Since the history entered 2 1 century, photographic literature has developed rapidly due to the needs of society and people's aesthetics. This strongly proves that photographic literature is an indispensable art form in contemporary real life. As can be seen from the following three aspects, photographic literature is an art form urgently needed in contemporary real life.
1. The natural scenery of tourist attractions needs cultural accumulation, and photographic literature can promote the rapid completion of this process.
If many scenic spots in China lack cultural accumulation, their charm will be greatly reduced. Human heritage includes natural heritage and cultural heritage, and some places have both, such as Mount Tai, Wuyishan and Jiuzhaigou, which are both natural and cultural heritage. Without any aspect, their charm will be greatly weakened. Wang Fuzhi said: "The name of the scene is called two, which is inseparable. God is infinite to poets. Skilled people have feelings in the middle of the scene. " Because if the two are truly organically unified in poetry, the value of poetry will increase in direct proportion with the increase of its material, so the organic integration of beautiful scenery and emotional beauty is more infectious than simple beautiful scenery or emotional beauty. This is a kind of "complex beauty", and the "difficult beauty" and "greatness" in art seem to be the same. Photographic literature can undoubtedly increase the cultural content of natural landscape. On June 8, 2002, 165438+, a special issue of Zhangjiajie scenery, "Beautiful Mountains and Rivers", was published by the Literary Newspaper Photography Literature Guide. It can be said that before 1980, Zhangjiajie's unparalleled natural landscape was bred in an inner room, and no one knew her. After the famous painter Wu Guanzhong unveiled the mysterious veil of Zhangjiajie to the world, with the development of people, Zhangjiajie has become increasingly enchanting. Photographic literature will promote the cultural accumulation of Zhangjiajie's natural landscape to a certain extent. In other words, Zhangjiajie is more and more swaying in people's aesthetic photos. She is no longer just a simple natural scenery, but also a charming human landscape.
2. Imagination without real feelings is easy to be empty.
Mo КаΥан pointed out in "Art Morphology": "Art works are first created as a combination of some material structure-sound, volume, color point, vocabulary and action, that is, as an object with spatial characteristics, time characteristics or space-time characteristics, they exist and appear in front of perception. Because of this, this kind of work has nothing to do with what scale of artistic value people admit it has, how to explain its content, or even whether people fully perceive it, whether it is buried underground or stored in museums and libraries. Of course, works of art cannot be attributed to this material structure, but works of art will not exist without it, without it, independent of it and independent of it. As a spiritual form, works of art are included in this structure. In this structure, we can not be separated from it, and only through it can we be perceived. Therefore, the material structure of a work of art is its ontological state, the main foundation and condition for its realistic existence, and also its direct perceptual manifestation. " (See page 278-9 of this book) Santayana also said in an aesthetic sense: "Although the beauty provided by the perceptual material of a dress, a building or a poem is so secondary, the existence of this perceptual material is indispensable." "If Athena's Parthenon is not made of marble, the crown is not made of gold, and the stars have no fire, they will be dim and powerless. Here, material beauty is more attractive to the senses. It stimulates us, and its form is noble. It enhances and strengthens our feelings. If our perception is to reach the highest level of intense sensitivity, we need this kind of stimulation. Anything that is not beautiful everywhere must not be fascinating. " (See page 52 of this book) Mokagan thinks that vocabulary is a material structure, but the rhythm of vocabulary and the real feelings we need to feel from the natural beauty described in literary works are two different things. In order to pursue this true feeling, in recent years, many literary masterpieces have illustrations. Bao Feng scanned this phenomenon in Changjiang Daily on June 30th, 2002. He pointed out that in February this year, Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House published two books, Xiang Xing Notes Written by Shen Congwen and Border Town. The publication of these two books can be called the symbol of the real appearance of "picture books" with modern consciousness and characteristics. The covers of these two books are marked with the words "picture book", which contains photos of Shen Congwen's life and landscape paintings of the areas he described. In "Border Town", there are also a series of photographs full of Xiangxi customs and natural scenery. The plot development of photographic works and novels reflect each other, making "pictures" and "words" an organic part of novels. In this book, "pictures" are no longer dispensable decorations, but * * * has completed the dissemination of a "cultural purpose". There are not only Huang Yongyu's ink paintings of Xiangxi customs, but also Shen Congwen's own illustrations for his articles. At that time, Shen Congwen returned home because of his mother's illness, and wrote to Zhang Zhaohe every day, reporting what he saw and heard along the way, and attaching illustrations to the letter. These illustrations and the contents of the letter complement each other and blend into one. In the illustrated book Border Town, Huang Yongyu used painting, while Zoya used photos and "illustrated" the content of the novel. Just looking at the illustrations, you can feel the "atmosphere" of the novel itself. Although the illustrations in Border Town and Xiangxing San Ji are black and white, their compositions in the books are different, which also gives people a feeling of rich colors. This kind of illustration really helps people to be there. Otherwise, it is difficult to achieve this wonderful effect in literary description. This pursuit of true feelings is the inevitable product of people's pursuit of all-round development in contemporary society. It can be said that photographic literature came into being, which fully developed the full potential of people.
