This article is an excerpt from the October 2020 issue of Calligraphy and Painting World magazine.
National Collection of Fine Arts.
Happy. Greet. Pull. Use.
Scholars and artists are welcome to cite this article, and the format of the reference entries after this article (refer to the national standard GB T 7714-2015 "Information and Literature - Bibliographic Rules") is as follows:
1] Du Zhidong. Curved eyebrows and plump cheeks, Gu Mao is vivid: the female figure in Ren Xiong's figure painting[J].Painting and Calligraphy World, 2020(10):10-13
Curved eyebrows and plump cheeks, ancient and vivid
- The female figure in Ren Xiong's figure painting
Wen Du Zhidong.
National Art Museum of China.
Born at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the "Shanghai School" is an important node in the transition from classical Chinese painting to modern painting, and occupies an important position in the history of modern painting. As one of the key figures in the formation of the early style of the "Shanghai School", Ren Xiong (1823-1857) painted with a distinct personal style and the atmosphere of the times, and although his life was short, his artistic achievements had a profound impact on later generations.
Ren Xiong, the word Weichang, the number Xiangpu, is from Xiaoshan, Zhejiang. When he was young, his family was poor, and he first learned to paint the portrait of his deceased ancestor from the village school for many years, and then his friends Zhou Xian and Yao Xie pushed him seriously, and the name of the painting gradually rose. His painting art was greatly influenced by Chen Hongshou, and the third volume of "Molin on the Sea" said that he "painted Chen Laolian (Hongshou), figures, flowers, and landscape structures are strange and ancient, and he paints immortals and Taoist Buddhas, which is unique. Sent to Wumen, occasionally traveled to Shanghai, and the painters followed one after another, and soon stayed"[1]. This passage not only clarifies his origins and creative style, but also emphasizes the market acceptance and influence of his paintings.
Qing Ren Xiong Liu Yin Boat Girl.
58.5cm×97.7cm 1850 Collection of National Art Museum of China.
Ren Xiong's works cover a wide range of topics, especially figure paintings, and the number is also the most impressive, because some of his works such as "Liquor Plate of Liexian", "The Legend of the Swordsman", "The Legend of Yu Yue Xianxian" and "The Biography of Gao Shi" were printed in the form of prints, which made his figure paintings more widely circulated. Zhang Mingke, a Qing dynasty man, said in "Hansong Pavilion Talking about Art Trivia": "Gonghua figures, folds like iron painting silver hooks, straight into Chen Zhanghou (Hong Shou) room, and the only one who opens up a new face." For a while, the currency begged for each other, and the size of the inch was as precious as a ball. [2] Judging from the posthumous works, the works with the theme of ladies account for a relatively high proportion of Ren Xiong's figure paintings, and the female images and types are also relatively rich, including immortals, traditional boudoir ladies, and many heroic chivalrous images.
The Lady in the Willow Shade is a work created by Ren Xiong in 1850 in the collection of the National Art Museum of China, which shows the scene seen looking at the water through the willow shade on the shore: the weeping willows are draped down from the top of the painting, the slender and slender willow branches move with the wind, the lake under the shade of the willows ripples slightly, a light boat is lying across the water, and a woman in red sits quietly on the lake, her expression, temperament and posture are subtle and introverted, and she is stunned. Ren Xiong skillfully depicts this scene from the perspective of pedestrians on the shore, especially the dense arrangement of willow trees of different thicknesses, separating and blocking the boats, which enhances this casual glimpse. The trees, weeds and water waves in the painting are written in the boneless method, and the dense and bright willow shade is a unique scene in summer, but the willow leaves in this picture are not too much emerald color, and the color does not form a very strong contrast with the cold and warm tones of the woman in the painting, and the monotonous color creates a depressed and lonely artistic conception, which can not help but remind people of the poetry of Li Qingzhao, a female lyricist of the Southern Song Dynasty: "I am only afraid of the Shuangxi boat, and I can't carry it, and I am very sad." ”
Qing Ren Xiong Magu presents a picture of life.
162.3cm×86.2cm Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing.
