Lin Feng has focused on pastoral themes all his life. Profile picture
The work "Daylight" by Lin Lan, president of the Guangdong Academy of Painting.
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Zheng Apan began to learn from Lin Fengfeng and other famous Teochew masters since middle school. The picture shows his work "In the River Continent". Profile picture
Young painter Li Wenfeng graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, which is the epitome of a new generation of Chao painters going out. The picture shows his silk screen ink "Town House Bell Kui". Profile picture
Chaoshan's unique southern style gave Chaoshan painters the earliest aesthetic enlightenment. The picture shows the riverside style.
Photo by Lin Wenqiang
"An inventory of the intermediate forces of contemporary Guangdong art shows that more than half of the well-known artists active in the contemporary Guangdong painting scene are Chaoshan nationals, and that the phenomenon of high-density and sustained birth of contemporary Chinese painters is unique in the whole country, such as in the Chaoshan region." Huang Yunxin, a master's degree student in fine arts, believes that contemporary Chaoshan Chinese painters have influence in the contemporary Guangdong painting world and even the entire Chinese painting circle, whether it is the creative team, or their works and influences.
Enlightened in Chaoshan, mature in Guangzhou, famous throughout the country - throughout the Lin Feng customs, Fang Chuxiong, Lin Yong, Xu Qinsong and other important figures in the Lingnan painting world today, such a vein can be found. Deep roots are leafy, far and long. The brush in the artist's hand is the inheritance of Chaoshan through a hundred years of time.
Author: Xiao Yanjing Planner: Da Haijun
Hometown customs and Confucian heritage
In Chaozhou in March, the rain and fog are thick, everything is hazy and blurry, only the kapok in the season blooms unreserved hot red, reflecting the clear water of the Han River. Contemporary Teochew painter Lin Fengfeng saw a kapok tree next to the ancient temple on the banks of the Han River in his childhood, and he was stunned by the red flowers of the tree, and he asked the elders to pick up a few intact flowers and put them on the pillow when they returned home. Many years later, Lin Fengfeng saw a broken and reborn kapok plant by the river in Zhaoqing Huaiji, recalled the feeling of seeing kapok when he first saw kapok in his childhood, and painted one of his masterpieces, "Kapok".
What you draw is what you see. The customs of the Chaoshan region are often the earliest aesthetic enlightenment of the creator.
Lychees, bananas, loquats, edamame... In the Republic of China period, the "Fengcheng Talent" Tenant Jiemei put the scenes he saw every day into the painting, and his "Fifty Years of Restless Works" and "Miscellaneous Albums of Flowers and Fruits" depicted as many as 41 kinds of vegetables, fruits and flowers, with clear ink and ink, free to swing, and the pen and brush are all daily interests. In "Fifty Years of Impatience", Wang Shiyue, the mentor of Tong Jiemei who attended the provincial Jinshan Middle School in his early years, wrote the title of the album "Living Color and Fragrant Fragrance".
Tong Jiemei never left Chaoshan in his life, and his melons, fruits, flowers, and natural scenes are the most direct and true observations of Chaoshan by a traditional literati.
Born into a family of Teochew scholars, Tong Jiemei received the most rigorous and traditional enlightenment of traditional Chinese studies at home as a teenager. At the age of four or five, he began to study private school, and his family had deep roots, and he often interacted with Rao Zongyi's father. He is good at calligraphy and painting, and has been indifferent to fame and fortune all his life. In the long-term turmoil of the Republic of China, Tong Jiemei lived in Lingdong and adhered to the tradition of literati painting. His grandson, Tong Ruidong, commented: "Gong painting is purely written by heart, and the art of Danqing relies on self-study, and the charm of the famous works of Xiangyan Guxian is obtained." ”
During the Republic of China period, the collision of new and old ideological trends was everywhere , and there were "reforms" and "changes of law" everywhere, but there were still a group of painters in Chaoshan who adhered to the tradition of literati painting. Most of them inherited their family studies, were familiar with poetry, calligraphy and painting, and attached importance to the freehand nature of literati painting. Rao Zongyi learned from the ancients, the creation of the teacher, and the source of the heart, and integrated his intellectual cultivation and personality into his paintings, and was a genius-type scholar painter; Guo Dushi had deep roots in ancient literature and was a model of combining poetry and painting; Guo Yanxue was good at landscapes, calligraphy and painting, and had good love and rhyme.