3. Some photographic works of art have no literary description, so it is difficult to display their rich historical content.
Some photographic works of art can only soar with the help of the wings of literary imagination. Hegel said: "The same motto, when spoken from a young population who has completely understood it correctly, will never have that meaning and breadth in the hearts of experienced adults, who can express all the power contained in this motto." He also said: "The religious beliefs that the old man said can be said by children, but for the old man, these religious beliefs contain the meaning of his life. Children also understand religious content, but for children, the meaning of this religious content is only such a thing, that is, the whole life and the whole world are still outside it. " Some photographic works of art are inherently rich in historical content, but it is difficult for ordinary people to feel them, while literature can reveal and display the rich historical content of photographic works of art. For example, on April 19, 2002, a photo of Li Xifan was published in the Photographic Literature Guide of Wenyi Bao, which was taken on February 25, 1954, entitled "By Chairman Mao". Without Li Xifan's reminiscence prose, it is difficult for people to capture more historical content from this photo. However, this photo does contain many unforgettable historical contents. Of course, Li Xifan's prose is not only the explanation and supplement of this photo, but complementary to each other. Because Li Xifan used his prose to express what this photo didn't contain. It can be said that photos are the past and prose is the present. Nearly half a century has passed, and many people have experienced Cang Sang. Chairman Mao is still alive and still lives in people's hearts. This is what this photo essay tells us. The mutual activation of the internal components of photographic literature not only shows richer content, but also greatly meets people's aesthetic needs.
Second, photographic literature is the inevitable product of the development of human art.
What are the basic characteristics of photographic literature as a new art? Many domestic scholars have conducted in-depth discussions on this issue from different angles, and successively put forward aesthetic compound theory, aesthetic dislocation theory, implosion theory, spiral structure theory and intertextuality theory. These definitions of photographic literature enrich people's understanding of photographic literature.
At first, we knew that photographic literature was an aesthetic combination of literature, photography, directing, performance and fine arts. "Photographic literature not only breaks through the traditional documentary, rushes out of the limitation of time and space, and makes photographic art plug in the ideal wings and soar in the artistic space, but also turns the artistic language of literature into an intuitive image, and the similar description of literature into a visual picture, so that it has both a beautiful visual image and incisive language art." On this basis, Malone put forward the "aesthetic compound theory". He said: "The aesthetic combination mentioned by Mr. Cheng Dongfang is a profound theoretical category. This paper not only talks about the relationship between various aesthetic and artistic factors contained in photographic literature, but also talks about the relationship between photographic literature and other art categories and forms, and also talks about the relationship between photographic literature and historical times and social life, so it can also be said to be a compound aesthetic relationship theory. In the overall structure of' aesthetic compound theory', its basic level is the relationship between aesthetic subject and object. " "On the level of aesthetic subject-object relationship in aesthetic compounding theory, the compound structure of beauty corresponds to a compound structure of aesthetic consciousness which combines various aesthetic types and aesthetic psychological forms, and it is a specific provision for the essential characteristics of the unity of aesthetic understanding and aesthetic value of photographic literature. This structure includes the aesthetics of natural beauty, the aesthetics of scientific beauty and the literary aesthetics of combining natural beauty with scientific beauty. " In fact, photographic literature has a more complicated side and a simpler side. Liu Gangji believes that photographic literature "can also penetrate into all aspects of social life more widely. For example, the life of a college student, taxi driver and cleaner in one day, the face of an alley in Beijing, important cultural relics and historic sites, scientific and technological inventions and innovations, fashion shows, major national engineering construction (such as the Three Gorges Project), major political and diplomatic