In general, the Qing Dynasty ladies' paintings were mainly the inheritance of the Ming and Tang dynasties, Qiu Ying and Chen Hongshou. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang periods, when the traditional Taoist and story-themed paintings were in decline, the ladies' painting, as an important branch of figure painting, once developed to its peak, and Gai Qi, Fei Danxu and others were the representative painters at this time. The images of the ladies painted by Fei Yiyi are light, slender and weak, the colors are elegant, and the lines are soft, revealing the beauty of sickness and weakness, reflecting the aesthetic fashion of the late Qing Dynasty and the aesthetic attitude towards women in painting. This modeling method has a wide influence, so much so that the folk woodblock New Year paintings of the same period also imitate the image of such ladies. In addition to Ren Xiong, people such as Ren Xun, Ren Yi, Qian Hui'an, Ni Tian and others have all passed down their works of ladies and gentlemen, and these painters have all gone through the process of following the process of reform and fee in the early brush and ink style.
Looking at "The Lady of the Boat in the Willows", it can be seen that Ren Xiong inherited the painting tradition of reform and Fei at the same time in the process of mastering Chen Hongshou, which created a variety of styles in the creation of his ladies' paintings. The lady on the bow of the boat is slender, and the bun is often used in the paintings of ladies in the Ming and Qing dynasties, to show her loneliness and melancholy, the eyebrows are upside down, and the eyebrows reveal a trace of sorrow. However, this work combines Ren Xiong's skills as a professional painter with the aesthetic taste of a literati painter, and the depiction of the charm, mental state and complex state of mind of the lady at the bow of the boat is just right, and even the complicated willow branches seem to reflect the wisps of sorrow that haunt the heart of the woman in the painting.
Qing Ren Xiong Liexian liquor license of Chang'e.
17.4cm×7.4cm collection of the National Art Museum of China.
As mentioned earlier, "The Lady of the Boat in the Willows" was written in 1850, when Ren Xiong was 28 years old. At the age of 25, he met Zhou Xian in Qiantang, Zhejiang, became close friends, and was invited to live in Zhou Xian's Fanhu Thatched Cottage for three years. The candle has not been tasted at night, so the painting has become more and more refined" [3]. The Palace Museum in Beijing is a combination of Ren Xiong and Zhou Xian, which was created almost at the same time as The Lady in the Willow Shade, and the style is quite similar, both of which express the subtle and delicate mood of women and the inner feelings of wanting to say goodbye. In the painting, the lady stands in the middle of a tree with interlaced branches, and the figure is matched with a simple natural environment, and pursues a poetic and picturesque artistic conception in addition to the state of the boudoir. In the same year, Ren Xiong became acquainted with the famous literati Yao Xie, and stayed in his home for a year, and then created the masterpiece "Dameishan Poetic Intent" according to his poems. These two experiences can be said to be the most important life experiences in Ren Xiong's life, and Zhou Xian and Yao Xie played an important role in the development of Ren Xiong's art in a similar way to patrons, so that his works began to have more new creative expressions in addition to Chen Hongshou. Zhou Xian said in his "Fan Hu Thatched Cottage Posthumous Manuscript: The Biography of Ren Shishi" about Ren Xiong's breakthrough to his predecessors: "Ren Xiong painted Chen Hongshou at the beginning of the sect, and then entered and exited the Song and Yuan dynasties. The ancients could do everything they could, and they did not work. Its layout is bleak, dismal management, and the ancients are not expected to meet, and there are sometimes ancients can not reach. The color is wonderful, and the recovery energy is better than that of the ancients. ”[3]
From the perspective of art history, the study of the artist's artistic style must be combined with the society and era in which he lived to examine the gradual change process of his creative mentality and style, and the change of the subject matter and style of Ren Xiong's works alludes to the changes in this social environment. The late Qing Dynasty in which Ren Xiong lived can be described as a chaotic time, externally, the Opium War shattered the dream of the first kingdom, and the great powers opened the door of China with sharp artillery; Internally, the Taiping Rebellion was raging and wars were continuous. Ren Xiong has a solitary personality and lives in such an era, as a painter, Ren Xiong does not hide from the world, but shows his concern for current affairs, and uses his brush to express his emotions and ambitions. In the midst of the chaos, he chose to promote the traditional chivalry in figure painting, and he painted many ranger pictures, such as "The Legend of the Swordsman". In his works on women, in addition to traditional paintings of ladies such as "The Lady in the Willow Boat", in his later creations, he prefers to give the women in his paintings a kind of heroic spirit, or praise their behavior by depicting filial and martyr women (such as "The Legend of Yu Yue Xianxian").
Xu Feiqiong of the Qing Ren Xiong Liexian liquor license.
17.4cm×7.4cm collection of the National Art Museum of China.
