thus infiltrating the creative mood and depicting the vigorous vitality of the liberated Chinese nation in building a new society.
This flavor of the times should be said that Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting is not lacking. His series of works also have the characteristics of prosperity, which is especially reflected in his children's creation "Wind-driven green lotus fragrance fills the stream" in the last few years of their lives: lotus flowers blooming in the pond, green leaves blooming in the wind and lotus flowers blooming in the sun. The number of "56" lotus flowers painted on the huge horizontal poster four feet cooked symbolizes the praise and right of the Chinese nation. However, unlike Yu Feian and Chen Zhifo, Professor Li Changbai's creative mood seems to be more pure and his aesthetic tendency is more dominant. In his works, the composition, posture, modeling, color and other ontological elements of painting are often refined, and the "dyeing" power of the specific techniques of meticulous flower-and-bird painting is even deeper than that of Song people. Looking at Li Changbai's own article on meticulous flower-and-bird painting, it is also obvious that "aestheticism" is the first tendency. Here, I might as well extract a passage about "realizing God's will" from his talk about flower-and-bird painting:
I once sketched peony flowers in Zhou Huan, Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing. At this time, it is the season of spring. When we approach the surrounding mainland, we can see the red, yellow, white and purple flickering under the weeping willow tree, and a kind of beautiful interest arises spontaneously. Crossing the short bridge and entering Zhou Huan, a green meadow facing the light blue sky is the most enjoyable. Looking around, from blue sky to white clouds, from white clouds to green tips, from tree-lined to grassland, when I didn't see the grass clearly, I was dazzled by the colorful colors in the sun, which took away my sight and forced me to stare at it. Suddenly, a spring breeze blew from the top of the forest. Suddenly, thousands of branches danced together, and the leaves turned into wind, red and green, shaking yellow and purple, which made people sigh. This is another scene; It is vivid and gorgeous, vivid and rich-it is vivid in Yao Huang, rich in Cabbage, bright in night light, full of golden scales and beautiful in Zhao Fen; The blooming of buds, the vitality of new buds, the lush green leaves, the blue sky, the stretching of white clouds, the blowing of spring breeze and the pleasant willow sound ... have formed this colorful and lively scene. The feeling of this scene is its' expression'. God has achieved one thing, how can he achieve it? It is to analyze the feelings and interests expressed with reference to reason. In other words, decide what interests to emphasize and what expressions to use (the expressions and interests in the scene you see are diverse; Moreover, there is a process of formation, which also contains various factors and is more complicated. And painting can only reflect an instant expression. How do you want people to feel? To achieve what effect. This diversified expression of scenery and interest can be expressed by soft, beautiful and vivid interest. It can also be expressed in a handsome, rich, positive or elegant way (the general trend of composition, the reality, the shape and state of flowers, branches and leaves, the tendency of color tone and the coordination of color tone should be fully reflected to set off this performance). Finally, think about what kind of interest expression to choose to achieve a certain purpose and effect. With such a process of deliberation and decision, you can get information. (Introduction to Flower Sketch)
Talking about the writing of flower-and-bird paintings like this is the theme of his article. That kind of leisure in the artistic conception of creation is not only influenced by the traditional natural beauty of literati since ancient times, but also revealed by personal natural beauty-of course, it goes without saying that it also includes the environment of that era when China people stood up. The essence of his meticulous flower-and-bird painting "aestheticism" depends on this.
Therefore, perhaps it is the understanding of the key word "natural beauty". In a word, Professor Li Changbai has a historical stage of "loneliness" for decades. From the mid-1950s, shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China, until he retired in his 70s from 65438 to 0987, he was constantly perfecting his unique style of meticulous flower-and-bird painting, which was "quiet, beautiful, ethereal and fresh", and on the other hand, he made an unprecedented event, that is, he established a complete teaching system of meticulous flower-and-bird painting in China on the basis of careful study of flower-and-bird painting in Song Dynasty.
The main contents of the system are as follows: first, the traditional classical painting theory "nature from the outside, heart from the inside" is the guidance of artistic understanding; Secondly, based on the experience and principle of "beauty", we will go to nature to sketch; The third is to study the flower-and-bird painting method of Song people; The fourth is to emphasize personal feelings with the concept of "feeling life skills" and produce personal style creation.