This group of painters who inherit the literati tradition is the accumulation and heritage of the Chaoshan region as a "coastal Zoulu".
Throughout the history of the Chaoshan region, generations of immigrants have moved south, layers of culture have accumulated, and Chaoshan has actively interacted with the changes in the ideological trend and the background of the times in the surrounding areas while inheriting and strengthening the Confucian tradition. Farming culture and marine culture ran parallel in Chaoshan province, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, the cultural characteristics of Chaoshan culture of heavy Confucianism and commerce, conservativeness and openness had been formed.
"The exhibition uses archways at both ends in front of the shops along the street, and the open air is covered with cloth tents, called 'street sheds', a custom that continues to this day. Guiyu merchant Jia is active, and the folk like to collect calligraphy and paintings, and often do not hesitate to buy famous calligraphy and paintings at great expense to highlight the door. It can be seen that Chaoshan calligraphy and painting are deeply polluted. The record of "street sheds" in the "History of Modern and Contemporary Art in Chaoshan" is a proof of the foundation of the development of art in chaoshan at that time.
Located on the border of Guangdong and bordering Fujian, the cultural characteristics of the Chaoshan region of "near Fujian and far away from Guangdong" are reflected in the calligraphy and painting circles as the spread of The Min school of painting in the Chaoshan region and the influx of Fujian painters. During the Kangxi Dynasty, the Fujian painter Fang Xiu settled in Chaozhou, set up accounts to collect apprentices, taught the Min school of painting, and accepted apprentices Chen Qiong, Huang Bi and others. Shangguan Zhou, one of the "Three Masters of Western Fujian" in the Qing Dynasty painting world, often traveled back and forth between the Chaoshan region and Fujian. Liu Feifei, a doctor of art, believes that the creation of famous painters of the Fujian school in the Chaoshan area has played a role in teaching and demonstrating Chinese painters in the Chaoshan area, and promoted the development of painting in the early period of the Chaoshan Republic of China.
Chaoshan students studying in Shanghai
Along the Han River, you can reach the mouth of the Yangtze River.
Cai Ziyuan's Sangpu Art Museum is located on Jiangning Road in Shanghai's Jing'an District, and his collection of calligraphy and paintings by Haipai and Chao painters has become slightly larger. In Cai Ziyuan's view, the development and growth of Chaoshan calligraphy and painting is closely related to Haipai calligraphy and painting.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Chao merchants ushered in the golden period of wealth accumulation, except for Nanyang, Shanghai was their biggest stage. "The economic strength of Shanghai's financial circles, in addition to foreigners, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang second gangs are unique because of the favorable time and place, and their strength is the strongest." Guangdong's financial circles also have a certain position in Shanghai, and they can compete with the Jiangsu and Zhejiang gangs in Shanghai, of which the Chaozhou gang plays an important role. Zheng Ruiting, a researcher of local literature and history in Chaoshan Province, said.
The Chaozhou merchant forces in Shanghai, as well as the Chaozhou Guild Hall and the Hometown Association on the basis of it, provided convenient conditions for Chaoshan students to study in other places. At that time, Shanghai was known as the "largest city in the Far East", with convenient transportation, developed commerce and trade, and became the economic and cultural center of China. The prosperity of commerce and trade has brought about the development of culture, making Shanghai a distribution center for painters from all over the world, painters from the north and south of the great river have traveled to Shanghai, and the local vigorous art community institutions and art institutions with Shanghai elements in foreign ports have also continuously carried out various artistic activities, and Haipai painting has flourished. For the Chaoshan students at that time, it was a more natural choice to take a steamship all the way to Shanghai than to cross the mountains and mountains to Guangzhou.
