When I was growing up, almost every family, both in urban and rural areas, raised chickens, ranging from one or two chickens to a large flock.
My hometown lives in Rucheng North Street, and I remember that there is a small yard, and the three families before and after all have chickens, about twenty or thirty. In the already small space of human habitation, it is conceivable that so many chickens are raised, and the noise from morning to night can be imagined, although each family of chickens is kept in captivity by a fence made of fine bamboo for most of the day.
I can't remember where the original chickens came from, but I can't see them at the Lai market anyway. In that era of the planned economy, when material scarcity was very scarce, many goods had to be ticketed**. Maybe my chickens were exchanged for briquette tickets with farmers.
Every year in early spring, there will be a crisp chirping sound in the small yard, yellow, white, black, and the ...... of flowersCrowded in a flat, shabby old basket covered with straw, the fluffy and cute chickens were the happiest for the children.
In the blink of an eye, the chicks followed the heels of adults and children. Sometimes I like to walk into the yard with a rice bowl, sit on a small bench, and look at a group of chicks that have grown some hair in front of me while eating, guess which of them is male and which is female, and deliberately drop a few grains of rice from the mouth, so that the chickens will fight, and my parents will always blame when they see this: You have a hole in your chin!
Indeed, in that hungry era when there was often not enough to eat, rice was very precious, and adults did not need to use "hoeing day at noon, sweat drops into the soil, who knows that the Chinese food, every grain is hard" to teach children. Don't say that rice is based on the head and age of the person**, even the bran bran skin eaten by chickens must be purchased in limited quantities.
You see, the bran and chopped rotten vegetable leaves are twisted into a hot pot, only one end out, the chickens flock to the top, pecking like raindrops into the pond, swallowing too fast, choking straight hiccups, the small ones can't squeeze in, the circle is so anxious to turn back and forth, scramble so much that the food basin is about to be trampled over, until the bottom of the pot is facing the sky, and the chickens slowly disperse. When you are hungry, how can you talk about the benevolent nature of "seeing each other's food"?
I love watching the chickens chase each other after they have eaten their fill. The two roosters fought for nothing, the feathers on the chicken's neck stood up like an open umbrella, the red face, the eyes that were not angry and self-threatening, locked each other, and rose into the air for a while, pecked with their beaks, and their wings flew up;For a while, they looked at each other, staring intently, waiting for the opportunity to move......Repeatedly, you have to compete for the top. At last the victor flapped his wings, cocked his swarthy tail, stood on his heels, stretched his neck, let out a long cry on his toes, and then spread his wings, circled the hen, and pounced on .........him coldly
In contrast, hens like to use their paws to dig holes in the ground when they are not working, especially in summer, they put their fat bodies in the pits, and constantly use their beaks to dig the surrounding sand into their bodies, and it is not clear whether this is to cool down, or to dry wash the feathers on their bodies with sand. The hen squatted in the pit for a long time before she got up, fluffy her short, round feathers, shaking off the ashes from her body, and slowly foraging for food, her mouth making a quack-croaking sound from time to time.
The sweltering summer and the pouring rain drove all the chickens under the eaves, and they shrunk together in a clump of eyes, all of them staring at the watercress raindrops accompanied by lightning and thunder. They were reluctant to hide in the small, low coop, because the roof of the coop built along the corner of the wall was covered with broken plastic paper and tar paper, and there were one or two small stones or bad bricks pressed on it, and it could not stop the sudden thunderstorm.
In the cold winter, a group of chickens are often curled up in the sun, and if it weren't for a yellow dog suddenly wearing in front of them, neither the chicken nor the hen would be too lazy to stretch out their tight necks to take a look.
In the spring of the following year, the hen kept quacking, one longer than the other, her face flushed, her round buttocks, swaying left and right, not knowing what she was looking for, which was a precursor to laying eggs. The hen finally jumped into the handleless basket that the adults had prepared in the fence and lay down in the soft grass. I don't know how long I waited to see the hen jump out of the nest where the eggs were laid, with her head held high, clucking - clucking and clucking, I hurried over to take out the eggs with the hen's body temperature and brought them to my mother, who smiled heartily and forever imprinted on the screen of my childhood memories.
Since graduating from high school and going to the countryside to join the queue, I have paid attention to the fact that raising chickens is no longer as fun as it was when I was a child, perhaps because there are more free-range chickens in the countryside, which is commonplace.
Later, when I was studying at Nanjing University of the Arts, I saw an oil painting by Dean Liu Haisu: on the verdant grass, two white roosters confronted each other, which combined impressionist colors and brushstrokes, which was quite freehand oil painting, which seemed to remind me of the scene of competition for dominance seen in my childhood, and that impression lingered.
