——The artistic character and value of Tian Shiguang's flower and bird paintings Author: Yu Yang
Bright**, 2016-09-25, 11th edition).
In the 70s, Mr. Tian Shiguang observed and created in life The development of Chinese Gongbi flower and bird painting in the 20th century has continued to expand in the inheritance and integration, on the one hand, it is generally adopted from the Song and Yuan Dynasty flower and bird painting style, and the method is created by sketching and memorization, on the other hand, it pays attention to improving the modeling ability and visual impact, and strives to depict the object as subtle as possible, while taking into account the relationship between art and real life and the fashion of the times, and merges into a rich and magnificent river. If we look at the differences in regional styles, in the 20th century Northern Flower and Bird Painting School, Tian Shiguang is an important representative and milestone among those who can be proficient in the tradition of gongbi flower and bird painting after Yu Feiyan, who is good at synthesis and reference, and can form their own artistic appearance. 
Heroic Forever (Chinese Painting) Tian Shiguang Tian Shiguang's representative work "Heroic Eternal Appearance", now in the collection of the National Art Museum of China, fully demonstrates his unique artistic temperament and expression style. Created in 1979, this work depicts a white eagle perched on a pine branch with subtle brushwork and color, and depicts natural objects such as birds, flowers and trees in an almost divine manner. Compared with the context of Gongbi flowers and birds in the history of painting and the mainstream style of the painting world at that time, Tian Shiguang's Gongbi flower and bird paintings emphasize the accommodation of color, form and spirit. Most of his paintings are based on sketching and coloring, focusing on the blend of water and stone colors, the changes of shades and cold and warm, and the thick and delicate but not the vulgar, which is largely due to his in-depth study of tradition and creative play. He is good at absorbing the techniques of boneless painting and the spirit of small freehand in his workmanship, and maintains the natural charm as much as possible while subjectively expressing. In terms of the expression of schema and chapter, he consciously transformed the traditional pattern of folding branches, and to a certain extent, restored the connection between the foreground and the background environment, or linked the tree and stone scenes of landscape painting with the small scenes of broken branches and small scenes of flower and bird paintings, rendered the background space with color and ink, and restored the isolated broken branches to the background relationship. 
One hundred years ago, in October 1916, Tian Shiguang was born in Liulangzhuang, on the shore of Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace in Beijing. Liulangzhuang is also known as "Liulangzhuang" because of the story of Yang Liulang, which is attached to the folk association of the Qing Dynasty, and the name of "Liulang" comes from the fact that people here have planted willows all over the front and back of the house. In the Ming Dynasty, there is a beautiful scene of "Singing Orioles in the Willow Waves" in the north of Liulangzhuang, which contrasts with the "Spring Dawn of the Peach Causeway" in the Tsinghua Garden. It is connected with the city, adjacent to the Summer Palace and Xishan, Xiangshan, the land is fertile, the scenery is pleasant, under the nourishment of the suitable climate and climate, lotus root, lotus, water chestnut, water chestnut, apricot tree, peach tree and other plants and flowers are all over here, the yellow bird, the shrike, the gray magpie, the chicken, the heron, the swan, the mandarin duck and other birds also often inhabit the fields at the head of the village, forming a natural and quiet world of flowers and birds. The beautiful scenery of the hometown and the simple local folk customs have played an important role in shaping Tian Shiguang's art and personality, like an undercurrent, which has always flowed in his daily memories and aesthetic trends. 
Today, we appreciate Tian Shiguang's paintings, look at the seasonal scenery and the world of flowers and birds in his paintings, as if we can still smell the fragrance of the soil of the hometown, feel the harmony between the nature of flowers and birds and the creation of heaven and earth, and even the sensitivity and simple love of people to nature. This is also the geographical characteristics of Tian Shiguang's flower and bird painting art and the artistic interest of sketching that permeates it. His paintings of green trees and red leaves, green pines and green bamboos, willow-shaded lotus ponds and birds, bees and butterflies are all common scenery of Liulangzhuang, full of daily life and field interest, so that most of his paintings are "written on Liulangzhuang on the shore of Kunming Lake", "written what I see in my village", or "Shiguang writes about the small scenery of my village" and so on. From his early growth and study, to the thirties and forties of the 20th century, he enjoyed the fame of painting in the Beiping painting circle, until he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, Tian Shiguang lived in the countryside all his life, regarded himself as a "Liulangzhuang person", away from the hustle and bustle of the city, lived an indifferent and casual life, and pursued the innocent essence of art with a positive and optimistic, indifferent but indifferent attitude to life, full of poetry and never forgetting the innocence of childhood, forming his unique artistic style and temperament. 
