Regarding the inheritance and development of Chinese painting, we must use a new concept to understand. In my opinion, "inheritance" is mainly a matter of education, and the core of the inheritance of Chinese painting is education. The "development" is embodied in the theoretical research results and a large number of excellent Chinese painting works and many excellent painters have come out, and the most important and weighty work is to speak with the works, and the writing of art history has always started from the works and painters.
Tang Yongli Tang Yun is plump.
66cm 92cm ink and color on paper, 2023.
Under the current situation, how can we deeply and concretely understand, study, analyze and understand the current situation of Chinese painting? What is the current state of survival of Chinese painting, and is its inheritance and development healthy? These require a comprehensive, in-depth survey understanding to evaluate. The author has many years of experience in the teaching and creation of Chinese painting, and often participates in various forms of art activities, so I have a lot of understanding of art education and practice, and I think there are many problems in the inheritance and development of Chinese painting, which need to be discussed in depth.
Brush and ink is the bottom line of Chinese painting
For more than 100 years, everyone has been discussing what Chinese painting is. As early as the Song Dynasty, Guo Ruoxu proposed Chinese painting in "Pictures and Stories", aiming at the Korean "Goryeo Painting" and the Japanese "Wa Painting", which is the earliest Chinese painting concept in the literature. Later, with the introduction of Western culture, Chinese and Western art collided fiercely. In recent decades, Chinese painting has undergone tremendous changes, and it has formed a sharp contrast with the past in terms of artistic concepts and painting techniques and styles, and it is still in the process of continuous transformation and transformation. The creation of Chinese painting shows a tendency to be on par with Western art, and many of these conceptual works have even basically abandoned the linguistic characteristics of traditional Chinese painting, weakening the cultural spirit of Chinese painting.
Tang Yongli Tang Polo.
95cm, 142cm, ink and color on silk, 2020.
At the same time, in the collision and integration of Chinese and Western cultures, Western art concepts are often easy to gain the upper hand in the minds of young painters. Nowadays, many young painters of Chinese painting are "Westernized" very much, and their modeling ability and basic skills of traditional painting are seriously insufficient, so the creative concept is to try to find answers and outlets in Western art forms and concepts. We can see this from various types of art exhibitions. I think these conditions are the new characteristics, new trends, new problems, and new challenges of Chinese painting at present.
How to clean up the roots and innovate in the inheritance and development of Chinese painting? Is it okay to be "half-blooded"? Yes, but not in the majority. Chinese culture has a long history, broad and profound, and the Chinese cultural context must be inherited, so the concept of Chinese painting must be clear, which is something that should be faced in the new era.
Tang Yongli, Dunhuang music and dance.
70cm, 55cm, ink and color on paper, 2020.
The development of Chinese painting on the basis of a bottom line is the real development. Only by studying the concept of Chinese painting, knowing what Chinese painting is, and keeping the bottom line of Chinese painting, can we truly keep Chinese painting. The bottom line of Chinese painting is still unclear to us. For example, in the selection of some art exhibitions, some works with too heavy Westernization elements were also selected—the principle of the concept of Chinese painting was lost in the selection process, and only the painting was judged well, not whether the work was a real Chinese painting. In fact, we should single out those works that are mixed in and send them to the comprehensive painting selection system, so as to truly realize the healthy orientation of Chinese painting.
Tang Yongli galloping horse.
180cm, 90cm, ink and color on paper, 2012.
In the discussion of Chinese painting in the past two or three decades, Zhang Ding specifically proposed that "brush and ink are the bottom line of Chinese painting". In fact, there is a diachronic process of the controversy over brush and ink in Chinese painting. Since the Song Dynasty, the brush and ink of Chinese painting have been mainly based on outlining and rendering, pursuing vivid rhyme, bone brush, pictogram of objects, coloring with class, business position, and transfer molding. After the rise of literati painting in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the brush and ink that began to pay attention to were a brush and ink with changes in dry and wet shades, which was mainly for self-entertainment. The brushwork before the Song Dynasty and the brushwork after the Song Dynasty are obviously different, which shows that the brushwork is developing and changing, and from the Ming and Qing dynasties to modern times, it still develops along the traditional spirit of China's original culture.