activities, natural scenery and ecological protection in various places, people's exercise and fitness activities in parks, scenery and construction of various communities, the life of foreigners in China, and large enterprises. I don't think the "literature" of "photographic literature" needs to be limited to "pure literature" in the traditional sense, but can be combined with news reports and reportage, and be as close as possible to the daily life of people from all walks of life. " He proposed: "It is easy to combine photography with poetry and prose, but the difficulty lies in how to express the content of novels with photography and find the unique form and law of this expression to distinguish it from cartoons and illustrations of novels. I have never understood this question. " (See "Introduction to Photographic Literature of Literary Newspaper" in May 2002 10) People have had different discussions on this issue. Some tend to combine photography with literature to create photographic novels directly in real life, while others tend to combine photography with literature, photography, director, performance, art and other arts, which is more suitable for adapting novels. This can be explored and tried. Therefore, we should not blindly complicate simple things. The "aesthetic compound theory" really reveals the complicated side of photographic literature. However, the internal composition of some photographic poems and essays is very simple, which is beyond the grasp of "aesthetic compound theory"
Wang Yichuan hopes to reveal the characteristics of photographic literature by explaining the reasons for the combination of photographic art and literature. He analyzed the various components of photographic literature and thought: "Photographic art and literature have their own gains and losses. Photography is good at providing vivid and direct vision, but going deep into the field of thinking is indirect; However, literature is good at creating concrete and vivid thinking, but it loses its indirectness in restoring visual effects. Looking at them in isolation, their respective shortcomings are obvious: photography cannot provide concrete and vivid thinking like literature, and literature cannot present vivid and intuitive vision like photography. However, if these two kinds of arts have their own advantages and disadvantages, if they are matched with each other, they can achieve the effect of mutual complementarity; The vision of photography art and literary thinking are open to each other, showing unparalleled new advantages; At the same time, the former just supplements the visual indirectness of literature, while the latter supplements the thinking indirectness of photography, thus realizing complementarity. It is this mutual matching that produces mutual enlightenment and complementary effects, which provides necessary and sufficient reasons for the integration of photographic art and literature for photographic literature. So we have a new literature and art of marginal photography. Through the collocation of photos and documents, it is a whole. Matching is not complete recognition or perfect integration, but cooperation under the premise of independence; Instead of random collage and patchwork, we should make full use of their respective advantages to achieve the effect of mutual inspiration and complement each other. Because of this mutual inspiration and complementarity, photographic literature shows novel and powerful expressive force. " Admittedly, these two arts have their own advantages and limitations, but this does not necessarily lead to a combination. At the same time, this combination may increase in value, 1+ 1 > 2, or it may damage each other, 1+ 1 < 2.
Sun Shaozhen put forward the theory of "aesthetic dislocation" when he further analyzed the internal composition of photographic literature and its relationship. He said: "For the artistic value of photographic literature, its photographic quality is naturally very important, but its text quality is more critical. Its first condition is to get rid of passivity, not limited to the interpretation of pictures; But it can't be completely separated from the picture, and it should be kept in a dislocation with the picture. The relationship between words and pictures should be a detached relationship, not a passive attachment relationship. Only in this way can we form an emotional tension field. Of course, you can't express your feelings directly, which will lead to promiscuity. It can only be a narrative, but it is also an index of imagination. It is the life of photographic literature to maintain a misplaced tension between narrative and emotional prompts, between pictures and words. " The relationship between the internal components of photographic documents is not necessarily misplaced. Sometimes, they may stipulate and explain each other. This relationship may be mutually beneficial.