If the flower and bird paintings created by Tian Shiguang in the 30s of the 20th century were mostly small and medium-sized in terms of shape, such as fans and banners, then starting from the creation of large-scale four-screen paintings such as "Four Seasons" in 1942, the development of mineral pigments for Chinese paintings, the development of self-made limestone, stone green, cinnabar, and continuous study of landscape painting had a profound impact on his later flower and bird painting creation. Subsequently, his flower and bird paintings gradually formed a fresh, natural, elegant and rich style, and began to have large-scale paintings of Zhang Erpi launched. During this period, he began to try to apply the combination of work and writing, trying to break the constraints of the painting method of working without writing and writing without writing at that time, and reflecting on and integrating the clear boundary between "work" and "writing" in the past. This period was the early stage of Tian Shiguang's artistic creation, and he successively held solo exhibitions in the water pavilion of Zhongshan Park in Beiping, Tianjin, Shanghai and other places, which were praised and supported by Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, Mei Lanfang and other cultural and artistic masters, and were widely praised by the art world and society. 
Similar to the way in which Pan Tianshou, a freehand flower and bird painter, and Guo Weihui, a freehand flower and bird painter, organically combined flowers and birds with landscapes around the same era, Tian Shiguang also depicted the combination of mountains and rocks, valleys, flowing springs, lotus ponds, flowers, birds and other objects in the painting, supplemented by the spatial hints of close-up and distant scenes in shades of ink, and combined the flowers and birds in the near scene with the landscape in the distance, so that the flowers and birds he depicted with fine brushstrokes were free from the rigid and isolated "fake scenes" and integrated into the open space of natural vision. In terms of expression, he further subtly miniaturized the small-handed style, forming a style that is closer to that of gongbi, including his choice of raw paper for the exploration of the medium of gongbi painting and the background of lowercase and boneless dot dyeing, all of which have created their own unique style, and distanced themselves from his mentors such as Zhao Mengzhu and Yu Feiyan. 
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tian Shiguang carefully taught the double-hook heavy color painting method in the teaching work of the ** Academy of Fine Arts, and conducted in-depth research and careful teaching of the traditional techniques that were on the verge of being lost. From the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China to 1965, in addition to heavy teaching, Tian Shiguang devoted himself to the exploration and creation of combining traditional painting with the aesthetics of the new era, and carried out long-term unremitting thinking and practice in the form of expression techniques and the breadth of subject expression. In his teaching, he mainly focuses on demonstrations, pays attention to the close connection between observation, sketching and creation in life, and consciously thinks about the relationship between traditional flower and bird painting and the social era. The common feature of Tian Shiguang's works is that they are mostly in a rich, atmospheric and upright style, expressing the world of flowers and creation, presenting a vast and bright palace atmosphere. To a certain extent, it is this ability to deal with grand themes, large scales and grand atmospheres that inspires and achieves Tian Shiguang's art. This style direction has also built a bridge between his works and the country, society and the people. 
On the occasion of the centenary of Mr. Tian Shiguang's birth, the relationship between his art and personality, art and the times, the focus is on the reinterpretation of the unique artistic temperament and expression techniques in his works. In fact, the in-depth study of his creation and teaching methods still needs to be excavated and sorted out by many original materials and sketches, and more importantly, how to continue the persistent and sincere attitude of Tian Shiguang's generation of artists towards art and the wisdom of comprehensive and integrated treatment in today's academy teaching theory has become a more urgent and specific topic. At the same time, the significance of studying the art history of Tian Shiguang's art and the research value of Chinese painting lies in tracing back to the artistic context of the famous flower and bird painters such as Fei Yan, Chen Zhifo, Zhang Daqian, etc., and it is also an important way to open up the artistic spirit of Li Kuchan, Wang Xuetao, Liu Jidian, Yu Zhizhen and other famous flower and bird painting contemporaries of Tian Shiguang. 