Sun Peigu stood at the node of the transformation of Chaoshan calligraphy and painting. In 1892, Sun Peigu was born in Jieyang, and went with his business father to learn painting from traditional literati painters such as Lin Yihua and Yang Liufang, and then went to Shantou Tongwen Academy to study, and moved to Shantou Zhongshan Road to open a valley garden studio. In 1929, Shanghai held a national art exhibition, and at the invitation of Liu Changchao, who was already studying at the Shanghai Art College, Sun Peigu began a four-month trip to Shanghai. During this period, Sun Peigu actively communicated with Famous Artists of the Shanghai School such as Pan Tianshou, Wang Geyi, xie Gongzhan and other famous artists of the Shanghai School, and learned the new concepts of the art exchange activities, business models, and art education of Shanghai painters at that time, and his own painting style also absorbed the nutrients of the Shanghai School.
Liu Feifei believes that Sun Peigu inherited the painting methods of the local traditional literati of Chaoshan and integrated them into other styles such as the Min school and the Hai school; the Chinese people united the painters of the three places of Chaoshan to explore the development path of Chaozhou painting together, such as holding exhibitions, editing and printing albums; the next was to promote the popular painting style of the times, cultivate a group of young painters, and actively open up a new situation for the painting art in the Chaoshan area, and his life was full of peach and plum. "Sun Peigu was an important figure in the history of Chinese painting in the Chaoshan region during the Republic of China period, and a mentor in the Chaozhou painting world during the Republic of China period."
In addition to the spontaneous travel of painters, studying in Shanghai is another important way for Chaoshan students to systematically enter the Haipai art education system.
In 1912, Wu Shiguang, Liu Haisu and others founded the Shanghai Academy of Graphic Arts (later renamed Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts), which opened the first page in the history of modern art education in China and marked the official birth of a new type of school with the concept of modern art education. Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts has built an advanced art education system, the first to open the Shanghai school of art education, and then a variety of art schools have sprung up, such as Shanghai Xinhua Art College, Shanghai Changming Art College, xinhua art college. Shanghai's art education quickly radiated to Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chongqing and other places.
According to the "Changhai Academy of Fine Arts - 25th Anniversary Commemoration List", there were 66 registered Guangdong graduates and 29 students. From its founding in November 1912 to the merger of colleges and universities in September 1952, Shanghai Art College has experienced a total of 40 years and cultivated more than 3,000 new art talents, including more than 100 students from chaoshan area.
After returning, he fed back Chaoshan art education
After returning from Shanghai, most of the Chaoshan students chose to return to their hometown to teach.
Wang Lanruo, who was born in "ShuzhaiWei" in Tangbian Township, Jieyang, received training in the basics of Chinese painting in Chaoshan and studied flowers and birds with Sun Peigu, and then entered the Shanghai Art College and the Shanghai Xinhua Art College under the introduction of Sun Peigu. During his stay in Shanghai, Wang Lanruo was extensively exposed to almost all the famous painters of the Hai School, such as Huang Binhong, Liu Haisu, Xie Gongzhan, Zhu Wenyun, etc., and his early works were influenced by The orchid and bamboo themes and the elegant line style were greatly influenced by Zhu Wenyun.
Li Weiming, a researcher at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, believes that Wang Lanruo has stepped into the Tang'ao of Haipai and traditional painting through the "station" of knowledge and interest inheritance such as Shuzhaiwei, through Lin Fuchu, and then through Sun Peigu and Zhu Wenyun, and has achieved self-sublimation in the long-term integration of Chinese and Western painting knowledge and artistic interest.
