China is known as the "Land of Dragons".
The dragon is an important symbol and symbol of the Chinese nation, with a long history and profound humanistic connotation, and has been endowed with multiple meanings such as auspiciousness, sacredness, and authority in Chinese culture, and has a wide range of applications in religious beliefs, painting, sculpture, architecture and clothing, and is closely related to people's lives. Mr. Zhao Qingyuan, a well-known painter in the contemporary art world, has created a number of masterpieces of freehand ink painting with dragons as the theme in his decades of pen and ink career, which are deeply loved by people from all walks of life.
"Year of the Dragon".
In many film and television dramas, we often see the image of a dragon: it looks like a snake, has scaly claws, appears freely, flies and dives, and spreads clouds with rain. However, dragons are, after all, legendary magical creatures, which are neither to be met nor to be sought, so as a painting subject, it is quite difficult to create. Mr. Zhao Qingyuan put a lot of effort into painting dragons. He not only pays attention to collecting information related to dragons, retrieving and sorting out the descriptions of dragons in various literatures, especially the hand-me-down texts of painters of the past dynasties that represent dragons, drawing essence from them, and combining them with his own aesthetic imagination, so as to write out the various faces, postures and spirits of dragons with the freehand brush and ink technique system that he is good at.
Mr. Zhao Qingyuan painted the dragon, has a unique origin, tired of hard work, through a solid process from the pen to the part-time work with writing, from the small freehand to the freehand to the freehand of the pen and ink tempering of the solid process, continue to move forward, to be refined, sublimated. Now, he paints with a large hand, calmly, handy, confident, and with a wave. Judging from the masterpieces of the thematic series such as "Rising from the Clouds, Rushing the First Waves", "When the Sun is in the Middle of the Day, the World Shines Together", "The Wind Goes Up to the Nine Skies", "The Spring Thunder Scatters in the Middle Night, and the World Meets the Sweet Rain", Mr. Zhao Qingyuan In the creative process of the zodiac dragon, the dragon itself and the surrounding environment were carefully portrayed by him. He expressed the dragon as a thing, calligraphy and brushwork, mainly in the center, and with a side striker, various angles of the bone method with a line supplemented by a little rubbing, completely outlining the body of the dragon, writing the dragon's lin, carving out the dragon's claws, and then writing the dragon's tongue and dragon's whiskers. And he pays special attention to the finishing touch, a little easier, that is, to add color to the dragon, and the spirit is more prominent. This corresponds to what Gu Kaizhi said in his paintings: "The four-body beauty is not good at the subtleties, and the portrayal of the gods is in the middle of the block." ”
Mr. Zhao Qingyuan has always used anthropomorphic methods to represent the animals he loves. In his view, the dragon changes with time, just like a person who has a will to cross the seas. Therefore, he never neglects the performance of the scenery, so that the subject and the scenery are cleverly combined, and the virtual and the real are born together, and the charm is timeless. The dragon in the picture may be flying in the sky, spitting clouds and mist;Or rise in the air, wanting to rain down. Some of the dragon's body is coiled, some are stretched, some are dazzling with golden scales, and some are dressed in greencan be big and small, can be visible and hidden, open teeth and claws are angry, looking up to the sky and roaring like a ......The dragon is comfortable in the magnificent and empty and deep environment, and it is even more majestic and powerful. It can be seen that the painter has entered a realm of unrestrained feelings, distant intentions, and self-satisfaction when creating, and has gained the freedom of pen and ink and the freedom of spirit, and then makes the works carry out a kind of freehand spirit that is not bound by form, not muddy to the ancient, and has a good handwriting spirit.
"The Dragon of the Zodiac".
Referring to the subject of dragons, Mr. Zhao Qingyuan said: "I don't specialize in drawing dragons, I like to draw animals, because to draw the zodiac, you have to draw dragons, so I also studied it preliminarily." Because there is less information about the dragon, the painter paints less, that is, there are more folk, especially the Nine Dragon Wall of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the dragon on the emperor's seat is made very vividly, sometimes travel to Beijing to see, reference reference, so it is said that there is a preliminary understanding of the dragon. When I draw dragons, I mainly use splashed ink to set off the background after outlining, which makes the atmosphere better. Yes, you can draw the sea water with a line, and then fill in some colors after the line, so that it can blend together. In this color contrast, you are like using ink, that is, black and white contrast;After using color, the contrast between green and red is mainly for contrast. The colors used are mainly the two colors of the yellow dragon and the green dragon, and no other colors are used. Another thing to pay attention to is that the dragon is painted with five claws, and you see that the dragon robe has five claws;The python has four claws, and this can't be wrong. The finishing touch, which has been passed down from history, has to be painted well. Pay attention to the overall adjustment of the dragon. ”
The bell of the Year of the Dragon in 2024 is about to ring, Mr. Zhao Qingyuan painted a dragon to pray for blessings, blessings for the peace of the country and the people, and wishing people peace and auspiciousness in the new year!
Written by Shangguan Juewen.
On December 31, 2023, he was repaired in Quancheng Shixiu.