Text/Sun Ke

Zhang Fuxing is a famous contemporary landscape painter. As early as the early 1990s, he had made his mark. I remember that from 65438 to 0994, Zhang Fuxing was nominated to participate in the exhibition of the Top Ten Contemporary China Paintings jointly organized by the Chinese Painting Art Committee of China Artists Association and Shenzhen Mobile Auction House in Shenzhen Museum. His landscape paintings, with their unique style of mountains and rivers in northern and southern Guangxi, have been recognized by experts in the industry and welcomed by collectors and enthusiasts. Since then, he and his landscape paintings have become household names. Zhang Fuxing, a northerner, lived and worked in Guangxi for many years, then entered the Guilin Painting Academy and served as the dean for a long time. The Academy of Literature and Art of the Ministry of Culture established the Chinese Painting Creation Institute, and he was hired as a full-time painter. I remember 1993 I met Zhang Fuxing for the first time in the founding of Guilin, and went to Guilin Painting Academy to see him and his works. It's been 20 years. In my impression, Zhang Fuxing is very talented, painting is very spiritual, honest and low-key, not ostentatious and grandiose. He is the kind of painter who works hard to "dive" and has a good sense of humor.

To be a painter, you must have talent, and talent can be outstanding. This is my experience of studying painting as an artist for nearly sixty years. Of course, genius is not the only but indispensable factor. Of course, there are no "talents" who can't learn to paint or be a painter, but to break through the usual style, surpass the models of predecessors and teachers, highlight their own uniqueness, or stand on the shoulders of masters and take even a small step, it requires not only hard work and diligence, but also genius. Zhang Fuxing was able to create his own way and form his own style in the early 1990s. He was a genius rather than courage. It is gratifying that landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting benefited from the reform and opening up, got rid of the shackles of extreme left, and their artistic styles began to show a diversified trend. In recent years, the number of landscape paintings in the exhibition has increased rapidly, but the shortcoming is that many people follow the trend and have little originality, which is almost helpless. After all, artistic creation and the production of fine products have their own unique laws, and input and output are more than different material production phenomena. From 1980s to 1990s, influenced by western modern thoughts, they blindly pursued "innovation", so various modes of production became popular. Since the new century, the revival of national culture has been surging, and the landscape painting industry has returned to tradition. Taking the rise of the study of Huang as an opportunity, "pen and ink" began to receive attention, and a convergence upsurge of "retro" appeared in a short time. This may be an inevitable process for many young painters to mature. It is undeniable that the quick success and impetuous mentality of the whole society are reflected in the art world.

For more than 20 years, Zhang Fuxing's ink and wash landscapes are well-known in painting circles for their unique features. The road to success is not only the inspiration spark of individual genius, but also a comprehensive project. Guangxi is a place with the best beauty of mountains and rivers. The Lijiang River in Guilin alone has attracted countless painters who are intoxicated with it. However, there is no absolute correlation between "beautiful scenery" and "masterpiece", that is to say, although there are many beautiful scenery in the world, not all of them may be sketched as "masterpieces". Just as the slogan "Guilin's landscape is the best in the world, Yangshuo's landscape is the best in the world" is true, you will realize that both "the water is bright" and "the mountains are empty" are breathtaking. But in addition to many expressive works, only Mr. Xu Beihong's "Lijiang misty rain" and other works are unforgettable. Dong Qichang famously said, "With the wonder of mountains and rivers, painting is inferior to mountains and rivers. According to our understanding today, a good landscape painting is re-created after the painter gets close to nature, dense mountains and dense waters, and accumulates the aura of heaven and earth, so Shi Tao said, "Search for all the strange peaks and make a draft." Zhang Fuxing, who has lived in Guangxi for a long time, doesn't seem to have fixed his eyes on the recognized "beautiful scenery". Although he has served as the president of Guilin Painting Academy for many years, the problem is that it is not the karst caves in Guilin and the mountains and rivers like "Hosta ... Green Luodai" that can't attract the painter's attention, but the "strangeness" of those mountains and rivers, that is, those mountains and rivers with unique visual characteristics that cause sensory pleasure are mostly competent by cameras, not painters and cameras in China. Over the years, Zhang Fuxing saw many strange mountains and rivers in Guangxi, but there was no "strange" sight that attracted people's attention. This may be his genius: on the one hand, he knows the essence of China's landscape painting theory, and understands that the description of mountains and rivers belongs to the level of "skill" and "skill", while the cultural attribute of "artistic conception" and "pen and ink" rises to the spiritual level of "Tao". Therefore, I think his landscape paintings are moving. One is to seek simple and straightforward beauty. In the seemingly ordinary mountains everywhere, in the lush forests and bamboo forests in the south, he has reached the realm of simplicity, nature and fullness. Second, Zhang Fuxing's unique pen and ink image composition created a new look of personalized landscape painting. During the rapid recovery and development of landscape painting in 1980s and 1990s, two leading artists, Li Keran and Lu, as well as various "gimmicks" experiments and a large number of imitators, were groping at a loss in the westernized style experiments of "innovation" and "compromise". However, Zhang Fuxing, a painter who lives far away in Guangxi, has accumulated many years of hard work and life with his unique talent, and created a striking plain and gorgeous pen and ink image. Many of his works are often titled "Home Mountain", which expresses his spiritual pursuit: pastoral beauty in the ordinary and warm emotional closeness. Zhang Fuxing didn't follow all kinds of "production" techniques that were popular at that time, and didn't simply copy the styles of the masters' predecessors to gain recognition in the industry. Zhang Fuxing's success lies in mastering all kinds of formation routines of style images handed down by predecessors, so as to explore the picture images formed by the appearance of his wrists. So that the viewer feels that there are various factors in his image, but it is difficult to determine where it comes from. This is the goal that people constantly pursue in the modern development of Chinese painting. For many years, modern art education has taught people to sketch and master modeling ability. Many people are not afraid to draw a realistic visual picture by sketching, but Chinese painting is to achieve the artistic conception image brewed in the heart, which is essentially a fuzzy picture between natural scenery and memory imagination, so it has the characteristics of personal inertia. Zhang Fuxing's image with a strong sense of rhythm woven with pen and ink not only inherits the traditional pen and ink programs, but also has the evolution of modern aesthetics, thus being accepted by colleagues in the industry and the general audience.

Since 1980s, Chinese painting has experienced a period of rapid development and prosperity, especially the achievements of landscape painting. Many young people are engaged in landscape painting, and it is inevitable that they will follow suit and be eager for success. However, the outstanding problems are the lack of spiritual connotation, artistic conception and lasting appeal, and the lack of pen and ink skills, which reflects that the painter's cultural literacy needs to be improved. Zhang Fuxing's landscape painting has sprung up in recent 20 years. With its distinctive simple, dense and quiet style, it has produced a wide range of positive influences and has become an important contemporary landscape painting. I have higher expectations for his art.