Before going to Shanghai to study, Wang Lanruo had already served as the principal of a primary school in Jieyang, and in the year he graduated and returned to his hometown, he was hired as an art teacher at Shantou Youlian Middle School, Provincial Jinshan Middle School, Oriental Art College and Yinghuan Art School.
Wang Lanruo's creative career is accompanied by his art education career. After returning to his hometown, Wang Lanruo successively taught in Jieyang, Chenghai, Puning, and Shantou. Liu Changchao, Li Kailin, Lin Yiyi and others in the same period also basically had a similar life path. Liu Changchao is famous for painting bamboo, with strong momentum and heavy pen and ink; Li Kailin's flower and bird paintings are praised by his peers as "giving a unique world to flower and bird painting"; Lin Benefit's pen and ink are deep in the essence of the Hai School, and Huang Dufeng calls him "typical of the Hai School". These painters were the best in the group of painters in Shanghai, and continued to create after returning to their hometowns, while making outstanding contributions to the art education of Chaoshan Province.
Fang Chuxiong, a professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, is a representative flower and bird painter in the contemporary Chinese painting world, born in Shantou in 1950 and directly under the guidance of Wang Lanruo and Liu Changchao. "My initiation teacher is Mr. Wang Lanruo, who is a very good artist and educator. Fortunately, I learned to paint with Teacher Wang when I was five or six years old. He liked me very much, and went out of his way to ask me what I liked, he taught me what to draw, I watched the teacher's demonstration and took the painting home to copy, and the next week he drew new things for me to see and then changed for me. During this time, I gained a lot, from pen and ink training to aesthetic taste, I have made great progress, and embarked on a right path of art learning. After that, Fang Chuxiong followed Liu Changchao to learn to paint, "Liu Changchao's teacher's pen and ink and style have a great influence on me. ”
Lin Fengfeng was taught by art teachers Xu Liangkun and Li Pingzhou during his middle school years. The former graduated from Shanghai Art College and is good at Shanghai style flower and bird painting; the latter is Huang Binhong's protégé, familiar with Huang's landscape brushwork. Lin Yong was also guided by Zheng Maoxi and others who returned from Shanghai and Hangzhou. "Teacher Zheng Maoxi solved my watercolor problem, and my watercolor followed him for three years." Lin Yong recalled the experience of learning painting in Chaozhou when he was a teenager, and he was very emotional, "At that time, these teachers were very serious about teaching, and we were not very old, thirteen or fourteen years old, and we followed them to lay a good foundation. I was very impressed, we were admitted to the attached high school, and the teachers were very happy. At that time, these teachers did not think about money, did not collect money, and everyone was willing to teach a group of children together. At that time, everyone was talking about whose painting was good every day. We also went to Shantou to see the paintings, and at that time we could see the paintings of Zeng Songling and Luo Zonghai, who were four or five years older than me, and that's how [the Chaoshan painters group] stacked them. ”
A group of Chaoshan painters born in the 1940s and 1950s of the last century enlightened and grew up in Chaoshan and absorbed the nutrients accumulated by the Chaoshan painter group in the Republic of China period, and then studied in Guangzhou and received training from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and other art professional systems.
The painters represented by Du Yingqiang, Cai Yangyan, Chen Zhengming, and Chen Jun adhered to the Chaoshan area; the groups represented by Lin Fengfeng, Fang Chuxiong, Xu Qinsong, Lin Yong, Zhuang Xiaojian, Fang Tu and others acted in Guangzhou and became the backbone of the Guangdong painting world.
Plunge into the torrent and look back at your hometown
Get up in the morning and take a car to Baiyun Mountain, walk on the mountain for a while, sit down, and set up a tea set. This is the daily life of Lin Yong, who has reached the age of the staff dynasty.
