I started to learn Chinese painting on 1962, when the country encountered great difficulties. I graduated from technical secondary school and had nothing to do at home, so I decided to learn painting. At that time, the former Xi Artists Association set up a student class to train young Chinese painting authors and adopted the teaching method of old painters with apprentices. At that time, Shi Lu, Mr. He and my father all accepted students. Under the arrangement of my father and teacher Shi Lu, I entered the study class. My father asked Mr. Shi Lu to be my teacher and started his artistic career. Because of the special environment at that time, I first began to learn Chinese painting by learning pen and ink, so I can say that I have never been exposed to sketch. The words and deeds of several masters of Chang 'an Painting School around me for more than two years gave me a preliminary understanding of the brush and ink techniques of Chinese painting, but it was only after this that I really set foot on the road of artistic creation, from unconscious to conscious, from passive to active and then to life.
1964, the state called on young intellectuals to go to the countryside. Facing the first crossroads on the road of life, it is really difficult for a 20-year-old young man to make a clear choice whether to go to the countryside or stay in the American Association class. Thanks to my father, he made a decision for me. Father said that a painter can't achieve anything without life. In this way, I went to Longdong Mountain and stayed there for eight years. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, I returned to the Artists Association in the late 1970s and took up the post of professional Chinese painting creation.
Looking back on the artistic path I have traveled for many years, I have always grown up beside the older generation of painters of Chang 'an Painting School. Therefore, I naturally accept the practice of paying attention to life and respecting tradition, and I can't help but have a little experience of life and pen and ink.
For painters, attitude towards life is a crucial theme. As a painting major, going deep into life is a compulsory course, but if you go deep into life, the result may be very different. Some people take sketchbooks and cameras, draw a lot of sketches and take a lot of photos, but when they get home, they can't create new works, or their works can't convey the charm of life. What's better is just sketches. With emotion, we should observe carefully, experience personally, study hard, deeply understand and deepen repeatedly in life. Only long-term persistence can cultivate a pair of falcon-like eyes, soar in the sky of life, and capture the inspiration and material of creation. Vigilance and keen insight should be the essential qualities of a painter. Of course, this ability can never be born, nor can it be achieved overnight, but accumulated through continuous practice from life to creation, and then from creation to life. Artists need talent and rich emotions, which is very important for artistic creation. At the same time, talent and emotion also need to be nourished by life, and polished more brightly in life. Life can awaken potential and sleeping talents and emotions, and inject vitality and vigor into them. No life, no talent! Talent is the first talent to express the object of life, which is particularly important for painters. People who love nature and live in this land have a feeling of being able to paint everywhere when they observe with emotion, which makes their talents play a great role. This is the side where emotion dominates their talents. Of course, on the other hand, only by being brilliant, mastering rich expression skills and strong artistic expression can we express our life feelings incisively and vividly.
Looking back on my work and life in Longdong Mountain area for nearly eight years, I deeply feel that this kind of life has tempered my life, changed my thoughts and feelings, realized the true meaning of life, laid a solid life foundation for my future artistic creation, and gained great motivation on the road of Chinese painting creation in the past 50 years. In the process of experiencing rural life for many years, I feel that living is like soaking sauerkraut. Vegetables need to be soaked in the vegetable tank for a period of time before they become sauerkraut. If you just dip it in the sour soup and it comes out, the food will not be sour. So is going deep into life. It takes a while to sketch in a place, and go down as far as possible. After repeated experiences, we can understand a place, draw the taste of this place, and find out the unique pen and ink and formal language.
I remember that more than ten years ago, it was the spring when apple blossoms were in full bloom. I went to Yining, Xinjiang, and went to their home at the invitation of an apple orchard owner. The owner's cabin is located in the corner of the garden. There are red curtains hanging on the houses. The floor of the house is covered with carpets unique to Xinjiang ethnic groups. The small table on the carpet is full of food. The small window on the earth wall is hung with pink curtains, and the mild sunshine shines into the room, full of warmth. The host and guests sat cross-legged on the floor around the small table, eating delicious snacks and drinking hot fragrant tea. The enthusiastic host played Dongbula, and the cheerful Uygur music filled the hut with laughter. We also visited the apple orchard full of snow-white flowers, and the outer ring of the orchard is the towering Yang Shulin. That beautiful scenery filled my heart with nameless feelings, which I can't forget for a long time. The hut in Xinjiang, the flowering apple orchard and the towering Yang Shulin have naturally become my creative materials. The scenery and people in Xinjiang left a deep impression on me, which I will never forget.
I think going deep into life, besides sketching, taking photos and making friends with local people, is of great benefit to experiencing local customs, understanding local conditions and increasing life memories. The ecological relationship between mountains and rivers, ditches and ridges in life should be well understood. Only when we have an overall grasp of the nature can we express those unique landscapes and draw those so-called strange mountains and rocks. Although artistic creation needs change, innovation and breakthrough, the objective laws of nature cannot be broken at will. While fully mobilizing artistic imagination and realizing new artistic combinations, we should respect the laws of nature. From external observation of life to internal understanding, from perceptual understanding to rational understanding, we can increase our creative desire and improve our creative ability in all directions. In front of life, in addition to intuitive perception, good at association, from small to large, from near to far, thinking every second, emotional sublimation, will also lay a solid foundation for future creation
In view of some trends in painting at that time, Mr. Zhang Ding clearly proposed to "keep the bottom line of Chinese painting", that is, pen and ink. This formulation reminds me of when I first entered the Taoist school, and gentlemen told me to get straight to the point. For the study of pen and ink, we should learn from the ancients, learn from tradition, and more importantly, learn and create in life, and discover and capture new understanding and sentiment of pen and ink through in-depth life. Although the formula of pen and ink in Chinese painting is relatively stable, only by going deep into life, grasping the spirit of the times and showing new life can the ancient pen and ink be endowed with vivid characteristics of the times. In this respect, our predecessors set an example for us. The fundamental reason why "Chang 'an Painting School" has been widely recognized and successfully used the spirit of new pen and ink different from the ancients to express society and new life should be.
The essence of painting is to seek a breakthrough in pen and ink and form. Some people seek a breakthrough by learning from the ancients, some people achieve a breakthrough by grafting Chinese and western, and the "Chang 'an Painting School" seeks a breakthrough in the painter's spirit and emotion on the premise of going deep into life. We can even assert that pen and ink are not entirely skills and methods, but also contain spirit and emotion. The reason why the older generation of "Chang 'an Painting School" painters have made a new breakthrough in pen and ink is precisely because they pay more attention to people's emotions and feelings in the life of the times. This is a road of pen and ink innovation based on the local conditions and focusing on the times. Life is changing and the times are advancing. There is only one fundamental way to enrich spiritual feelings, stimulate creative vitality and adjust artistic potential, and that is to go deep into life.
One of the prerequisites of creative innovation is that pen and ink should be innovative, and the tempering of pen and ink should be finally implemented in creation. The accumulation and tempering of life will inevitably serve the creation and eventually lead to a new breakthrough in creation. The process of creation is a process of lifelong practice and lifelong experiment. The ocean of art is boundless, and I should pursue it all my life.