Yan Guozhong thinks: "Photographic literature is different from the illustrated novels, comic books and cartoons with literary descriptions in the past, and it is also different from the traditional poems and paintings in China. The difference is that it is a whole composed of photography and literature, and in this whole, photography and literature are relatively independent. The relationship between them is a dialogue relationship of mutual discovery, mutual interpretation and mutual promotion. In the process of creation, photography and literature in photographic literature are always in tandem. One is to face life or nature directly, the other is to face the finished works of art, that is to say, one is to discover from life or nature and reproduce artistically, and the other is to rediscover from existing discoveries, thus guiding the viewer's eyes to a specific perspective. Of course, creation will not happen overnight, and there will probably be feedback. The previous work was inspired by the latter work and there were new discoveries, so it had to be further revised. " He put forward the theory of spiral structure. "As an art, photographic literature is not a plane structure as a whole, but a spiral structure like genes. They are not only discovering and explaining each other, but also climbing and promoting each other. Poetry in photography inspires words, and pregnant pictures in literature illuminate photography. When they collide in photographic literature, they are all purified and sublimated because of this collision. They are themselves, not themselves. " Yan Guozhong's view that photographic literature is a spiral structure is reasonable, but he thinks that photography and literature in photographic literature are always in tandem in the creative process, which is not completely in line with the facts. Photographic literature has become an art form that everyone can create because it can be improvised. This kind of improvisation does not exist one after another.
As can be seen from the above, although people's exposition of photographic literature is not perfect, it reveals some essential characteristics of photographic literature to varying degrees, and we should choose and synthesize it on the basis of promoting the development of photographic literature.
Qian Zhongshu pointed out in the Seven Pieces Collection: "Ye Xie once lamented that it was called Selected Works, but it was actually a candidate." (The third volume of my anthology, "On Choosing a Family") is generally called the history of literary criticism, but it is actually the speech summary of celebrities in the literary and art circles. All the characters are famous, and their speeches often lack substance. However, in poetry, writing, prose, novels, operas, and even proverbs and exegesis, people often inadvertently say incisive opinions in a few words, which is beneficial to people's reason; Deducing them is very helpful to literary theory. Some people may say that these trivial things can't become a climate and are not worth looking for and praising. At best, they are isolated, spontaneous, unsystematic and conscious. However, it is precisely because trivial things are easily overlooked and forgotten that they need to be cleaned up and cherished; Spontaneous loneliness is the root of conscious and thorough theory. Besides, the poems and literary theories we read frequently may not all have any theoretical system. Let's review the history of thought. Many rigorous and comprehensive ideological and philosophical systems, as a whole, can not stand the erosion of time and collapse, but some of their individual opinions have been adopted by future generations without losing their effectiveness. For example, a huge building has been destroyed and is uninhabitable, which is very scary, and some wood, stones and bricks made of it are still good materials that can be used. Often the valuable things left by the whole theoretical system are just fragments of ideas. The fragmented thinking excluded from the system and the fragmented thinking germinated without forming a system are also fragmented. Eyes only long, despise a few words, even revel in quantity, attach importance to a ton of nonsense and despise a gram of whispers, which is a shallow and vulgar view-if it is not an excuse for laziness and rudeness. In On the Paradox of Dramatic Actors, Diderot put forward that an actor must have inner peace in order to vividly reflect the warm feelings of the role he plays, and he must first learn not to be "caught" in order to vividly "visualize" the joys and sorrows of the role; For example, the actor himself will never seriously go crazy if he vividly performs the rage of the people in the play. In fact, in Europe in the18th century, this was not the opinion of the Diderot family, and Don Quixote once said: "The cleverest role in comedy is the stupid clown, because the person who plays the stupid role is by no means a fool." Just like people who play the role of rage are by no means furious and crazy. The common wisdom of the ancient people in China also realized this truth, which can be summarized as a seven-character proverb: "Learn ruthless first, then learn drama". Qian Zhongshu said: "Diderot's theory makes us look back, sit up and take notice of this old China saying and understand its profound meaning;" At the same time, China's old saying seems to support Diderot hundreds of thousands of miles away, making us realize that his theory is not the prejudice and sophistry of foreigners. This kind of looking back with special respect is an important turning point in Hegel's repeated understanding process: the understanding of habitual things has been enhanced, from' knowing' to' knowing', from old acquaintance to mutual understanding. I dare say that as a theoretical discovery, that sentence is no less than Diderot's article. " (See page 33-5 of this book) This tells us that the introduction of various advanced western theories is to better grasp and understand the objective world, rather than seeing the whole leopard from a glimpse. This is what we need to pay attention to when discussing photographic literature.
