Chen Hongbiao | wen
70 million in one painting! Paint your skin first? Or do you paint it with a cutout line shirt? 11 years later is still a mystery!
I will never forget the shock I felt when I first saw this painting.
That was sometime in 2011.
It was at this moment that I stood in front of it, my gaze frozen like a superglue, fixed on the painting.
▲ Li Guijun's painting "Qingquan".
My mind went blank, and I don't know how much time had passed, until I was pushed by the person behind me, and I didn't come back to my senses.
In the crowd, I still twisted my head to look at the painting.
I knew that my heart was struck by a warm current, which was the warmth emanating from the girl in the painting.
Innocent, sweet, delicate, pink and transparent face, people have the urge to reach out and touch. The slightly folded chin, the low-hanging eyes, the slightly thoughtful and eager expression, look so beautiful.
▲Part of Leng Jun's painting "Little Ginger".
Having walked a long way, I turned back into the hall again, as if something had landed there. In fact, I had a very absurd idea, I have seen many exhibitions, I have never had this impulse, this is the first time.
I don't know why I think this way, and I can't think of anything else, I just want to meet the model in the painting.
From the organizers know that this is the work of oil painter Leng Jun, it is possible to find a painter to know who the model is, and it is possible to find the model in the painting.
▲ Leng Jun is creating "Little Ginger".
Friends told me that this model named Xiao Jiang was particularly cattle, and halfway through Leng Jun's creation, he and his friends ran to Yunnan to work. No way, Leng Jun made a rough model according to Xiao Jiang's height, and it took a year to complete it.
Intuition told me it wasn't true, it was a rumor. Because I felt the sincerity of the model in the eyes of the girl in the painting.
I didn't believe it, but in the face of my friend's convincing news, it became a glorified imagination.
▲ Leng Jun's oil painting "Little Ginger".
I don't deny that I subjectively beautify this painting, but it is so real, real, with the most direct skin feeling.
That warm feeling is so wonderful, just like when I was 18 years old, I liked to listen to Huangmei opera, obsessed with the rich lyrical singing voice, simple and fresh, delicate and moving.
▲ Part of the oil painting "Little Ginger".
After a period of fascination with the painting, I found that the most fascinating place was the hollowed-out thread shirt on the girl in the painting, the green yarn mesh knitted sweater, through which even the white cotton bandeau was faintly visible.
In particular, the sweater, although it is not newly knitted, the threads are all balled, but the texture of the faint light emitted on it is too strong.
Looking into the mesh of the sweater yarn, the arm that crossed the waist loomed, and it seemed to have a texture like gelatinous touch. The skin under the sweater can still give people a very real feeling of elasticity, and the softness and temperature of the slim jade hands can even be transmitted through these meshes.
▲The oil painting "Little Ginger" is partially enlarged.
How did such perfect details and magical effects come about?
I found a lot of materials for oil painting creation, and also spent 4 years to learn the history of Chinese oil painting and the history of world painting, and wrote a long biography of Xu Mangyao, a famous oil painter who belongs to the same Chinese realism painting school as Leng Jun, "Xu Mangyao's Oil Painting World", but I just couldn't find the answer.
▲ Chen Hongbiao's book shadow of "Xu Mangyao's Oil Painting World".
Although I know the steps and techniques of oil painting creation, I also know that the blending technique in the classical Painting Technique of the West is either smooth skin separated from clothing, or painted a layer of transparent tulle, thin to the state of floating, seemingly nothing, completely without the perfect combination of this hollowed-out shirt and skin like Leng Jun.
How exactly was this drawn? Do you paint the skin first, or do you paint it with a hollowed-out line shirt? This problem has never been solvable.
▲ Leng Jun is talking about creation.
In the 2021 China Guardian Autumn Auction "Twentieth Century and Contemporary Art Night Show", Leng Jun's oil painting "Portrait of Portrait - Xiao Jiang" fell into the hands of a mysterious person for 61 million yuan, plus a commission, and the transaction price was as high as 70.15 million yuan.
▲China Guardian Autumn Auction Shenzhen Station Touring Exhibition Site.
There is also more attention from all walks of life to this oil painting, but no one has revealed the problem. Eleven years now, it is still a mystery.
This article is the exclusive original of [Chen Hongbiao's Writing and Painting], written by Chen Hongbiao, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, biographer and critic of calligraphy and painting, who has published 16 personal works, including the long biography "Xu Mangyao's Oil Painting World" and so on. Image from the web.