Sports, born from human labor, is an important carrier for all human beings to enhance their physique, exercise their will, shape their character, enjoy their spirits, and exchange emotions, and art is the crystallization of human wisdom and spirit. In order to welcome the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the China Art Palace (Shanghai Art Museum) recently specially planned and launched the "Flying Beauty, Building Dreams Together" online exhibition of sports-themed art works. The exhibition is divided into three chapters: "Winning the Championship", "The Beauty of Competition" and "National Fitness".
Illustration: Exhibition poster Courtesy of the organizer (the same below)
The works in the online exhibition come from the collections of the China Art Palace (Shanghai Art Museum) and the Shanghai Academy of Chinese Painting, and there is no shortage of works by famous artists such as Feng Zikai, Lu Yushao, Yu Yunjie, etc. The creation time span of the works on display spans more than 70 years, covering Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking, comics, sculpture, folk art, photography, etc. It is the dedication of generations of artists since New China to create the proposition of sports, with a distinct atmosphere of the times and urban spirit, and is a group of masterpieces that look back on the past and inspire the present.
The beauty of sports under the brush
The chapter "Winning the Championship" is an artist who interprets the Chinese sportsmanship through his own artistic language, and the joy of winning the championship is an expression of national self-confidence and an ode to the athletes. The inspiration for Yu Yunjie's 1986 work "Win the Championship" came from the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, where the Chinese sports delegation topped the gold medal list with 94 golds. The work expresses the inner joy of the painter, the color is bold and strong, the pen and ink are free, and the rooster's winning look is portrayed in three points.
Picture: "Win the Championship"
Hua Junwu uses the form of cartoons to depict the living conditions of the people under social changes. Created in 1992, "Happy Olympic News" shows a young couple who are very happy leaving the maternity hospital, and from their dialogue, it can be seen that because most of the Olympic gold medals in China in recent years are women, so the grandparents have also figured it out, and the boys and girls are the same. The painter named the work "Good News of the Olympics", which is a metaphor for the progressive embodiment of the times.
Picture: "Good News for the Olympics"
The "Beauty of Competition" section is the artist's work to show the beauty of sports, and it is the exact place where the "force" and "beauty" of sports and art are integrated. Lu Yushao's work "Ice Sports" depicts a young girl dancing on the ice with an ice knife, which can be called a rather unpopular sport at that time, but under Lu Yushao's depiction, the girl's posture is cool and full of vigorous vitality, as if after the founding of New China, various undertakings will be carried out in unison, and the future can be expected.
Picture: "Ice Sports"
The inscription poem of Feng Zikai's work "Working Together" reads: "The wind and waves have gone through the sun rising, and the flow of this day is free." The helmsman is wise and skillful, and works together to the light." Although the dragon boat is a kind of sports competition, it also symbolizes the enterprising spirit of the Chinese nation to forge ahead.
Picture: "Together"
Lü Meng's 1962 print "Diving" uses two contrasting colors of red and green to vividly depict the sea and the rolling waves. People on the beach are in groups of three or five, playing with the water and diving. On the beach, two small children were running, the sister was pulling the younger brother, and their red footprints were still left on the beach. The works show the new scene of New China where people live and work in peace and contentment, combining work and leisure.
Picture: "Diving"
The national movement in the lens
In the "National Fitness" section, the playground on campus, the table tennis game in the alley, and the sword dancing old man in the park are all sources of inspiration for the artist's creation. "Physical Education Class" Sports In order to enhance the physical fitness of students, "citizens have open-air gyms"... All of them reflect the national movement consciousness of the city of Shanghai.
From Yu Yunjie's sketch "Physical Education Class" created in 1950, we can understand the artist's attention to the material of campus sports in daily life.
Picture: Physical Education Class
A group of photographs by Xue Baoqi focuses on the ordinary citizens at that time, reflecting the characteristics of contemporary citizens' sports culture. "Hula Hoop" was taken in April 1992, in a small alley, neighbors watched an old uncle turning hula hoops, and the picture was happy and harmonious. From this work, we can learn that in the early 1990s, the "hula hoop" movement has spread to the lives of ordinary people. There is also a work, in the Shanghai Park in the 1980s, several elderly people are dancing swords to exercise. The camera freezes the posture of three old ladies half-crouching and raising swords, and a clear ray of sunlight shoots out from the upper left corner, echoing the direction in which the characters raise their swords, rendering the healthy and positive mental outlook of the elderly. On the ground, the shadows of people and trees shine together, and the park is a beautiful and peaceful scene. On Children's Day in 1982, the "Battle of chess masters" work was filmed with several attentive children sitting side by side while challenging the chess teacher. Each child waited in a tight line, seriously thinking about the strategy of fighting against the chess teacher, and people could not help but feel the tense and serious battle scene on the scene.
Picture: "Hula Hoop"
Sport has become an important aspect of shanghai's urban charm. Artists find a point of convergence between tradition and modernity, interpret society, and express their sincerity. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Xu Yisheng)