Tao Wu
Chinese painting has a long history and originated from a specific cultural background. However, with the continuous development of science and technology and the continuous progress of society, the pace of people's life is accelerating and the content after life is more colorful. Appreciation of poems, books, paintings and seals is gradually accepted by people. However, when faced with a Chinese painting in life, there is a sigh: "It's really well painted." As we all know, to appreciate the content of a work and evaluate the quality of a work requires in-depth and meticulous analysis and understanding of the work, and then make a final evaluation according to one's own cultivation and understanding. This paper briefly introduces and analyzes Sheikh's "six methods" at the end of the fifth century, which can give Chinese painting lovers appreciation methods and ideas.
Keywords six methods of appreciating Chinese painting
Thread theory
Chinese painting is the main type of traditional painting in China. It had no definite name in ancient times, and was generally called Danqing. Since modern times, it has been called Chinese painting to distinguish it from oil painting and other paintings imported from the west. It is rooted in the cultural fertile soil of the Chinese nation for thousands of years and has a rich and splendid history. It is a reflection of economic and political concepts in various periods. It has gone through many different stages, such as germination, development, maturity, innovation and redevelopment, and formed a national cultural accomplishment. However, under the modern education mode, the curriculum arrangement does not emphasize the education of China's classical philosophy, which hinders the appreciation of Chinese painting. In addition, my current knowledge structure is still very lacking. I can only analyze the "painting theory" of past dynasties and the "painting evaluation criteria" of each period as the main basis and basic theory for how to appreciate Chinese painting.
The first chapter is the present situation and cultural background of Chinese painting.
With the continuous development of science and technology and the continuous progress of social civilization, the pace of people's life is also accelerating, and the content after life is more colorful. So many people like painting now, but few people really know how to paint. In addition, in today's reform and opening up, the collision between Chinese and western cultures has intensified. Whether to paint or appreciate painting is confusing and misleading in theory. Facing a Chinese painting in life, can you understand the work and take it as the criterion? For the average person, the first thing to look at is what the work shows. What is the artistic conception of this image expressed by the painter? If you can answer all the questions, you think you can understand, otherwise, you can't understand. This method is the traditional "storytelling" method. But relatively speaking, the works of meticulous Chinese painting are easy to appreciate because they are concrete and true; As for freehand brushwork, pen and ink are unrestrained and meaningful, which is beyond the pen's reach. Even splash-ink paintings are even more difficult to understand, because their images are not specific and their techniques are exaggerated and abstract, and it is generally difficult to understand the painter's meaning from the surface of the works. Of course, this method can only be used as an appreciation way for ordinary people, because it is well drawn and clearly understood, and it is easy to arouse people's more association and resonance. But we must understand that the quality of a Chinese painting is not simply measured by its superficial image.
Looking back on my four years in college, I deeply realized that as a student majoring in Chinese painting, to appreciate a good Chinese painting, we must first have a deep understanding of the historical and cultural background, expression techniques and language concepts of Chinese painting.
Chinese painting (abbreviated as "Chinese painting") is a kind of painting with China characteristics, with ink as the main component, color as the auxiliary component, water as the blending agent, brush as the main tool, rice paper and brocade as the carrier. It is rooted in the fertile cultural soil of the Chinese nation for 5,000 years, and has gone through many different stages, such as germination, development, maturity, innovation and redevelopment, and formed the integration of national cultural literacy, thinking mode and aesthetic consciousness.
