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Originally published in Rural Youth Magazine, Issue 1, 2024
Keep the "flavor of the year on paper".
Text: Reporter Hu Xiaorong.
When I was a child, during the Chinese New Year, my grandfather often took me to write Spring Festival couplets and stick to the door gods. At that time, the door god was printed by hand in the form of prints, and it is difficult to see such works on the market now. I hope that in the future, more people will participate in the protection, inheritance and creation of Hakka prints, so that intangible cultural heritage can become a powerful carrier for people to understand the beauty of skills and ingenuity, perceive the beauty of tradition and life, understand the Chinese context, and enhance cultural self-confidence. This is the heart of Li Renfa, the second "Young Pioneer of Rural Revitalization in Ganzhou City", the inheritor of Hakka printmaking, and the founder of art calligraphy education in Chongyi County Dream Factory.
Li Renfa Chongyi is located at the junction of Jiangxi, Guangdong and Hunan provinces, and was founded in 1517, which was named after Wang Yangming with the meaning of "advocating etiquette and righteousness". Hakka culture has a long history. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the industrious Hakka ancestors migrated here and multiplied, giving birth to the unique Hakka culture in southern China.
The Hakka people attach great importance to the repair of family trees, and in the past, when the Hakka ancestors compiled family trees, they often drew family lineage maps, ancestral god statues, mountain and river distribution maps in the form of prints and illustrations. The Hakka ancestors of Chongyi made prints with local materials, most of the wood is made of pear trees and camphor trees, nanmu and lotus trees, the carving is fine and smooth, the image is full and vivid, the lines are rough and powerful, and the emotional expression is attached, the meaning is beautiful, rich in decoration, and the characters are vivid and exaggerated. The common varieties are stove Jun brand, large and small door god paintings, auspicious New Year paintings, flower notes, middle halls, couplets, strip screens, etc.
Growing up in painting.
Li Renfa, born in 1991, is a native of Chongyi County, Jiangxi Province. At the age of 3, he began scribbling on walls and floors with charcoal that his mother had extinguished after cooking. His parents told him not to scribble, but he didn't listen, so he had to go. Li Renfa often draws down the exquisite graphics on the calendar, and he can depict them vividly and accurately at a young age, showing a certain talent for painting. When he was in the second grade of primary school, he represented the school to participate in the on-site calligraphy and painting competition for primary and secondary school students in the county, and won the first prize, becoming the youngest first prize winner.
At that time, there were no professional art teachers in the countryside, so my father could only borrow atlases everywhere for Li Renfa to practice. Every time he borrowed an album, Li Renfa was like a treasure. He not only copied a large number of *** and villain books at home, but also often went outdoors to sketch, laying a solid foundation for painting. The long-term "helpless" self-study did not discourage his interest, but made his love for painting stronger and more desired.
From his own personal experience, Li Renfa deeply understands the hardships of rural children taking the road of art. Therefore, since he was a child, he has been determined to become an art teacher when he grows up, to change the phenomenon that there are no art teachers in his hometown and children in rural areas cannot get art education, so that children like him who have art dreams can receive more professional art education.
Through unremitting efforts, Li Renfa was successfully admitted to the county key high school. On the day of admission, he went to the school's art room to register. According to the art teacher of the year, "When painting, Li Renfa was very down-to-earth and diligent, and every time he took a class in the studio, he must be the first to come and the last to leave." ”
Hard work pays off. After three years of professional art training in high school, Li Renfa was admitted to Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, one of the eight major art academies in China. When he entered the university, he was like a reopened piece of drawing paper, and the "three points and one line" of the library, studio, and dormitory outlined the outline of his college life. The rendering in the studio and the reading in the library made his painting path more open.
Let the know-how be passed on from generation to generation.
The themes of Hakka printmaking are mostly myths and legends, historical figures, gods and beasts, mountains and rivers, flowers and geometric characters, etc., and the themes of auspiciousness and auspiciousness are expressed through metaphors, symbols or homophony, as well as the themes of warding off evil spirits and disasters, and welcoming blessings and auspiciousness. The Hakka printmaking process can be half printed and half painted, or it can only be printed and not painted. The different production processes create different picture styles, which can be summarized into four core processes: hooking, engraving, printing, and painting.
With the rapid development of society, electronic printing technology has a huge market share by virtue of its advanced and convenient characteristics. The woodcut prints, which were originally on the edge of printing, have gradually faded from their historical aura and are in urgent need of inheritance and protection. Especially now, the smell of the New Year is fading year by year, so that many customs and habits are facing disappearance. Li Renfa said.