In fact, the appearance of photographic literature is the inevitable product of artistic development. Mo profoundly grasped the law of expanding and narrowing the boundaries of the art world in artistic morphology. He pointed out: "These integrated forces of human art development are manifested in three forms, and three different art combination methods produced in this process can be called aggregation method, pattern matching method and organic composition method." (See page 246 of this book) Aggregation is the mechanical connection of different works of art in a certain space or time. Therefore, each component of the formed assembly has a pure external connection with other parts, while completely retaining its own artistic independence. For example, this is usually a combination of different arts in concert programs. Here, one program follows another program, and the other program is executed after it is completed. It is related to all other programs with a kind of "three unifications"-the unity of place (the stage of concert) and time (the time of performance), and the unified announcer replaces the unified plot ... for example. It is purely accidental that buildings and historic sites stand next to each other here. People's perception of them is independent and isolated from each other, and a unified and complete artistic pattern cannot be formed. When such a pattern is created, every component of it is not absolute, but only relatively independent: of course, we can (in a sense, even should) carefully observe the architecture of Pushkin Theatre and the monument of Yekaterina II in Little Square, and finally the background of Russian Street, even every paragraph of it. But any part of this complex pattern requires us to put it in the relationship with other parts and the whole, because without this system of mutual relationship, repetitive rhythm and obvious opposition, it will not fully show its aesthetic significance in front of us. Similarly, in the concert performance designed as an art whole, each program is connected with other programs by developing the logic of the plot, and in this way, it is introduced into the system of mutual intermediary between the front and back programs by the director and the general director, becoming a "stage pattern", and the independence of its components is not absolute, but relative. This is pattern matching method. The third method of artistic integration is organic composition, which shows that two or more kinds of arts are integrated with each other, resulting in a unique and complete new artistic structure. In this new artistic structure, its components are integrated so that only through scientific analysis can they be distinguished in the empty structural unity. This method of linking the basic forms of artistic creation is inherent, for example, in chorus, poetry and melody are combined into an inseparable artistic unity, or it is inherent, and the artistic "components" here are also inseparable in the architecture-sculpture architecture of Shaer Tolski Cathedral, Sistine Chapel and Rostra Column. Leaving the building, the eave wall structure of the famous Parthenon is simply incomprehensible, because it can be explained in the form of engraved embedded gables.
The third type of different artistic connections is organic composition, which is different from the first two. It comes from special reasons and has gained particularly important morphological significance, because a qualitatively unique new art structure-new style and new variety of art is being formed on this road. Photographic literature is an organic composition of photographic art and literary art, and this comprehensive condition is first the writing, and then the invention of printing; Thanks to writing and printing, it is possible for people to turn a living language into a fixed spatial language, in other words, it is possible to turn an oral language into a written language, thus creating conditions for the combination of words, imprisonment and decoration. If modeling and practical art are combined under the protection of literature in book art, the opposite is true in comics, cartoons and posters; In the combination of poetry and prose with modeling and practical art, modeling and practical art play a major role. Literature in photographic literature is not a footnote of photography, and photography is not a diagram of literature, but an organic integration of the two, which constitutes a rich and full of life aesthetic artistic conception.
At the same time, photographic literature is also the product of modern science and technology. Mokagan pointed out: "In the 20th century, there are extremely rich possibilities for the artistic connection between space and time opened up by modern technology-we only need to mention movies and television to explain the problem; On the basis of new technology, people are exploring an unprecedented method (color music, dynamic art) to combine sound structure with non-recurring color structure and three-dimensional selection structure. " (See Art Morphology, page 252) Although photographic literature is different from China's ancient poetry and painting, the reflection of photography on reality cannot be absolutely opposed to the reproduction of reality by painting, calligraphy and painting. The difference here is relative, not absolute. It can be said that without the emergence of modern scientific photography, there would be no photographic literature. Therefore, photographic literature is not only the inevitable product of the development of human art, but also the product of modern science and technology.
However, Mokagan said: "Spatial structure and temporal structure can be organically combined only under one condition-completely subordinate to the latter." (ditto) This rule is not completely applicable to photographic literature. The spatial structure and temporal structure of photographic literature are more complicated. The former is subordinate to the latter, such as some photographic reportage and novels, and the latter is subordinate to the former, such as some photographic poems.
Third, everyone becomes the master of creative art.