Professor Chen Dayu of Nanjing University of the Arts, Qi Baishi's **, painting chickens is the most famous, every time he takes a class in the Chinese painting class next door, demonstrates how to paint chickens, I almost have to go to see it. Mr. Owa's vigorous and vigorous brushwork, exaggerated and interesting forms, are still vivid in my mind. However, in Nanyi, as a student in the Gongbi figure class of the craft painting major, I did not try to draw a freehand rooster, and it seemed that I was very professional and determined to draw a good gongbi figure.
Until I was teaching at the university, I took normal students to the township middle school for Xi, and during the recess, I spread a four-foot folio piece of rice paper, and with a wave of my hand, a hearty fighting jumped on the paper. I was amazed, what a ghost!
Before I knew it, I fell in love with the painted chicken, and it was out of control. In one of my solo exhibitions, someone inadvertently counted that more than half of the more than 80 works on display involved chickens. I don't know the reason for this, maybe because I have known the Xi nature of chickens since I was a child, and their shape, movement, and expression ......I can imagine it with my eyes closed. This probably confirms one of the elements of freehand art in Chinese painting: the painter must first be familiar with the objects and images he represents, and then he can achieve them with a single stroke.
When I paint chickens, except for a little rouge and Zhu Qi to dye the cockscomb, the rest are expressed in ink, always immersed in the blend of ink and wash, unbridled and unbridled, capturing the harmonious beauty of the interaction of yin and yang, contrast and unity of brush and ink. In the pursuit of this kind of beauty, I continue to absorb the artistic nourishment of the ancients and modern and contemporary painters, especially the famous artists who are famous for painting chickens, and everyone who has already formed specific brush and ink symbols, and try my best to make my brush and ink form unfamiliar, and infiltrate the rich form changes of chickens into the yin and yang changes of "bone brush" and "ink five colors", so that I deeply feel the first of Sheikh's "six methods" - "vivid charm" The beauty of the natural and endless movement of the universe and the inner temperament of human beings is so mysterious and infinite that I can't catch it, but I can't stop it. When the meaning of the painting is inexhaustible, he wrote a small poem by hand: Yin and Yang cut the dawn, and the pen and ink hide the heavenly machine. If you know God's intentions, it is not surprising to be obedient.
The freehand structure of brush and ink, how to deal with the relationship between form and God, often entangled in the front and back of my painting of chickens. Although Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty had already had the painting theory of "writing God in form" and "moving imagination wonderfully", but when it comes to specific brushwork and ink, the "wonderful" of this "god" is really something that can be encountered but not sought, and it is necessary to constantly enrich the inner learning of Chinese painters, constantly improve the ideological realm, and constantly temper the brush and ink kung fu, so that it is possible to get the magic of the hand!
Chicken, this natural poultry, as early as the Han Dynasty Han Ying in the "Han Poetry Biography" was crowned with "literature, martial arts, bravery, benevolence, faith" and the reputation of "virtuous birds". The concept of "the unity of nature and man" guides the creative practice of Chinese painting and constitutes the systematic language of "freehand". Su Shi's "On Painting Resemblance to Form, Seen in Children's Neighborhood" is not intended to discuss whether the painting is similar or not, but puts forward the proposition of the freehand beauty of Chinese painting. The well-known "Meilan Bamboo Chrysanthemum" has led many literati in the past dynasties to devote themselves to writing poems and paintings for this "Four Gentlemen", which is enough to fully reflect the freehand beauty of Chinese painting of "standing images with full intention" and "using images to express images" from one side. As Chinese painters, we should not forget our original intention, stick to the right path, and continue to carry forward the freehand spirit of traditional Chinese painting. When I think of this, I feel that the pen in my hand seems to be much more dignified.
As a result, my chickens seem to be more and more abundant: they may cry in the morning in the white snow and plum blossoms in the east, or perch in the bamboo forest after the rain, or compete in the autumn breeze with fallen leaves, or stroll under the vines of purple air from .........the eastHis pen and ink interest is based on calligraphy, and the thickness is short and long, and the shade of dry and wet is free to refer to each other;It is a line and a face, a pen and ink, chasing the image in the chest, in order to seek the meaning and the gods.
However, no matter how much I toss the pen and ink on the rice paper, I still feel powerless, and its shape is difficult to convey, and the wonderful realm of "between the similar and the unlike" is unpredictable, and it seems to be separated from the vivid and natural scene I saw when I raised chickens in my childhood in my dream. My quest can be described as a long way to go, and ......... long way to go
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