I have been working in landscape painting for decades. Along the way, I taught and created at the same time, and I spent a precious time that was fulfilling, happy, and rewarding. Looking back on the past, I feel that my painting mainly benefited from the study of several stages, such as copying traditional classics, academic brush and ink teaching, and life painting and creation. Over the years, I have been following my own temperament, in the creative exchanges with my teachers and friends, and in the teaching and learning with students, I have taken the ancients as my teachers, talked with the mountains and rivers, and used my pen and ink to find the true meaning of art in the mountains and rivers. My work from different periods visually reproduces this process of exploration.
The work should pay attention to the study of traditionIn the history of Chinese art for thousands of years, landscape painters have been as brilliant as a galaxy, and they have expressed their personal feelings and artistic interests with the help of works of art. Those classic paintings that have been handed down not only reveal the mysterious relationship between man and nature, but also leave a valuable artistic wealth for later generations of painters. I think that perhaps it is precisely because of such a profound tradition of Chinese landscape painting that so many masters have emerged in the past dynasties, and such unique landscape masterpieces have attracted the attention of the world.
Tradition is like the water of life. Mr. Li Keran once said, "We must enter with the greatest strength and then come out with the greatest courage." In the tradition, I see the roots and vitality of Chinese landscapes. Therefore, I feel that in order to paint a new style in the new era, landscape painting must solve a series of basic issues such as brushwork, ink method, composition, etc., which are inseparable from the study of tradition. Through the study of ancient landscape classics, one can better master the techniques and principles of Chinese painting, which can not only enhance the style and heritage of the works, but also deepen the understanding of the spirit of Chinese painting. Therefore, learning tradition is an indispensable part of the study of landscape painting. Taking the ancient as a teacher is the key to learning landscape painting.
Ten years ago, I was fortunate enough to enter the Li Tiesheng Advanced Landscape Painting Class at the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, and one of the courses was copying the works of the ancients. What impressed me the most was my study of "Journey to the Mountains and Streams", a masterpiece in the history of Chinese landscape painting, painted by the Northern Song Dynasty painter Fan Kuan, with a history of nearly 1,000 years. The paintings are magnificent, the brushwork is exquisite, especially the method of depicting the mountains and rocks and the sketching skills of trees, houses, and figures, which are very representative in the study of landscape painting. However, due to the passage of time, some places are a little blurry, and when I am copying, I often use a magnifying glass to magnify parts of the work to understand the painting theory. I think the most difficult thing about copying this painting is the combination of brush, line, and ink, and I often have to practice dozens of times in order to draw a part well. This way of learning has also been applied to the study of works by Guo Xi, Shi Tao, Gong Xian, etc. Through copying different classic paintings, I gradually mastered the techniques of dealing with the relationship between yin and yang, such as brush and ink techniques, schematic composition, and yin-yang, and reality, and summarized these methods into rules, and then formed my own aesthetic thinking, painting mode, and expressive language. Today, it seems that I have benefited greatly from the study of tradition.
The work should have solid pen and ink skillsBroadly speaking, "academic school" refers to the group of people who teach in major art academies or engage in the creation of calligraphy and painting after completing their studies. At the beginning of the 20th century, Xu Beihong, Liu Haisu, Lin Fengmian and other students studying in Europe introduced college education to China, ending the ancient art education of "master-apprentice art transfer and handicraft workshops" and forming an academic school of Chinese painting. Today, the academic school has become a major force in the contemporary art world, and Huang Binhong, Pan Tianshou, Li Keran and others have all had the experience of teaching or learning in the academy.
Academic teaching has had a huge impact on my artistic practice. I graduated from Hebei Normal University with a major in art education, and then studied painting with Mr. Wang Jiping and Mr. Li Tiesheng, who were respectively the dean of the Art College of Hebei Agricultural University, a professor of the ** Academy of Fine Arts, and the director of the Department of Landscape Painting. It can be said that I grew up under the academic teaching system. In particular, during my study in Beijing, I followed the learning path of Mr. Li Tiesheng and followed up with Jia Youfu, Li Keran, Lu Yanshao, Huang Binhong, Gong Xian, and other famous artists and everyone, and conducted in-depth intensive reading, contemplation, and intensive study of their works, and gained a deeper understanding and practice in the use of pen and ink, which helped me a lot.
The characteristics of Chinese painting in world art are based on the brushwork and ink technique. Brush and ink is a high summary and generalization of the life of objects and one's own life. Therefore, I believe that in order to learn Chinese painting well, we need to work brush and ink. In the past ten years, I have focused on learning the brush and ink techniques of Huang Binhong, Li Keran and other masters, and integrated them into my own artistic creation, and I have made a qualitative improvement in the practice, understanding and sketching of brush and ink language.
