Fu Luofei 《Mending the Sails》
Huang Shaoqiang, "Laundry Woman"
Yang Zhiguang , Mine Recruits
The reporter recently learned from the "Writing All the Cangsheng - 20th Century Guangdong Artist Character Sketching Case Study Exhibition" that the Guangdong Museum of Art sorted out and displayed hundreds of precious manuscripts that had not been exhibited in the collection for many years, and more systematically presented the character sketches of three Guangdong artists - Huang Shaoqiang, Fu Luofei and Yang Zhiguang. The exhibition is selected by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's 2021 National Art Museum Young Curator Support Program, with Wang Shaoqiang as the chief planner. It is on the run until 6 April. What is life like under the "sketching perspective" of art people?
Text/Guangzhou Daily all-media reporter Li Qiaorong Courtesy photo/Organizer
From three sketches, we can peek into the development trajectory of Guangdong art in the 20th century
Regarding "sketching", curator Lu Zihua introduced: "Sketching, as a way of observing and recording life, it very intuitively reflects the people, things and things in the eyes of the artist, and each gaze reflects a viewing angle, quoting John Berger, that is, 'gaze is a selective behavior', people's viewing is often affected by many factors, what we choose to see, in fact, we are examining the relationship between things and me, placing the object in the chain of things related to it, constituting what we see." Sketching reveals how artists construct reality in their eyes, and we try to explore what influences their 'viewing' from it. ”
Taking the character sketching cases of Guangdong artists in the 20th century as the research object, Wang Shaoqiang, director of the Guangdong Museum of Art, revealed, "This is the first time that the Guangdong Museum of Art has conducted a comparative study and display of these three artists, from the fragments of three 'sketches' to the development trajectory of Guangdong art in the 20th century, taking 'sketching' as the starting point, showing three different creative methods, to some extent, it also reflects the different demands of different eras for 'sketching', reflecting the artist's perspective and position on society and life. And the 'real' world they construct, from their works, we can see the social responsibility and humanistic care of Guangdong artists of an era. ”
Huang Shaoqiang: Exploring the innovative road of Chinese painting with sketching
As a disciple of the Lingnan School, Huang Shaoqiang was deeply influenced by the idea of "New Chinese Painting", and as one of the few figure painters, he created extremely rich character maps in his short life, especially during his travel period.
It is reported that Huang Shaoqiang studied painting with Gao Qifeng in 1919, and under the encouragement of his teacher, he went out on outings many times to sketch. In his autobiography, Huang Shaoqiang called 1929 and 1932-1935 the "travel period", and the accumulation of observations and sketches during this period enabled Huang Shaoqiang to quickly grasp the characteristics of the dynamic looks of the characters.
Curator Lv Zihua said that Huang Shaoqiang's paintings of people's livelihood during his travel period are very vivid, and the sketches of this period have largely made Huang Shaoqiang's painting style more linear, abandoning multiple rendering effects and forming a unique artistic outlook, while the purpose of "going to the folk, never returning" has always guided the creation of Huang Shaoqiang's life and his descendants. "Gao Jianfu, the grandmaster of the Lingnan School, stressed in many speeches that the revival of Chinese painting should first start from figure painting, and figure painting can best represent the times, so that everyone can understand and accept it at a glance, which has been well inherited by Huang Shaoqiang."
Fu Luofei: Using sketching as a powerful weapon in revolutionary art
Fu Luofei's life is full of legends, born into a fisherman's family, and he has traveled to Japan, Italy and other places to work and study. Curator Lu Zihua said that there are not many works during Fu Luofei's study abroad, and he is most familiar with a large number of sketches drawn from his return to China in 1938 to the mid-to-late 1940s, and comparing the works of the two periods before and after, it is found that although there are obvious differences in painting methods, the common thing is that Fu Luofei inherited his concern for reality from the "Naples School".
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Fu Luofei resolutely chose to return from Italy. In 1946, a disaster occurred in Hunan, and Fu Luofei and his wife entered Xiangxiang to sketch. At that time, the conditions for painting were arduous, and I often picked up wrapping paper, straw paper, and envelopes to paint. According to the artist, in order to draw a certain image, you must pay attention to avoiding intuitive objects, and you can only quickly write from the side. Therefore, Fu Luofei's sketches were mostly completed within ten or dozens of minutes.
In the 1940s, Fu Luofei held many exhibitions on the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and Disaster Relief, and in his pen there was an almost roaring strong emotion, and the sketches of this period were like the rapid and powerful weapons of the revolutionary period. After the founding of New China, Fu Luofei still focused his attention on the people, good at capturing various labors and large scenes, the characters in the paintings were still vivid, and the colors became warm.
Yang Zhiguang: Transform sketching into a bond between life and creation
After the founding of New China, there was an urgent need for artists with realistic ability to inject new life into Chinese painting. Yang Zhiguang's early creations were produced in the torrent of Transformation of Chinese painting during this period.
According to curator Lu Zihua, Yang Zhiguang entered the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1950, studied painting with Xu Beihong, Ye Qianyu, Dong Xiwen and other teachers, and underwent strict basic training in modeling, which gave him extraordinary sketching ability. When creating the large-scale theme "Journey of the Red Sun", the artist drew a large number of materials about plants, scenes, costumes, gestures, portraits and other materials, and adhered to the field style of sketching, pursuing the scenes and events that shaped the real characters, the real atmosphere and the real details, and accumulated more than 300 sketches in the process of six drafts.
In addition, Yang Zhiguang's extensive sketches from Zhouji Farm in 1958 and the first draft prepared for the creation of "Snow Night Delivery" are also shown. "Mine Recruits" follows a similar creative method, Yang Zhiguang exerts the sketching technique to the realm of freedom, fully integrated into his life and his spirit. "We hope to restore more of the creative process of a masterpiece in this part of Yang Zhiguang, rather than just the work itself, because when we gaze at an original work, it may be difficult to imagine that the artists have put a lot of effort into it, and when we can stop for each manuscript and give enough gaze, perhaps a new realization will arise from this."
Source: Guangzhou Daily