Freehand brushwork can be divided into small freehand brushwork and large freehand brushwork. Great freehand brushwork highlights a great man, not a lot of paper, and a lot of talent is always relative, but a big spiritual realm and a big pen and ink. If you can write large-scale landscapes or flowers and birds in small paintings, you will show the characteristics of freehand brushwork. Freehand brushwork belongs to "brush reduction", which is closely combined with cursive script in calligraphy, and some even paint with weeds. Li Kuchan once said: "The highest art should push cursive script." Qi Baishi once modestly recalled: "My life's regret is that I didn't reach the point of cursive script." Weeds is the most difficult style to master in China's calligraphy, and it is also the most difficult to reach the realm of freedom and boldness. China's freehand brushwork is not only a wonderful painting style, but also an extraordinary painting scene. The essence of China's painting and calligraphy art is enduring and has eternal charm. The basic spirit of freehand brushwork is the crystallization of artistic wisdom of Chinese painting.
As early as the Song Dynasty, Kai Liang was bohemian. He boldly strives for change and creates a new style of freehand brushwork, rich colors, simplicity and boldness. Among the painters of past dynasties, Xu Wei is the representative who can give full play to the spirit of freehand brushwork. Because of his bumpy life and extraordinary talent, he has a unique artistic temperament. In the mature freehand brushwork language and aesthetic system in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei improved his pen and ink expression ability to an unprecedented level. He paints with books, especially with the brushwork of weeds. He painted with flying brushstrokes, indulged himself, combined large pieces of pen and ink with lines, splashed ink smoothly and ever-changing, making the picture seamless, reaching the realm of simplicity and distance. Xu Wei's passion is unrestrained. Although he is crazy and reasonable, he can release and accept, control freely and give full play to the spirit of freehand brushwork. He has a poem that says, "Half-life down and out becomes an old man, and the evening breeze blows during self-study. The pearls at the bottom of the pen have nowhere to sell, but they are thrown into wild vines. " This poem profoundly reflects the emotional contusion caused by the ups and downs of the painter's personal fate. Although freehand brushwork can get carried away, it is impossible to get completely carried away. Independent Research, Pearl at the Bottom of the Pen and Throwing Around vividly reflect Xu Wei's self-image in real life. The dripping grape image is almost the embodiment of a conceited, cynical, crazy and helpless painter.
Qi Baishi, a master of modern freehand brushwork, wrote the spirit of flowers with highly concise pen and ink, expressing life for all things, with complete poems, books, paintings and seals. He combined the freedom of literati painting with the delicacy of Song painting, created a simple and rich art world, and formed another peak of freehand brushwork.
Freehand brushwork pays attention to the expression of spiritual feelings, not the true representation of physical appearances. Paying attention to spirit with freehand brushwork is not only the painter's personal personality, but also the great freedom and liberation in dealing with the spirit of heaven and earth. Therefore, while emphasizing the expression of the painter's true feelings, the freehand brushwork painting should also emphasize the wandering in all things, and grasp the endless rhythm of the objective world as a whole, without being bound by physical phenomena such as time and space, solemnity, light color and perspective. This is the highest realm of the harmony between man and nature pursued by China culture. The unity of heaven and man is both a realm with me and a realm without me. The unity of id and non-id is the realm of freehand brushwork. The essence of freehand brushwork painting is to dare to transcend the objective image world and express the human spirit and universal feelings, which is a kind of life consciousness.
As early as the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yun, a landscape painter, put forward the idea that "nature is made by foreign teachers, and the source of mind comes from China", and this word "source of mind" is the painter's inner cultivation; The "mental image" produced by "mental source" is the concept of freehand brushwork. The art of calligraphy and painting contains the essence, spirit and spirit of heaven and earth, including the multi-layered significance of humanity, image and personality. The so-called "clear water produces hibiscus, natural carving", what a high artistic realm it is!
Summarizing the long-term artistic experience, I think a great freehand painter should do three kinds of kung fu well:
First, cultivate the mind: art is the crystallization of spiritual perception when people and the world blend with each other. The level, elegance, vulgarity, change and form of artistic works are all reflections of the painter's spirit and mentality. "Painting is also a heart painting", and freehand brushwork is the art of self-expression of painters. As soon as the painter puts pen to paper, he blends himself into it. What kind of painting you have, so it is very important to purify your mind and strengthen your self-cultivation. Generally speaking, an artist must have an independent and distinct personality, and have a certain free mentality of super-utility, in order to draw extraordinary works of art.
