Shen ke's landscape paintings

Executive Vice President, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of Art College of Zhejiang University.

Shen Ke's landscape paintings are mostly simple and true poetic pastoral landscapes: houses made of stones are scattered among mountains and forests. The winding path will always take you where you want to go-a small Shan Ye full of hope for the mountain people; Several fruity fruit trees attract birds looking for food. Sometimes a waterfall will pop up on the top of the mountain inadvertently, which makes people feel as if they are there, and it is a fairy scene. The clear stream coiled under the roots of pine trees flows slowly, which makes people feel relaxed and happy. Shen Ke firmly grasped these feelings and drew them, and successfully passed them on to others. Pastoral landscape theme is one of the favorite painting themes of ancient China literati. At first glance, this kind of painting shows the desire to escape, but the actual potential theme is the frustration of courtiers and bureaucrats in pursuing fame and fortune-because of the birth of Confucianism, they pursue careers in the imperial court and urban society, and when they are frustrated, they dream of becoming fishermen or woodcutter. They not only show the painter's noble feelings, but also provide an imaginative way to escape from the boredom and frustration of officialdom and merchant life. For example, in the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Meng's "The Picture of Qingbian Seclusion", the picture shows an extremely unstable and unsafe state without the stability and tranquility that natural scenery usually shows. Shen Ke's pastoral landscape painting is completely different from this schema. Schenk rarely shows scenes of mountains and rivers. He doesn't like the feeling of being out of reach. His rural scenery is visible, tangible and full of life interest: the images of mountains and mountains, people walking aimlessly in them, peeling mountain fruits, fences, haystacks, cattle and sheep, curling kitchen smoke, long white clouds, birds and insects singing, all of which have become the motif to carry their inner feelings, making people feel extremely relaxed and happy.

Shen Keda majored in physics for four years, and his spare time helped him cultivate the motivation and confidence of professional painting creation in the future. In the master's and doctor's stages, Schenk studied under Fan He, a landscape painter from Nanjing Normal University, and gained the true meaning of their paintings. Mr. Fan has made outstanding achievements in sketching, using water and using colors. Mr. john young's outstanding performance in line modeling and brushwork has attracted worldwide attention. Schenk's tolerance for the two teachers is unique. His landscape painting relies on skillful sketching skills, and forms a unique landscape painting physique through pungent calligraphy and texture treatment of water and color. Calligraphy lines and smart sketches complement each other, making the picture full of vitality. Villages, bridges, fences, fruit trees, clouds, waterfalls, ancient temples, Taoist temples and other natural things in the mountains are all reflected in his paintings, all of which are fascinating. Shen Ke did not mechanically imitate the painting style created by the two teachers, which is the embodiment of Shen Ke's wisdom and cleverness. Mr. Qi Baishi, a master of Chinese painting, has a saying: "Those who learn from me live like I die", which is actually rooted in the motto of Shen Ke's painting creation. Schenk gave up all styles of painting methods for style. In his view, the ancients painted mountains and rivers, and the expression of mountain structure was very problematic, especially various stylized methods, which harmed many people. Most hills are painted as steamed buns or haystacks. Shen Ke has a deep understanding of this. When he began to learn landscape painting, he especially liked ancient landscape painting. The hermit-style painting of "A mountaineer relaxing his pillow on the moon" also fits his personality very well. From Fan Kuan, Li Cheng and Mi Fei in Song Dynasty to Huang, Wang Meng and Zhenwu in Yuan Dynasty; From Shen Zhou and Wen Zhiming in the Ming Dynasty to the Four Kings, the Eighth Congress and Shi Tao in the early Qing Dynasty, Shen Ke copied them seriously and made great efforts to understand their paintings. In modern times, Huang's picture books, calligraphy collections, anthologies and even poems with paintings were carefully studied by Shen Ke. He painted a lot and saw a lot. It seems that he realized a truth: the paintings of the ancients were naturally formed in the process of interacting with the real mountains and rivers. So Shen Ke went out of the studio to get close to nature. In recent years, he has crossed the Yangtze River and been to Yandang, Wuyi, Huangshan, Jiuhua and Zhangjiajie. Shangri-La Tour, Old Town of Lijiang, Dali, Xishuangbanna, Guilin, Qingcheng, Emei, Jiuzhaigou, Zoige and even Tibet; North Taihang Mountain, Yanshan Mountain, Wutai Mountain, Hengshan Mountain, Zhongtiao Mountain and Luliang Mountain; Wudang, Shennongjia and Dabie Mountains in the Central Plains, and the Loess Plateau in Longxi, Guanzhong, all left the footprints of Shenke's sketching. The creation of China's landscape paintings has always emphasized the principle of combining learning from the ancients and learning from nature. The reason why landscape painting is enduring is that while learning from the ancients, it still adheres to the principle of learning from nature. In Shen Ke's view, the so-called "learning from the teacher" actually contains two connotations: one is to look at it with your heart and experience it with your heart, and the other is to describe it on the basis of your own understanding, that is, "sketching". Shen Ke sketched, half with a brush, half with a look and experience. Go to the mountains. Schenk tried to draw what he liked with his traditional brushwork and modern modelling technique. A painting by Shen Ke is usually realistic. He carefully studied the structure of hills, trees and even bridges and farmhouses. The layman looks at the mountains mostly like steamed bread, which is flat. In fact, mountains are massive, threaded and interspersed, which is invisible to ordinary people's eyes. The painter's task is to clearly show these characteristics that best reflect the characteristics of mountain peaks, making people look more relaxed and more real. Shen Ke's inspiration to us is not only in the style of techniques, but more importantly, artistic creation must be centered on the painter's authenticity, so that painting creation can truly become a tool to express and express self-emotion.