From the content, Chinese painting can be divided into three categories: flower-and-bird painting, landscape painting and figure painting, while from the form of expression, Chinese painting can be divided into meticulous painting and freehand brushwork. Meticulous painting pays attention to detail, painting a water in ten days, painting a stone in five days and painting a picture for many years. Freehand brushwork is simple and informal, and the pen is received instantly with a stroke of the pen. For example, during the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty loved the scenery of more than 300 miles along the Jialing River in Sichuan and asked people to paint it on the wall of Datong Temple. It took Li Sixun months to draw, but Wu Daozi finished it in one day. Tang Xuanzong's evaluation of them is: "Li Sixun has achieved several months, and Wu Daozi has traveled five times a day, which is wonderful". Today, it seems that the murals made by Wu Daozi and Li Sixun no longer exist, but from the painting theory, we can know that Wu Daozi is good at the vigorous and smooth lines, and his writing is crisp and neat, like a storm; Li Sixun's style is famous for its magnificent and colorful landscape paintings, which take a long time to draw. Their painting styles have their own characteristics.
As mentioned above, whether it is flower-and-bird painting, landscape painting or figure painting, freehand brushwork or meticulous painting, it's just that their contents and forms of expression are different. Different painters have different styles of expression. How can we appreciate all kinds of works with the same theme but different styles, or works with different themes but the same style?
The second chapter is the evaluation criteria of Sheikh's paintings.
To appreciate a Chinese painting, the viewer must first encounter the problem of how to evaluate the quality of the painting, which requires a standard. At the end of the 5th century, the earliest evaluation criteria of painting were Sheikh's "vivid charm", "brushwork follows bone method", "pictographs follow objects", "colors follow classes", "quotient position" and "transformation and modeling".
Firstly, it is proposed that works should be vivid, that is, figure painting should have vivid artistic images, showing the five senses, personality characteristics and inner world of the object. Other literary critics, such as Sheikh, believe that the active vitality in works of art, like the vitality in the whole universe, is the "qi" all over the space, the "breath" of life, and a kind of power that permeates, nourishes and inspires everything in the world. Here, Sheikh specifically mentioned "Qi": it shows the objective "vitality", "climate" or "strength" of an object. "Qi", another way of saying it, is the venting or breathable element in a work. A good Chinese painting will not make people feel "boring" and "annoying" in the picture. This is because the picture has just the right ventilation point. Although the author expresses his emotions in the picture and infects the viewer to a certain extent, because there is a breathable point in the work, it will not be "boring" or "boring" to look at the picture again. "Rhyme" is another commonly used word in the literary criticism of the Six Dynasties, which contains a sense of harmony and charm in the completion of artistic works. A good and touching work will certainly give people infinite aftertaste and endless reverie, and give viewers an immersive and continuous association. Of course, there will be more and richer understanding because of the different cultivation and level of the appreciator.
Sheikh and others use "vivid charm" to explain that a work must be full of vitality in terms of "spirit", harmony, vividness and vitality after completion. For example, Yan in Bujitu in the Tang Dynasty depicts the scene of Emperor Taizong receiving the Tibetan envoy Lu Dongzan to welcome Princess Wencheng into Tibet in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan. The picture shows that Emperor Taizong is dignified and harmonious, Lu Dongzan is capable and respectful, the etiquette officer is solemn and solemn, the maids look around and the atmosphere is cordial and harmonious. Another example is Gu Kaizhi's Luo Shen Tu in Wei and Jin Dynasties. The feelings between the characters in the picture are not revealed by facial expressions, but by clever handling of the relationship between the characters. In the painting, Luo Shen is as affectionate as ever, and if he returns it, he expresses a kind of melancholy that he never dreamed of.
Secondly, the method of "using the brush bone" refers to using the power of the pen to describe the image, paying attention to the changes caused by the pen, and paying attention to the form and dynamic beauty of the lines. It can be said that the beauty of lines will bring icing on the cake to the works, and it can also be said that the ultimate embodiment of vivid charm can not be separated from the pen. For example, the lines in Wu Daozi's Born of Gautama Buddha: the clothes lines of Sudoku King are vigorous and straight, while the clothes lines of Queen are flexible and smooth, which not only show the different textures of clothes, but also set off the differences between men and women. The ghosts and gods in front of the earth are more unrestrained, and there is a feeling of "hairy roots and strong flesh". Exaggerated modeling shows the extraordinary power of monsters, fluttering on the ground, dancing with pens and rolling freely.