"The charm of Chaozhou's ancient city evoked my childhood art hunger. Exquisite and bright, beautiful and bright, it was rushing in my blood. I have never dared to comment that other people's hometowns are not beautiful, but I dare to say that my hometown is so beautiful that I am still intoxicated to this day, so beautiful that I still miss it to this day. Fifteen years of life in Chaozhou, thirty years of Pearl River career, my feet are trapped in the water town of the southern country. After decades of settling in Guangzhou, Lin Yong still retains a deep affection for his hometown, "I am fortunate to be born in Chaozhou, where the folk art tradition is deep, God has eyes, I was born here." ”
"The square in the village is cool at night, a group of young people gather together in a chanting book, my family has an idle house, everyone learns Teochew music, I learned erhu and flute." Xu Qinsong was born in Chenghai, grew up in the rich culture and folk arts and crafts atmosphere of Chaoshan region, deeply influenced by chaoshan traditional culture, and later entered the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts to study. Lin Feng has been recording around him for many years, and the recordings around him are still Chaozhou opera and Chaozhou music. Contemporary Chaoshan Chinese painters have established strict pen and ink norms, while preserving the rich Cultural Characteristics and Emotions of Chaoshan Province.
Lin Yong's daughter Lin Lan, who is now the director of the Guangdong Academy of Painting, grew up in Guangzhou, but her home is full of chaozhou traditional arts and crafts collections. Lin Lan's grandmother Huang surname is the big surname of Chaozhou, and when she was young, Lin Lan was taken by the elders to the Chaozhou Huanggong Ancestral Hall to worship. "As soon as you enter the door, the face is full of golden splendor, inside and outside the house, on and off the house, the beam and bucket arch lintel partition railing and other all-used Chaozhou gold wood carving as architectural components, different places of wood carving design are worked in ingenuity, both skillfully adapt to the complex building parts, but also can be independently viewable single piece of handicraft, wood carving on the paint paste gold, gold is heavy and solid, dense. That moment left a deep visual impression on me. ”
Zheng Apan, vice president of the Guangdong Academy of Painting, is good at brush painting and freehand painting, and entering the painting world is a natural thing for Zheng Apan. Zheng Apan's father, Zheng Baichuan, was a well-known lantern puzzle in the country, and he wrote a monograph on the Chaoshan dialect, "Chao dialect 薮". Zheng Baichuan and Lin Fengfeng were classmates, and Lin Fengchuan lived in his home when he returned to his hometown in Chaozhou to visit his relatives, and taught Zheng Apan to paint by the way. Since junior high school, Zheng Apan's summer vacation has been spent in The home of Lin Feng in Guangzhou, learning to write freehand flowers and birds. After that, Zheng Apan studied with Lin Yong and Fang Chuxiong, two former painters of Chao nationality. "My parents and teachers subtly let me enter the profession of painting, grew up in that atmosphere, and naturally felt that I would paint like them in the future."
Lingdong has no old heavenly eyes, and Han Shui is also proud! Lin Yong said of Lin Fengfeng in "Fine Sculpture of Lin Feng customs": "He is the backbone of Chinese painting / The rivers are gushing and inexhaustible, although it is difficult to say which drop he is in the ocean / But who doubts that there is no Yangtze River water in the Ocean?!" Pearl River water?! Han Jiang Shui?! ”
For the new generation of Chao painters who are now active in Guangzhou, their geographical hometown is far away, but their impression of Chaoshan in aesthetics, culture and memory is difficult to erase, and they unconsciously cultivate their creations. After drinking the water of the Han River, you can plunge into the torrent of the times.
"The Chaoshan painter group is an important part of Lingnan painting. Taking the water system as an analogy, each art system has its main source, the main source line reflects the main theme of this art system, the style on the main source line determines the tone of the entire system, and the main source will be divided into many tributaries, and the style on the tributary line always has more or less variations, which are different from the main melody and enrich it. Lin Lan believes that the truth-seeking and innovation-seeking characteristics in Lingnan painting are corresponding to the unique truth and beauty of the Lingdong School, and co-construct the grand scene of Danqing in Southern China.