Shen Ke and I moved from Nanjing to Hangzhou, so we had the opportunity to visit Shen Ke's studio from time to time to catch up and get familiar with Shen Ke's obsession with painting art and his diligence in creation. Seeing a batch of his new works, the style of painting has changed. The original bold and unrestrained painting style adds the temperament of "Wen Xiu", which is refreshing! Confucius said: "quality is better than literature, and literature is better than quality." Gentleness is a gentleman. " Only by combining the "rough quality" in form with the "fine prose" in nature can we become a good art. Over time, Shen Ke's future is limitless.

Shen Ke and His Landscape Paintings

Ale

There are probably two situations in Chinese painting: one is that it is a painting, which should look good, flowers and birds in landscapes, figures in Buddhism and Taoism, and cultural decorations. This is a superficial understanding, focusing on the feeling of the eyeball, that is, painting skills. One view is culture, and painting is just a medium, expressing an idea in the painter's heart. Although they also attach importance to painting techniques, painters in this road put more energy into thinking about society and nature. Be reasonable, respect people, don't care about one plan, one person is beneficial. This is an understanding of the essence of painting. No, it is also a deeper understanding. Shen Ke's landscape painting is the latter.

Schenk has been painting landscape paintings for more than 20 years since he went to college, and he has gone through three stages: interest, understanding and practice.

Learning Chinese painting is easy to get started, as long as you are interested, but it is difficult to understand. First of all, what kind of painting is good? What is the most interesting thing about "pen and ink, verve" in Chinese painting? What road should modern Chinese painting take? The painter not only completes his mission by painting a few works, but also carefully analyzes and integrates our traditional and foreign theories to form a scientific, systematic and rigorous theoretical system of Chinese painting, so as to make Chinese painting develop healthily. Do you know when we blindly embrace the tradition of Chinese painting or tear it mercilessly? When we were infatuated with a certain western faction, did you carefully analyze and digest it? If we don't read all the ancient articles and comments on painting, if we lack the ability to sort out and identify ancient literature, and if we don't put the ancient painting theory into practice to verify it, we can't correctly and comprehensively grasp the tradition of Chinese painting. China's tradition has a history of thousands of years, and its vitality and inertia are so strong that it can't disappear in a short time. Therefore, the anti-tradition is ignorant and lacks basic judgment, which is worth pondering by radical painters who are eager for quick success and instant benefit. Those who only regard "pen and ink" or "style" as the tradition of Chinese painting are even more vulgar and superficial. As for the "concept first" modern art, they break down artistic works into unrelated aspects, remove the traditional symbolic status of artistic works, reconnect artistic works with different social functions, and break the boundaries between society, material and behavior. Their ideas are novel and worth learning. As for the future and destiny of modern art in China, I personally think that it will take a long time for modern art to be accepted by China people and develop healthily.

Schenk has a unique view on this point, and he never blindly believes the words of one family. Although China's traditional painting theory is rich, it is chaotic. China Ancient Painting Theory Series contains 286 articles about Chinese painting with hundreds of thousands of words from ancient times to the present, which is by far the most comprehensive compilation of Chinese painting theories. But there is always a fragmentary feeling after reading through it, and there is no clear system. For example, the research on "spirit", "pen and ink", "six methods" and "evaluation" has not yet yielded convincing results. In the Qing Dynasty, Da Zhongguang said in "Painting Sasakawa": "With the right, you can operate at will and find it everywhere; If you lose power, you will concentrate on cleaning up. " So what is "potential"? Li Rihua's Notes on Liuyanzhai in the Ming Dynasty said: "Those who are in power are in a state of changing power." Zhou interpreted "stone" as "it can strengthen the vivid modality of characters and the majestic meteorological and rhythmic changes of mountains and rivers" in "An Introduction to China's Ancient Painting Theory". When we paint, can we make a good composition just by grasping the turning point of the object? Shen Ke believes that the "potential" in Chinese painting refers to the main part, that is, the largest piece. If you remove this big chunk, the rest can "run at will" as Da Zhongguang said.