My landscape paintings often use ink accumulation and ink breaking to create, and make reasonable use of the water paving method. When creating, it is necessary to have a strong overall concept of the picture, and to be confident where there is black and where to leave blank. Mr. Huang Binhong once said: "There are dragons and snakes in the painting", which means that we should not fill in all the white, black should be a line, and white should also be a line. The use of ink accumulation and ink breaking is not a repeated superposition, but should be carried out with different brushstrokes and methods. Under the staggered outline of the brushstrokes, the spatial and yin and yang relationships of the objects are gradually formed. Only in this way can we create a simple, heavy and spatchwork artistic beauty on the surface. In addition, Mr. Huang Binhong's repeated emphasis on "the beauty of the country is picturesque, and the inner beauty is still in the middle" is the aesthetic reflection of the subject, the objectification of personality and life force, and the spiritual bearing of "our nation". Mr. Huang Binhong's "inner beauty" has deeply influenced me.
Under the rigorous study system of the "academic school", I have precipitated my state of mind, broadened my horizons, cultivated my pen and ink, and the personality of my works has gradually become distinct. It can be said that academic learning has witnessed my thinking, exploration and harvest on the road of art.
Pay attention to sketching and be close to natureLife is the foundation of art, and art is the reproduction of life. The creation of landscape painting is inseparable from the nourishment of life, and only in the natural landscape can we continue to discover and create a new painting language. "The source of the heart from the outside teacher" is the core theoretical basis for the continuous development and continuation of Chinese landscape painting, and it is also the motto of the masters of landscape painting who have done their best to pursue their lives. One of Shi Tao's seals is called "Search all the strange peaks to make drafts", and the so-called "search all the strange peaks", my understanding is to boldly absorb and create the rich and colorful objective world and the humanistic world, as well as the materials that can be processed and refined. Only by "searching for the strange peaks of life" can we make a "draft" that is full of the spirit of the times and has a distinctive artistic personality.
Mr. Li Keran, a master of landscape painting, attached great importance to sketching throughout his life, and he once said: "When sketching and observing scenes, we must put down a set of methods obtained by copying our predecessors, and we must dig out new expression methods from the sketching objects." The purpose of copying is to absorb the brushwork, ink and other painting theories of the predecessors, but the ancient method must be corroborated with the objective object of sketching, so that art can have vitality. The concept and connotation of sketching in Chinese painting are fundamentally different from those in Western painting, and the "sketching creation" advocated by Mr. Li Keran is also "creation of scenes", which is a kind of "artistic creation" created by teachers and traditions.
Based on this understanding, over the years, I have successively gone to Zhangshiyan in Hebei, Laoshan in Shandong, Sanjiang in Guangxi, Slate in Henan, Qiyun Mountain in Anhui, Wutai Mountain and Wulaofeng in Shanxi, Zhangjiajie in Hunan, Laishui Dalongmen in Hebei, Sanjian Collar in Yixian County, Baiyangdian and other places to sketch, in the real mountains and real waters, to understand the spirit of the mountains and rivers, and temper the broad mind of pen and ink.
Nature is infinite and can never be explored. Through continuous sketching, I carefully observe and study nature, and discover the laws of beauty in nature. Learning to observe and screen objects as a whole improves the ability to deal with comprehensive problems. In observing the problems of objects and phenomena, it is necessary to move from shallow to deep, from passive to active, from writing about form to writing about gods, and from the single-mindedness and one-sidedness of understanding nature to the complexity and multifacetedness. When we are confronted with objects, we must not only maintain our emotions and impulses towards them, but also maintain the order and rationality of the control of pen and ink.
The sketching of "teacher creation" is to regard the object and life as your best teacher, to have a dialogue with objects and images with feelings, to grasp the spirit of objects, and to truly reach the realm of having thousands of weather in your chest. Sketching and creation complement each other, and only with the help of sketching can the creator understand nature, life, and art, and can he use the most refined brush and ink to express the most vivid painting content.
In the process of sketching different regions, I have always tried to combine the traditional cultivation of brush and ink with the creation of scenes, so as to achieve the divine harmony between brush and ink and objects, and to create sketches with the spirit and wisdom of the subject with personalized observation and understanding. The mountains and rivers are accompanied by the mountains. For the creation of landscape painting, I believe that we should learn from the ancients, but we should not be bound by the ancients; Sketch nature, but you can't be limited by nature. A true artist needs to maintain an independent humanistic perspective at all times, and deconstruct nature and life with works with real feelings. In the future, I will continue to use what I have learned and understood to present the landscape home in my heart.
Peng Jinhui, born in 1967, is a senior lecturer at the Baoding Primary and Secondary School Teacher Training Center. She is now a member of the Chinese Gongbi Painting Society, a member of the Hebei Artists Association, a member of the Hebei Women Painters Association, a director and a member of the presidium of the Baoding Artists Association.
He has been rated as an outstanding teacher in Hebei Province, a backbone teacher in Hebei Province, a leader in the art discipline of Baoding City, a model of teacher morality, a famous teacher in Baoding City, and a famous teacher in the art discipline. He has published many collections of paintings, such as "Classic Works of Contemporary Artists: Peng Jinhui's Chinese Painting Collection" and "Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China".
Wen Peng Jinhui).