■ Viewpoint
The "Lingdong School" and the contemporary inheritance of the painting tradition in the Chaoshan region
Liu Haisu, a famous artist of the Hai School, was the first to propose the "Chaoshan School of Painting". When commenting on Chaoshan painters, Liu Haisu said: "The team of Chaoshan painters is not small, the strength is strong, we must dare to break through, we must have our own style, and form the Chaoshan school of painting." I am opposed to sectarianism, but I advocate painting. ”
Before Liu Haisu, the concept of the "Lingdong School" was first proposed as early as the 1930s. At that time, As the leading figures in the Chaoshan painting world, Sun Peigu, Fan Changqian and others united many Chaoshan painters to form the "Yitao Painting Society" in Shantou, and these Chaoshan painters carried out art seminars for a long time, held various exhibitions and other artistic exchange activities, and in 1931, they also compiled the fine works into a collection of "Lingdong Famous Paintings", and the preface to the collection reads: "The works of his Rilingdong painters are against the domain."
Xie Bokai, associate professor of fine arts at Jieyang Vocational and Technical College, believes that in general, the Chaoshan painters lack a unified orientation in style, do not show common distinctive characteristics, and do not put forward the same artistic aesthetic concept and theoretical system. Therefore, from a historical point of view, the basis for proposing the concept of "Chaoshan painting school" should be insufficient. Zheng Apan believes that the school of painting is a summary of posterity, and should not become a banner for creators, "Guangmei is the Lingnan School of painting, and Guomei is the Hai school?" It shouldn't be so divided. ”
However, in today's painting world, Lin Yong, Xu Qinsong, Fang Chuxiong, Du Yingqiang, Chen Zhengming and a large number of painters from the Chaoshan region have become the backbone of Guangdong art. They either adhered to the Chaoshan region or taught in various places to solve problems, and continued from generation to generation, so that the painting tradition in the Chaoshan region could be preserved and fruitful.
As for how to deal with the inheritance of regional traditions and contemporary presentation in art creation, Lin Lan believes that it can be seen as the relationship between vertical time and horizontal space: from a longitudinal point of view, the techniques, aesthetics and spiritual character of regional painting traditions have continued from ancient times to the present. From a horizontal point of view, only by keenly perceiving and expressing the differences of each time and each generation can we not be covered by the past and become a fresh and eye-catching point belonging to this era. Art always comes from concrete life, the external times and society are changing, the individual's internal observation perspective is also changing, and various changes in objective and subjective will inevitably lead to the expansion and renewal of visual art expressions.
Li Wenfeng, a Chao painter in Beijing, said that the art culture of the Chaoshan region has absorbed a large number of artistic techniques of the Hai school and the Lingnan school, which has continued to this day. However, at present, the scope of artistic exchange and interaction has expanded, the flow of people is frequent, the original means of artistic creation have been greatly challenged, coupled with the intervention of high and new technologies in art, painting on the shelf and traditional ink painting have been greatly impacted. "This is not just a question in the Chaoshan region, whether the art created by means of traditional meanings has vitality, it depends on whether contemporary artists can find the value of this artistic creation in various cracks and give it a new era of significance."
Cai Ziyuan believes that today's Chaoshan painters should focus on the "great Chaoshan", that is, look at domestic and even international, and strengthen exchanges with the outside world. Luo Yong, a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts of Hanshan Normal University, has been back to his hometown for six years, "When he first returned, he felt that there were countless Chaoshan painters studying art all over the country, and many young and middle-aged painters who chose to return to their hometowns to take root, although they loved the customs and customs of their hometowns, their artistic aesthetics were very different from the atmosphere of the local art groups, so it may lead to many young painters lacking a sense of belonging and a sense of fighting alone." But in the past two years, I can feel that the entire artistic creation situation in Chaozhou has developed for the better. ”