Marx and Engels pointed out in "German Ideology": "As soon as the division of labor appears, everyone has his own special scope of activities, which is imposed on him, and he can't surpass it: he is a hunter, fisherman or shepherd, or a critical critic, and he should always be such a person as long as he doesn't want to lose his means of subsistence. In the capitalist society, everyone has no specific scope of activities, and everyone can develop in any department. The society regulates the whole production, which makes it possible for me to do this thing today and do that thing tomorrow according to my own wishes, hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, engaging in animal husbandry at night and criticizing after dinner, but this does not make me a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. " The ideal of Marx and Engels is not to oppose the division of labor itself, but to oppose the compulsory division of labor. They pointed out: "As long as people are still in a spontaneously formed society, that is, as long as there is a division between private interests and public interests, that is, as long as the division of labor is not voluntary, but spontaneous, then people's own activities will become an alien and opposing force to people, which drives people, not people." (See Selected Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 1, pp. 37-8)
However, in the process of historical development, "the development of this' human' talent will eventually overcome this confrontation, which is consistent with everyone's development, even though it relies on sacrificing most individuals or even the whole stage at the beginning; Therefore, the relatively high development of personality is only at the expense of personal historical process. " As Mo pointed out, the mixed disintegration of ancient art ensures the independent existence of different artistic creation methods, which has both positive and negative aesthetic consequences. It has positive consequences because here, as in all other fields of material culture and spiritual culture, the division of labor is isolated from each other and becomes a necessary condition for the progress, development and perfection of narrow specialized activities. But at the same time, it must pay a high price to get any results, and the historical process of extracting some single threads from the ancient mixed thread group also has obvious negative consequences. Great achievements will also become equally serious losses, that is, the art of mixed creation embodies the loss of versatility and perfection of life. It should be noted that the combination of different ways for art to master the world can make the described content shine from different directions, imitate all aspects of the relationship between subject and object, and create a multi-dimensional "large-capacity" image, rather than a unilateral image that seems to unfold only in one language, music or dance.
Historically, artistic creation has often become the monopoly of a few people. Of course, in this development process of art, grassroots people have also created art, but this artistic creation is still in the spontaneous stage and has not risen to the conscious stage. This is because of the limitation of historical conditions.
Wabenjamin pointed out in "Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": "Mechanical reproduction liberates works of art from parasitic attachment to ceremonies for the first time in the world." "Replication technology liberates copied objects from tradition. It made many copies and replaced its unique existence with many copies. " (See Selected Works of Western Marxist Aesthetics, p. 243-7) In the era of mechanical reproduction, works of art have become the object that everyone can appreciate and are no longer monopolized by a few people. Everyone becomes the master of appreciating art, and the appearance of photographic literature indicates that everyone can become the master of creating art. At present, folk songs and ballads are widely popular, although their forms are quite rough, and some are even vulgar, but some folk songs and ballads reflect some real things in history more truly, and express some people's thoughts and feelings to the fullest, at least alleviating some people's pressure and depression. So this rough art form has become the form of mass carnival today. With the continuous improvement of people's material and cultural living standards, especially with cameras entering thousands of households, people will actively create photographic literature, which will become people's favorite creative form. Just some are preserved, published and become the object of * * *. Some just appear in the form of personal exclusive.
In fact, different people have unique feelings about life, family, history and society, but these feelings are scattered. These feelings are embodied in the form of photographic literature, which is quite complete and constitutes a work of art. It can be said that it is difficult for a single photography to express the content full of charm, and it is difficult for a single sentiment to form a complete literary work. Only by organically combining the two can a work of art be formed. For example, on March 29th, 2002, Jin Kaicheng's "Walking on the West Lake" was published in "Literature Newspaper, Photography Literature Herald". "All people are looking for spring, and the mountains are crowded with tourists. The West Lake is best unknown, and the breeze clears the moon. " Jin Kaicheng didn't write "I" anywhere in Walking on the West Lake, but he didn't write "I" anywhere. It can be said that this "West Lake" is not only a scenic West Lake, but also a cultural celebrity Jin Kaicheng. The combination of this poem "Walking on the West Lake" and Jin Kaicheng, a cultural celebrity, has produced a rich meaning far beyond the poem itself, adding another layer of meaning. The creation of this art form is quite flexible and free. Its appearance indicates that everyone will become the master of artistic creation.