Second, study: A painter should have profound cultural accomplishment. It is not difficult to take Wan Li Road today, but for a contemporary painter, reading thousands of books is very lacking. Reading all kinds of literature at home and abroad is a path to improve cultural literacy and a compulsory course to cultivate spiritual realm. To some extent, Xu Wei, as an outstanding painter, was created by his comprehensive and rich education, which made him a model scholar artist in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. Zhang Dai, a great scholar in the Song Dynasty, famously said, "Make a heart for heaven and earth, make a life for the people, carry forward the past and forge ahead into the future, and live in peace forever." This is not only the spiritual realm that China intellectuals should cultivate, but also the great mind that freehand brushwork painters should possess.
Third, self-cultivation: painters must cultivate skilled and exquisite technical skills. Without a certain level of skills, it is very common that works can't reach their due heights. The basic skills of China's freehand brushwork include many contents, among which the skill of calligraphy is the most important one. China's freehand brushwork should concisely summarize the relationship between points, lines and surfaces, and the answer can be found in the calligraphy pen. The lines of calligraphy are not simple lines. There are many kinds of strokes, such as middle body, side body, round pen, Fang Bi, folding pen and turning pen. Great freehand brushwork pays attention to brushwork, brushwork and charm of pen and ink. The painter's mood is vividly expressed through the changeable pen and ink reflection. Calligraphy is the lifeline of freehand brushwork, so the creative process of freehand brushwork is not called "painting" but "writing".
Today, there are many painters who can really "write", and fewer and fewer painters can "write". The times are progressing, but the brush is deteriorating. "Bone pen" has been ignored by contemporary painters, and emphasizing the effect of schema decoration and texture making has become the mainstream phenomenon of Chinese painting today. There are very few real freehand painters, and it is difficult to find traces of the rich spirit of the Chinese nation in today's Chinese paintings.
We should advocate the importance of calligraphy in China's freehand brushwork. Chinese characters are the most general and abstract paintings, which have important guiding significance for the choice of freehand brushwork and the refinement of objects. The history of China's freehand brushwork also fully proves this point. Wu Changshuo wrote Shi Guwen for decades, and painted with round, dignified and pale lines of seal script, which reversed the weakness of flower-and-bird painting in the late Qing Dynasty. In his later years, Huang Ba turned all shapes into lines, forgetting things and greatness, reaching a state of transformation, which is of guiding significance to the development trend of freehand brushwork.
There are two different views in contemporary freehand brushwork: one is the concept of "innovation from tradition"; One is the idea of "combining Chinese and western". I think these two ideas are objective reality, and there is no need to merge or confront them. It is no longer advisable to stick to the rules. For example, there is no way out for rickshaws to stick to the backward road on busy overpasses. The painting art in the new era is a colorful era. Imagine that classical Chinese is going to vernacular Chinese, poetry is going to free verse, and opera is going to pop rock through the combination of Chinese and western. Chinese painting will also face similar challenges of the times.
The pluralistic new era marks the transformation of China from traditional farming culture to modern industrial information civilization. Therefore, it is impossible for China's freehand brushwork not to be updated. China is an ancient civilization with a deep foundation and a long history. China culture has an extremely tolerant stomach to digest the immersion of western culture. As long as we keep in mind the integrity and irreplaceability of the Chinese nation, no matter whether we hold the idea of "bringing forth the old from the tradition" or "integrating Chinese and western", every idea is our way out. The fundamental spirit of China's freehand brushwork is to express our true feelings with simple modeling language and changeable pen-ink relationship, and to express our feelings of self wandering between heaven and earth.
Pen and ink is very important in freehand brushwork, but it is by no means an unspeakable secret skill, nor is it the mysterious and lonely soul of national culture. It should become a skill that people all over the world can accept. Pen and ink is not the value that westerners return to zero, but it has an extremely important position in the eyes of the Chinese nation. The relationship between pen and ink and artistic conception seems to be an inseparable organic relationship, similar to the overall dialectical relationship of traditional Chinese medicine, rather than the local anatomical theory of western medicine. Western philosophy often analyzes content and form, spirit and body, purpose and method in a binary way. In recent decades, this way of thinking has greatly influenced artists and critics in China and caused controversy in the painting world. If the way of talking about Zen in China is empty, then the way of talking about things in the West is easily limited to appearances, while the spiritual core of China culture is compromise and reconciliation, and it is not paranoid.