On the first point, Professor Li Changbai thinks that "nature is learning from foreign teachers" means "to make art have far-reaching appeal, it is necessary to make both content and form have infectious factors. From the appeal of form, it must be vivid, natural and fresh. In terms of ideological content and appeal, we must have the factors of truth, goodness and beauty. Only in this way can the works produce fascinating and intriguing artistic effects. ..... Art is the product of all things living on people's feelings. It must have a scenic base that can arouse people's voices. This is an indispensable prerequisite for artistic appeal. Therefore,' the nature of foreign teachers and the heart of China' will inevitably become the correct way for artistic learning and creation. "
Secondly, on the basis of understanding the aesthetic method of painting formed in thousands of years, the steps of "appreciating, being poor, creating images and keeping pictures" are put forward, and then the important concept of "sketch processing" is put forward. To appreciate, we should understand the saying that "walk around the tree three times and watch the whole day", and "only by careful observation and careful singing can we realize the flower god". Poor reasoning, from abstract expression and interest to specific physiological ecology of flowers and leaves, is argued by aesthetic reasoning. Images, from subjective spirit, emotion, intention to objective form of scene layout, alternate between guest and host, dense and interspersed. Left, in the specific stage of sketching, we should learn to deal with various specific problems in the process from the image in the chest to the image on paper. "Sketch processing" is mainly a way to solve the problems raised in the left picture, that is, to realize the beauty of posture, appearance, interpenetration and density of modeling elements.
On the third point, Professor Li Changbai extracted several basic flowering methods from the flower-and-bird paintings in the Song Dynasty for students to copy and master the nature. Then copy the excellent flower and bird works of Song people to realize their own personality.
The fourth point reflects Professor Li Changbai's understanding of creation. The summary of the above points is to let students make good use of change in their own creation. The so-called "feeling technique" is what Shi Tao calls "respect and acceptance", that is, respecting one's feelings and producing a technical expression that conforms to one's feelings. To achieve this, there are probably two major contents: cultivation outside the painting and talent inside the painting. Therefore, Professor Li Changbai usually asks us to read more books, watch more and think more. He appreciates creations that dare to think, paint and break away from convention, so creations with different styles are often favored.
Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting teaching system is also reflected in the textbooks compiled. Among them, the basic skills include flower sketch, flower coloring and feather sketch coloring, and the creative part includes meticulous flower-and-bird painting. Some have been published, others have not. Among the published textbooks, the three most influential books are Sketch of Flowers, Composition of Sketch of Flowers and Coloring of Flowers. Since 1970s, the circulation of the first two books has exceeded10,000 copies, and The Color of Flowers has been published by many publishing houses at home and abroad. It should be noted that every picture in these textbooks was drawn by Professor Li Changbai himself. For forty years, every year from spring to winter, or in Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, or in the scenic spots where flowers are in full bloom all over the motherland, there is always his sketch figure. Every sentence in the textbook, whether macro or micro, embodies his painstaking research and his accurate understanding. For example, in the objective morphological understanding, it is pointed out that the basic feature of flower shape is "spherical", and the so-called "flowers are ever-changing from bud to bloom" Subjective "sketching treatment" points out that "details, branches help flowers, leaves help each other"; For the treatment of appearance beauty, it is pointed out that "painting flowers pays attention to appearance", "appearance treatment depends on expression, and the density is uneven", "dealing with appearance to prevent confusion and uneven density" and "flat-headed jujube stones have no good impression, and appearance changes should be considered". The concept of "beauty" is clear and insightful, and it is also one of the highlights of Professor Li Changbai's pursuit of truth and rigorous style of study.
Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting teaching system is a model of modern Chinese painting teaching material research. As we all know, Chinese paintings are divided into two categories (meticulous painting and freehand brushwork) and six categories (meticulous figures, meticulous landscapes, meticulous flowers and birds, freehand brushwork figures, freehand brushwork landscapes and freehand brushwork flowers and birds). Although Chinese painting has a glorious history of more than 1000 years, Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting is the only way to establish a scientific concept and a complete teaching system.