Over the past 100 years, with the impact of Western art, there has been a so-called state of brush and ink language - material brush and ink, that is, the "new ink painting" that has been launched now, which uses several materials such as rice paper, brush, ink, and color together casually, pursues the visual effect of the exhibition, and is free from the traditional brush and ink, and no longer pays attention to the skill of brush and ink. How to evaluate this so-called "new painting method" is worthy of study in the theoretical circles. The aggravation of the consciousness of absorbing and borrowing from Western art and the development of diversified art forms have caused the concept of brush and ink in Chinese painting in the new period to be blurred, and the boundaries of Chinese painting are no longer clear. From a macro point of view, we should reverse this trend from the orientation and adhere to integrity and innovation.
Adhere to integrity and innovation with college education
How to protect the context of Chinese painting, that is, what kind of inheritors of Chinese painting should be cultivated? The concepts, principles, programs, contents, methods and methods of Chinese painting education are all topics that need to be re-studied.
Tang Yongli played against each other.
50cm 45cm ink and color on paper 2023.
The main problem in the current development of Chinese painting lies in our academy education. I have served as the head of the Chinese Painting Department at the China Academy of Art and the ** Academy of Fine Arts for nearly 20 years, and I am currently serving as the director of the Chinese Painting Department at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. For example, after listening to the lectures of theorists, my graduate students were confused, and felt that Chinese painting was not the mainstream painting of the moment, as if the contemporary avant-garde art of the West had become the mainstream. This phenomenon is worth pondering, and it contains deeper problems. At present, the Chinese painting education of undergraduates, to a certain extent, is detached from the traditional in-depth learning and understanding, and is only superficial, the study of historical theory is extremely lacking, the teaching system is not sound enough, the curriculum is not scientific and systematic, and more importantly, the teacher structure is unreasonable, and there are very few teachers with a solid modeling foundation, profound traditional skills, and profound historical literacy, so this is also a new challenge. How to develop the education of Chinese painting is facing severe challenges and tests in reality.
Tang Yongli You Chuntu.
49cm, 45cm, ink and color on paper, 2022.
I believe that in order to become an excellent Chinese painter, you must have four foundations: first, the foundation of modeling; the second is the foundation of traditional painting brush and ink techniques; the third is the foundation of literary history, such as Chinese classical literature and poetry, painting history, Chinese aesthetics, including Western aesthetics and art history; The fourth is the foundation of calligraphy, which is a very core part of the inheritance of Chinese painting. But this is not enough, it is necessary to add two basic knowledge, namely formal composition and color cultivation.
Tang Yongli You Chuntu.
49cm, 45cm, ink and color on paper, 2022.
For example, styling basics are the most important. At present, many excellent works have emerged in the thematic creation of Chinese painting, because under the guidance of the "Xu Jiang system" in the past hundred years, there are a large number of basic modeling courses in the college education, and the modeling ability of figure painting has been greatly improved, which the ancients could not do, and it is also the success of the college education, and it needs to be more vigorously developed in the future. However, there is a tendency to weaken the training of modeling in the education of the Academy of Fine Arts, because under the influence of Western modernist concepts, some contemporary painters think that a little modeling ability is enough, because "realistic ability and modeling ability are not the main thing in modern art, especially in contemporary ink painting". This is something we need to be very vigilant about. The thematic creation of expressing the Chinese spirit and Chinese stories requires a very strong modeling ability, which must come from education. Without a good academic education, it will be very difficult for figure painters to grow up, so I think that the education of strengthening modeling ability is also a very important aspect of the development of Chinese painting.
(Wen Tang Yongli).
Tang Yongli's beautiful woman swims in spring.
90cm 80cm ink and color on paper, 2022.
*: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Magazine).
Artist Profile
Tang Yongli,Born in 1951, he is a native of Tangshan, Hebei Province. He used to be the director and deputy director of the Department of Chinese Painting at the China Academy of Art, the dean of the School of Chinese Painting at the ** Academy of Fine Arts, the director of the China Artists Association, and the vice president of the China Gongbi Painting Society. He is currently a professor, doctoral supervisor, and postdoctoral cooperative supervisor of ** Academy of Fine Arts, doctoral supervisor of China Academy of Art and China Academy of Arts, doctoral supervisor of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, and director of the Department of Chinese Painting. Deputy Director of the Painting and Calligraphy Office of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, member of the 11th and 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, member of the Academy of Painting of China, and an expert enjoying special national allowances. He has won the second prize of the Ministry of Education's Teaching Achievement Award, the first ** Academy of Fine Arts Xu Beihong Art Creation Award, the Vienna International Culture and Art Meritorious Artist Award, etc., and "The Birth of New China" won the China Phoenix Art Theme Creation Award.