The bull is angry, and the tiger is coming again. As the king of beasts, the tiger not only has a unique strength and momentum, its majesty also symbolizes power and status, "dragon soaring tiger leap", "tiger standing on the dragon plate", "tiger tiger vigorous" and other words not only symbolize vitality and domineering, but also symbolize a magnificent atmosphere. As a result, the image of the tiger has become a unique and important carrier in the eyes of the painter, and it is endowed with different colors and symbolic meanings through the brush.
The painting of tigers with tigers as the object of expression has a long history, and there is no shortage of famous masters of tiger painting in the past dynasties. According to historical records, Gu Kaizhi, a painter from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wu Daozi from the Tang Dynasty, Bao Ding from the Song Dynasty, Zhou Gengyun from the Yuan Dynasty, and Zhao Lian and Dai Jin from the Ming Dynasty were all famous painters of tiger painting. Today, let's take a look at what the tiger in the paintings of the ancients looked like.
In Shi Ke's "Two Ancestors' Mental Diagram", Zen Master Fenggan sits on the back of a tiger as tame as a cat. Feng Gan looked indifferent, and he and Tiger both closed their eyes slightly, showing a sleeping demeanor. In this picture, the shape of the tiger is clumsy, and it is summed up with a bold brush, and the image of "sleeping in the mud" also sets off Fenggan's achievement of falling asleep soundly and detaching himself from all meditation states.
The Song people's painting "Bian Zhuangzi Thorn Tiger Picture" is an allegorical picture. Bian Zhuangzi was a doctor in the Lu Kingdom, known for his bravery, and in his painting a cow was wounded and lying on the grass, and two tigers were biting each other for food. Bian Zhuangzi took the hem of his clothes with his left hand, and raised his sword with his right hand to stab the tiger, but he turned his head to listen to the others, who advised him to wait for the two tigers to finish fighting, and as long as he stabbed the injured tiger, he would get two tigers. The characters and tigers in the painting are extremely vivid, especially the situation of the two tigers fighting, full of movement and power, and it is a rare masterpiece of painting tigers.
Zhao Miaozhuo was a famous painter of tigers in the Song Dynasty, with a rude personality and was not good at grooming. Liu Daool's "Commentary on Famous Paintings of the Song Dynasty" commented on him that he was "good at painting tigers, with many charms and similar shapes", and praised his tigers for "resembling and charming". The background of this painting "Out of the Mountain Tiger" is ancient pines and mountain cliffs, and the tiger's eyes are wide open, giving people the momentum of the tiger roaring in the mountains and forests and the four seas.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, the theme of painting tigers became increasingly popular, and the most famous of them was the Zen master Fachang. Fa Chang, the word Muxi, is a Zen monk painter, good at painting dragons and tigers, his works are often not formal, without carving. The tiger in "Tiger Picture" has a number of tiger hairs, tiger claws will be exposed, and the tiger is vigorous, as in front of you. However, the tiger was not intimidating, it was furry, its head bowed, its expression focused, and it had an unexpectedly coquettish attitude beyond its might.
As the saying goes, one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers. The tigers in the painting are often one or two. However, in the Ming Dynasty, a painter broke this stereotype by painting a group of tigers in one picture. This painter is Zhao Ruyin, who painted in 1437 "Tigers in the Wind Forest", which still amazes the world. The painter painted a total of 28 tigers against the backdrop of mountains and forests, each with a different posture, either playing and chasing, roaring in the forest, drinking water, or sitting, or sharpening wood, or licking palms, and the 28 tigers are all in different moods.
The Ming Dynasty tiger master Zhu Duan's "Hongnong Crossing the Tiger Picture" painted two tigers crossing the river. Xu Gui's "Tiger Cub Picture" depicts a tigress and two tiger cubs. The tiger cubs in the painting are lively and mischievous, delicate and cute, and the tigress is also unusually fierce and fierce, watching the tiger cubs play warmly, portraying the motherhood of the tiger to the fullest.
Dai Jin's "Tiger Arhat" depicts an Arhat sitting in front of a monastery gate, holding a staff in his right hand and stroking a tiger snuggled in front of his knee with his left hand.
The "Tiger Picture" of Ma Yingtu in the Qing Dynasty depicts a thick little fat tiger standing in the mountain stream, with a very cute expression.
The painter Gao Qipei painted the back of the tiger in ink, but his face was not visible, and the angle was very novel. The tiger's fur is black and brown, its body is fat, its legs are straight, its tail is weakly dragging on the ground, its surroundings are overgrown with weeds, and the forests are dense. The tiger walked through the mountains with great difficulty, and its four fat legs seemed to be unable to support its huge body, so it was not unreasonable to call it a "cute tiger".
Gao Qipei's painting of the tiger has both the shape and the gods, which was deeply appreciated by the Qianlong Emperor. Emperor Qianlong once wrote a poem entitled "Gao Qipei's Fingers Draw a Tiger," in which he praised: "Yan Liliu, an old man in Tieling, does not use a pen to draw and ...... with his fingers."For me to paint the tiger, the air is gloomy and cold", and there are very few people who have received this evaluation in the Qing Dynasty painting circle.