Professor Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird painting teaching system construction and its creation complement each other. Because of the meticulous teaching steps, it is necessary to study each painting element one by one, which makes Li Changbai's meticulous flower-and-bird modeling constantly tempered. The meditation of long-term academic research makes production retreat from "anger" and become an important feature. No matter which of his paintings has the artistic essence of traditional meticulous flower-and-bird painting, his works can be quiet and subtle. His best skill is to smudge bright red without getting angry, so the bright red of "Rhododendron" and "Peony" can often give people a clear feeling. In his smudge method, the first step is to use extremely light ink as the base material, after applying light ink, wipe the ink pen to smudge, then wash the ink pen and dye it to the edge of the flower leaf, which is difficult for ordinary meticulous painters to understand and do. But it is this careful dyeing and careful accumulation over and over again that can achieve the ideal artistic effect of "deep and quiet rhyme" Static beauty is realized in this specific production process; Beautiful, dare to use color; Emptiness refers to the effect of paying attention to composition and white cloth; Freshness refers to his unique style of going deep into the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Another feature that people don't pay much attention to in the performance of this kind of works is that the "clear" atmosphere revealed by the layers of blooming on the primary colors of cooked white paper is often difficult to compare with those of paintings with background colors. Its image processing must be particularly concise, cross-dyeing must be particularly fine, which is also the result of the infiltration of strict teaching requirements and the arrival of quiet and deep artistic pursuit. Don't ignore the white paper's true colors, basic skills and other details. Only by subtly understanding this Li Can's long and white personality style can it be realized. I would like to ask: Since the Ming Dynasty, who has gone deep into the essence of institutional painting like Li Changbai, and can be calm and elegant?
Professor Li Changbai studied under Lin Fengmian. Although his meticulous flower-and-bird painting is completely different from his teacher's, Professor Li Changbai has won everyone's favor with his artistic pursuit of "aestheticism" and seclusion personality pursuit. This makes Professor Li Changbai a master of meticulous flower-and-bird painting in China. If Yu Feian sounded the alarm for the revival of modern meticulous flower-and-bird painting, and Chen Zhifo introduced traditional meticulous flower-and-bird painting into modern times, then Li Changbai's foundation role in modern meticulous flower-and-bird painting is irreplaceable.
Professor Li Changbai's life can be divided into three periods. Before the first issue was 1949, the road to life was to read books, hold exhibitions and promote education. 65438-0933 studied in the Painting Department of National Hangzhou Art Institute. After graduation, he held solo exhibitions in Chongqing and Kunming. At that time, meticulous flower-and-bird painting was deeply appreciated by Lin Fengmian, Xu Beihong and Pan Tianshou. Xing Education was established in Hangzhou, and 1947 established "Ji Min Art Research Institute", which consists of five departments: western painting, traditional Chinese painting, pattern, music and language and literature, among which Pan Tianshou presided over the traditional Chinese painting department. The second period is from 1950 to 1987, and the road of life is the creation and research of meticulous flower-and-bird painting. The third period is from 1987 to his death in 2005. The road of life is landscape painting. The third issue is also worth a book: the landscape paintings created after retirement also have the feeling that there is no one before. I saw his two series of landscape paintings "Plateau Scenery" and "Volcanic Storm" near 1996, and I felt quite shocked visually: the imaginary painting was realized in unexpected and unpredictable colors; Colorful colors are the basis of modern people's understanding of the cosmic landscape, and they are also the life experience of flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters and observing the out-of-plane scene at alternate moments of day and night. The picture is extensive, but it is done in seemingly exquisite baking skills. What he painted was the iron-painted silver hook bone strength line of the mountain brush line, and the mountain brush method with dry ink and straight strokes was independently created; The impressive cloud painting method is unique in color, unique in shape, beautiful in appearance and rhythmic in baking. This cloud painting method is the "nothing" in the long-lasting landscape painting method. Looking back on hundreds of contemporary professional landscape painters, we should feel ashamed.
Seeing Professor Li Changbai's landscape paintings in his later years, I think that his meticulous flower-and-bird painting should be an outstanding contribution made by a China painter in the field of meticulous flower-and-bird painting.
May 28th, 2007, written in Nanjing Art Institute.