In 2015, Li Renfa graduated from university. He knew that the construction of his hometown was inseparable from art, and with this belief, he gave up the opportunity to stay in the metropolis despite the opposition and incomprehension of his family, and resolutely returned to the small mountain town of his hometown. In order to teach art knowledge to more people who love art, he founded an art training school and became a full-time art educator.
Li Renfa teaches children to learn printmaking, "I founded a 120-square-meter Hakka printmaking intangible heritage inheritance center in Yangming Xincheng, Chongyi County. This is a Hakka printmaking practice place with the theme of intangible cultural heritage education, which can receive more than 20,000 young students every year, and has now become an 'Internet celebrity' check-in point for teenagers. Li Renfa said that he once visited more than a dozen printmakers and asked them for advice and learned Hakka printmaking skills. In 2022, he was recognized as the representative inheritor of Hakka printmaking, a municipal intangible cultural heritage. In addition to creating traditional Hakka prints, Li Renfa also integrates traditional culture into modern teaching, giving new life to Hakka prints. He used the traditional skills of Hakka printmaking to show educational themes such as drowning prevention, anti-fraud, and cyber security, which were deeply loved by students.
Open Li Renfa's circle of friends, every piece of content he posts is about students and loves art. "Post-90s" Li Renfa has the unique youth and vitality of young people, he is down-to-earth and capable, mature and steady, but when he is with children, he always squints and smiles like a big brother, gentle and careful. In the eyes of the children, Li Renfa, who wears glasses, is a teacher who teaches knowledge, but he is also their trusted friend and a good brother who can be relied on.
Li Renfa has been personally involved in the teaching work, focusing on quality and efficiency in every class, taking students as the main body, stimulating their creative thinking, developing children's artistic cells, and striving to create a relaxed learning atmosphere, so as to truly promote quality education with student-based education.
Be a guardian of intangible cultural heritage.
Since joining the work, Li Renfa has always been strict with himself. He knows that in order to educate students well, teachers must always be able to teach and educate people, teach by word and deed, and be a role model, infect students with their own personality and behavior, and influence and educate students with artistic beauty and realistic beauty, so that they can know how to feel, appreciate, evaluate and create beauty.
In class, the gentle Li Renfa always carefully and meticulously explained the origin, production process and expression skills of Hakka printmaking to students. Under his patient guidance, the children carefully colored, printed and unveiled the carved plates, and then the vivid patterns jumped onto the paper. In this way, Li Renfa used a paintbrush and a carving knife to ......It is as if a wonderful new world is outlined for the children of the mountains.
Li Renfa is now creating, Li Renfa will carry out public welfare activities of intangible cultural heritage into the campus every month, and set up Hakka printmaking intangible cultural heritage courses in 12 schools in the county, promoting the transformation of "intangible cultural heritage into the campus" to "intangible cultural heritage on campus", and carrying out three-dimensional education for primary and secondary school students in an all-round and multi-level way, so that the excellent traditional Chinese culture can be passed on from generation to generation. "I hope that through my own efforts, more children can understand this Hakka intangible cultural heritage, spread Hakka culture, inherit the Hakka spirit, and arouse people's new understanding of Hakka printmaking. Li Renfa said.
Li Renfa persevered in his pursuit of art, and his paintings have a variety of subjects and rich forms of expression. He has dabbled in Chinese painting, oil painting, watercolor, printmaking, drawing, etc., and his paintings have been selected for national, provincial and municipal art exhibitions and won awards. He is now a member of the Jiangxi Artists Association, a member of the Children's Art Committee of the Ganzhou Artists Association, the secretary-general of the Chongyi County Artists Association, and a representative inheritor of Hakka prints of municipal intangible cultural heritage.
At present, my work is mainly divided into four parts: one is to create paintings; the second is to be responsible for the course of Hakka printmaking into campus public welfare activities; the third is to visit the countryside to collect the cultural elements of the hometown, organize and recreate; The fourth is to teach students the knowledge of painting and calligraphy. I will strive to combine what I think and what I have gained into my own work and artistic practice, tell the stories of Chinese youth, strive to be a new youth in literature and art in the new era, and dedicate my youth to art and art to my hometown. Li Renfa also wants to say to young people: as long as you are down-to-earth and willing to work, there is nothing that cannot be done; Do more good deeds, have a good heart, and use your positive energy to illuminate others; Learn to think, read more, knowledge can change fate.
Rural Youth Magazine.
*: Rural Youth Magazine, Issue 1, 2024.
Final review: Lin YuhongReviewer: Yang Ming, Liu ZhuyingEditor: Hu Xiaorong.