In Chinese painting, the "bone-based brushwork" also combines the brushwork rules and aesthetic principles in China's calligraphy, reflecting the strength, texture and beauty of lines. Through different lines to reflect the dynamics, potential, rhythm and rhythm of pen and ink. For example, in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, a series of moving images in Gu Kaizhi's A History of Women attached great importance to line modeling. The works show a sense of rhythm in the form of continuous, leisurely and natural lines, and the strength of the lines is slightly controlled, just like "spring silkworms spin silk" and "spring clouds float in the air and water flows on the ground", with changes in density and length.
Chinese painting is painted with dots, which is easy to disperse and trivial; Painting by surface is easy to be blurred and flat; Drawing with lines is easy to capture the image and movement of objects, which is most suitable for giving full play to the characteristics of brush, ink, rice paper and silk; It can be said that line is the artistic language that China painters have a special liking for, the soul of Chinese painting, and the catharsis and expression of the author's feelings. Therefore, for thousands of years, painters in China have been writing lines with different textures and feelings at their desks, such as thickness, straightness, rigidity, coarseness, quickness, falsehood, smoothness and simplicity. With the gradual change, arrangement, intersection, division and echo of these sentimental lines, many shapes with different forms and changeable feelings are formed in the painting to express patriotic feelings, joys and sorrows, and childlike innocence.
It is true that when we appreciate Chinese painting works, we should also pay attention to the fact that the lines used to express Chinese painting should have vitality, and its cadence, density and speed, light and dark, wet and dry, show the artist's talent and foundation. Mr. Huang, a master of Chinese painting, summed up the dotted line into five words: "Ping", "Circle", "Stay", "Emphasis" and "Change". "Flat", such as drawing sand with a circular cone, the pen tip is horizontal with the paper, and the conveying pressure and buoyancy are balanced; "Round", like a folding pin, means round, powerful, vigorous, unobtrusive and elastic; "Leave", such as leakage marks, the pen feels resistance in operation, and it is difficult to move forward in the resistance of friction with paper; "Heavy", such as falling rocks from a mountain, should be strong with a pen, so as to feel strong through the back of the paper. In particular, hitting "dots" should be as weighty as a stone falling from a mountain; "Change", the strokes form various contrasts, with changes and differences. For example, his works such as Sitting in the Rain in the Mountain and Qingshan Mangrove Forest reflect the characteristics of his landscape painting lines.
Whether ancient or modern; Whether it is unrestrained or lyrical; No matter how high or low, they all emphasize the combination of brushwork strength and verve. What has vitality is a living pen, and what lacks vitality is a dead pen. Only when the pen is connected with the meaning, the shape is connected with the qi, and the trace is connected with the potential can the work be powerful and emotional. Therefore, when we appreciate Chinese painting, we should pay attention to the combination of the author's brushwork and charm in the works, and express the image of the picture through brushwork. For example, in the portrait brick "Seven Sages of Bamboo Forest" of Xishan Bridge in the Southern Dynasties, the lines of clothes pleats are mainly rigid, combining rigidity with softness, which is similar to the line drawing of Gu Kaizhi's "Spring Silkworm Spinning" style, vividly depicting the characteristics of these people and their decadent and empty mental outlook.