Created when Ren Xiong was 33 years old (1885), the Four Red Pictures in the National Art Museum of China depict four legendary women who were not bound by etiquette. The four women in the picture are dressed in different costumes, on the right side are dressed in robes, holding a whisk, and standing sideways is a red-whisk girl who eloped in the middle of the night; On the left side is Feihong, the maid who serves as a matchmaker in "Jiao Hong"; The woman wearing a blue scarf behind Feihong, wearing a narrow-sleeved shirt, holding a gold box in her hand, and wearing a sword at her waist is the red line of Nengwen Shanwu in "Red Line Thief Box"; Standing behind these three women, wearing military uniforms and holding flags, is Liang Hongyu, the wife of Han Shizhong, a famous anti-gold general in the Southern Song Dynasty. According to the inscription on the picture, it can be seen that the work was created by Ren Xiong at the invitation of Dai Liting, and Zhang Mingke commented on this work: "I saw the "Four Red Pictures" made by him (Ren Xiong) at Dai Liting, which is also quaint and charming, and breathtaking. [2] The depiction of the clothes of the characters in the painting does not lose Chen Laolian's painting style, and in terms of modeling, the proportions of the characters are coordinated and accurate, but there is no deformation and exaggerated effect unique to Chen Hongshou. The picture is heavily colored, not gaudy, and the decoration is complicated, but it has visual changes and interest, which caters to the social aesthetics of the time and has an elegant effect because of the outstanding performance of lines and shapes. The four figures in the painting not only retain the beautiful appearance of women, but also have a vigorous and heroic spirit, which is obviously very different from the inherent style of traditional ladies' paintings that deliberately express women's graceful figures.
Qing Ren Xiong Liexian liquor brand of Luo Yu.
17.4cm×7.4cm collection of the National Art Museum of China.
It should be noted that one of the reasons for Ren Xiong's creation of female images with independent personalities such as "Four Red Pictures" is the promotion of cultural demand and appreciation habits of the calligraphy and painting market in Jiangsu and Zhejiang since the end of the Qing Dynasty. With the development of the commodity economy and the continuous growth of the citizen class at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the demand for art appreciation has changed accordingly. In order to meet the needs of the market, Ren Xiong's painting style and subject matter with the lyrical meaning of traditional literati gradually began to be mixed with market colors, which is more prominent in his other works. For example, the National Art Museum of China's collection of "Liquor Plate of Immortals" and the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing "Magu Offering Longevity", such secular paintings use popular themes and are in line with the taste of the public. The female figures such as Chang'e and Xu Feiqiong in "Liexian Liquor Brand" are expressed in the form of white drawings, with clear and round lines, and more emphasis is placed on the uniform workmanship of the clothing lines and the decorative effects caused by density, turning and change, which has the feeling of "flying clothes in the sky and flying all over the wall". In "Magu's Offering of Life", Ren Xiong directly absorbed the characteristics of folk paintings, and used gorgeous and decorative clothing colors to express the figures, making them happy to hear. This kind of work combines the elegant literati taste with the vulgar content orientation, and presents a new idea in the expression of the traditional theme of ladies.
Ren Xiong is "sexually Gengjie, curious and modest, and unstoppable"[3]. With such a personality, it is really difficult to associate it with the female images in his pen, but with the pen in his hand, he created a new path for the expression of female images in the late Qing Dynasty ladies' paintings, except for the reform and Fei Yi faction, and at the same time deeply influenced the formation and establishment of the female image style in the later "Shanghai School" paintings, and together with his younger brother Ren Xun, his son Ren Pre, and his nephew Ren Yi, he was called the "Four Ren". From a historical perspective, Ren Xiong is just a small person who seeks to settle down with his own skills in troubled times, but he is coerced by the times, and perhaps only by escaping into the peach blossom paradise in the painting can he pursue his personal life ideals. In the seventh year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty (1857), Ren Xiong, who was only 35 years old, contracted a lung disease and died, "If he can live another thirty or forty years, his achievements will be limitless, and with his talent, knowledge, and experience, he should have more outstanding performance, and his achievements may not be below Ren Bonian"[4].
References. 1] Yang Yi. Merlin on the Sea [m].Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2019:79
2] Zhang Mingke. Hansong Pavilion Talks on Art Trivia: Volume II [M].Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1923
3] Weekly leisure. Biography of Ren Shi [M] Fan Hu Thatched Cottage Posthumous Manuscripts: Volume 1. Block-printed edition. The 19th year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1893).
4] Li Zhujin, Wan Qingli. History of Modern Chinese Painting[M].Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2012:83