The third "quotient" is the arrangement and organization of objects when a painter paints. For example, the word "management" is very rich in connotation, including a series of thinking activities such as thinking, analysis, research and deliberation. The "position" here is not only the place where the images on the screen are placed, but also the structural arrangement and pattern arrangement of the whole screen, emphasizing "sparse horse racing" and "airtight" In other words, it is by no means a random stroke for a painter to complete a work. It is through painstaking thinking and exploration, careful selection and ingenious organization and arrangement that the final successful works will come out. For example, Fan Kuan's Journey to the Western Hills in the Northern Song Dynasty uses the method of "three distances" (namely, "high", "deep" and "flat") as the composition method, and the main peak adopts the method of "high" (looking from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, it is called "high"), which stands tall, leans forward slightly and has a magnificent momentum. The "deep" method (called "deep" from front to back) is adopted on both sides of the main peak, which not only sets off the spirit of the main peak, but also fully shows the artistic conception of mountains and rivers, and at the same time reflects the author's yearning for nature and comprehensive understanding; The foreground is "plain" (called "plain" from close to distant view). There are strange stones and trees in the foreground, and the shapes of stones are endless. There are many kinds of trees with different shapes, which makes people yearn for and marvel at the author's observation, imagination and expression of nature. It can be seen that China painters attach great importance to the study of composition in their constant exploration and practice, and have summed up a series of laws. For example, as early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Gu Kaizhi put forward the composition principle of "setting up the old and laying out the potential", and later painters continued to explore and established a complete composition system of Chinese paintings with national characteristics such as "subject and object", "echo", "virtual reality", "density", "hidden exposure", "opening and closing" and "choice". These laws conform to the unity of opposites in dialectical method; Only works that conform to the law of unity of opposites can last and attract people. On the contrary, the factors of beauty will be greatly discounted to varying degrees. Therefore, the source of composition is life, vision, cultivation and style, which pushes every small scene, every fragment and every scene of life to a higher level than life.
In addition, there is great freedom and flexibility in composition, just like in life, the layout of furniture, style, green and elegant, and then let nature take its course. It is not limited by time and place, and does not seek the phenomenon of objects, but only seeks the idea and visualization as "reason"
As mentioned above, the appreciation of Chinese painting works is mainly based on the "verve", "bone method" and "composition method" in the six methods, which is logical and logical. Without qi, you lose strength, without bones, you lose interest, without echo, you lose unity, without subject and object, you become flat and loose, without density, you become uniform, rigid and inflexible, you either show or hide, you lose implicit elegance, you either open or close, you lose elegance.
Therefore, it can be said that "Six Methods" is a whole painting evaluation, and its appearance shows that China's painting theory has risen to a relatively complete system stage, which is a summary of artists' artistic practice in Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties. According to the requirements and creative practice of landscape painting in the Five Dynasties, Hao Jing also proposed that painting has six essentials, namely, qi, rhyme, thought, scenery, pen and ink. He said: "Qi, the heart moves with the pen, and the image is not chaotic; Rhyme, hidden and positive, is prepared. " These two points still refer to the unity of content and form. "Thinking" refers to cutting and conceiving; "Scenery" means that landscape painting should be described according to different seasons and specific environments, and it is necessary to "seek beauty and create truth" in order to vividly depict landscapes; "Pen" and "ink" are important techniques in Chinese painting.
In Song Dynasty, Liu Daochun put forward "Six Essentials" and "Six Lengths" in Comments on Famous Paintings in Song Dynasty. He said: "The knowledge of painting depends on the six points tomorrow, and the six long judges." The so-called six essentials are "having both gods and spirits", "old style and old system", "reasonable variation", "colored painting", "learning from nature" and "being short of teachers"; The so-called "six strengths" are "seeking pen with rough brine", "seeking talent with plain quality", "seeking strength with implication", "seeking reason with madness", "seeking dye without ink" and "seeking six strengths with flat painting". Among them, "six lengths" are more valuable based on the law of unity of opposites in the formal beauty of Chinese painting; "Seeking a pen with rough brine" means bold and unrestrained painting, emphasizing pen and ink techniques; "Seeking outside talents", when depicting some unfamiliar and unusual subjects in creation, we should also stress statutes and never scribble; "Striving for subtlety" means that in the works of craftsmen, the expressive force is stronger, not delicate and soft; "Crazy", if the shapes in the works are wild and weird, it should be reasonable; The meaning of "seeking dyeing but not ink" is the same as that of "counting white as black", that is, blank space is not really "empty", but shows rich meanings.
To sum up, I have some superficial experience, understanding and views on studying and appreciating Chinese painting at ordinary times, so that some people who like and appreciate Chinese painting can basically understand its characteristics and style. After all, Chinese painting has thousands of years of historical and cultural background, rich and unique forms of expression, observation and understanding, image modeling and so on. In the observation and understanding of objective things, we adopt the method of seeing the big from the small, observe and understand objective things in activities, and even directly participate in things, instead of appearing locally or being limited to a fixed point, and penetrate into people's social consciousness, thus making painting have a "lonely Millennium," "taking pictures" and playing the role of "showing good and evil". Even purely natural objective objects such as mountains and rivers, flowers and birds are consciously related to people.
The third chapter is the thinking mode of Chinese painting appreciation.
Chinese painting appreciation needs to go through three important stages: aesthetic perception, aesthetic comprehension and aesthetic creation. This requires us to intuitively observe and understand the aesthetic objects, that is, the artistic conception, color, lines and description of the work itself; On this basis, appreciate, understand and think, grasp the meaning, significance and connotation of the work, and understand the artistic form, artistic skills, performance theme and background of the times. This can give viewers more imagination, how to express the content of the work and the artistic means adopted. At the same time, we can guess whether the author's heart is enthusiastic praise or bitter irony, profound expression or bold expression from the picture, artistic conception and artistic conception of the work, and then analyze it in combination with the author's creative characteristics and background of the times, and awaken rich associations through his accumulated aesthetic experience, cultural knowledge and life experience for many years. Take Wang Ximeng's "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" (long scroll) in Song Dynasty as an example: the painting history of Wang Ximeng's life is lost. According to Cai at the end of the scroll, he was originally a student of the Academy of Painting, and later he entered the library of the Forbidden City. Huizong personally instructed him to paint, and he painted this long scroll at the age of eighteen. Now only the long scroll of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is left; This volume adopts the long scroll composition method, and the layout divides the sky and scenery into two parts according to "six to four", which makes the scenery spacious and far-reaching, and can better express the magnificence of mountains and rivers; The mountains in the painting are strewn at random, surrounded by rivers, with pavilions, thatched huts, busy boats and fishing, and decorated with exquisite trees and waterfalls. It shows the author's yearning for an idealized society and colorful nature, full of feelings, and there is no lack of affirmation for people to transform nature and pride in living in the beautiful mountains and rivers of the motherland. Big blue-green, rich and delicate, representing the precision and meticulous integration of green and green in the painting academy, and strictly observing the painting style; The brushwork is mainly sketching, the trunk is drawn by boneless method, and the slopes touch each other, which enriches the expressive force of green mountains and green waters; Although the figures' clothes pleats are as small as beans, their shapes and costumes are different, and they are dynamic and lively, which reflects that the landscape painting in the Song Dynasty was highly mature after the early scenery and painting style in the Northern Song Dynasty, and only Li Cheng and Fan Kuan were taken as examples in the middle period, so that it became mature. In the later period, under the influence of the trend of "retro", he advocated the idea of taking the ancient as the new, and integrated the Tang and Song Dynasties to create a unique painting style that integrated the achievements of Li Sixun, Li Zhaodao and ink and wash landscapes. This thought has influenced later generations, such as Dong Qichang's Retro, which contains innovative ideas.
Concluding remarks
The process of appreciating Chinese painting requires not only careful analysis and research of the works themselves, but also an understanding of the cultural background of Chinese painting and the creativity of the authors, which requires some relevant knowledge to better grasp the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese painting works. Especially under the background of modern culture, many people who study Chinese painting are shouting "advocating tradition" and engaging in "innovation". If they don't know much about tradition or even know nothing about traditional things, how can they innovate? This requires us to learn from tradition and innovate boldly, so as to broaden our horizons and better appreciate Chinese painting.
Pay attention to and release:
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③ China Art History Teaching and Research Section. A brief history of China art [M]. Beijing: China Youth Publishing House, 2003,93.
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(From: Wu Tao's online school office)