There is also a lack of in-depth and systematic research on how to apply the visual theoretical knowledge such as Gestalt Psychology, Rhythm, Color and Composition imported from the West to Chinese painting creation. For example, the "rhythm" problem. For a long time, the rhythm in painting has been regarded as an unexplained concept, which seems to be understood only without the help of words. Ask a painter what rhythm he wants, and nine times out of ten he will get a tongue-tied answer, or get a truth that makes the speaker and listener laugh and cry. Susan Langer, an American, said in her artistic problem: "The essence of rhythm lies not in periodicity, but in the functionality of continuous time." According to Schenk's understanding, Langer thinks that the rhythm in painting is different from that in music, which is not mechanical in nature, but dynamic with life characteristics.

Practice is a necessary link in learning art and creating artistic works. Shen Ke liked ancient landscape painting when he began to learn landscape painting. The hermit-style painting of "a traveler in the mountains, a pillow on the moon" fits his character very well. From Fan Kuan, Li Cheng and Mi Fei in Song Dynasty to Huang, Ni Zan, Wang Meng and Zhenwu in Yuan Dynasty; From Shen Zhou and Wen Zhiming in the Ming Dynasty to the Four Kings and the Eighth National Congress in the early Qing Dynasty, Shen Ke made great efforts to understand their paintings. In modern times, Huang's picture books, calligraphy collections, anthologies and even poems with pictures have been turned over by Shen Ke countless times. None of them are intact at hand, but they have been rummaged many times and are broken. He has seen a lot and painted a lot (as long as he has an hour to himself, he must be painting or thinking about painting), and he seems to suddenly understand a problem. Previous paintings naturally formed in the process of interacting with real landscapes, as did all the masters in history. So Shen Ke went out of the studio to get close to nature. Crossing the Yangtze River in the south, I have outlined my footprints. When it comes to sketching, it's mostly about seeing and experiencing. Walk into the mountains, watch the clouds and rain, rise and fall, listen to the gurgling water and recite the Buddha's name; Or approaching the mountain house and watching the smoke curling up, the feeling of "turning all mountain roads into cattle and sheep" is particularly close. So Shen Ke tried to draw his favorite things with the traditional pen and ink expression and modern modeling I learned.

This painting should be very nice. The ancients said that painting should look good at a distance, look good at a close distance, look good at a big painting, and look good at a small painting. To do this, we must first have a novel style. People's eyes and ears like the new and hate the old. A dress of 20 years ago looks very old-fashioned, regardless of quality and style, even though no one has worn it all day. If the style of painting is new, we should work hard on composition, theme and expression, not like the ancients, let alone others. Although traditional landscape painting also pays great attention to composition, most of the hills are placed according to the far, middle and near segments according to subjective consciousness, which has not changed much for thousands of years. Some people simply use western paintings to compose their compositions, but they can't. People in China don't like that composition very much, just like taking pictures, just draw one. People in China like relatively complete things, and listening to stories is the same. There are beginnings and endings, ups and downs, climaxes and happy endings. The content of traditional landscape painting is similar, the bridge is flowing, the hermit is superior, and it looks fake. Shen Ke, on the other hand, went deep into the mountains to inspect and reflected natural things such as villages, roads and bridges, fences, fruit trees, clouds, waterfalls, ancient temples and Taoist temples in his paintings, all of which showed attractive power.

Shen Ke doesn't like the scenery of mountains and rivers, and he feels a little out of reach. He likes simple and authentic rural landscapes, which can be seen and entered. We have all been to the mountains, and stone houses are scattered in the mountains. The winding path will always take you where you want to see. A small Shan Ye, that is the hope of the mountain people. Fruitful fruits are often hung on the branches of several fruit trees, attracting unknown birds to steal them. Sometimes a waterfall suddenly appears on the top of the mountain, which will make you scream. The stream flowing from the roots of pine trees will make you feel clear. Nothing in the world is more refreshing than seeing the surrounding mountains, birds singing and insects singing, the smoke curling in the distance, the fragrance of pine trees blown by the breeze, fences, haystacks, free cattle and sheep, and white clouds floating leisurely. Shen Ke grasps these feelings and paints, hoping to bring them to many people who like them as much as he does.

In the form of expression, most people are in favor of diversification, that is, a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend, which is no problem. However, Schenk is more opposed to painting that is style for style's sake. In order to be different, it is boring to draw pictures that you don't even understand or like. There are two kinds of people who paint, one is a person who likes painting very much, and the other is a professional painter. The two are very different. The former often regards painting as his life and thinks too much, so that he often dances and is ecstatic about drawing a satisfactory picture for himself. The latter mostly follows the rules and takes the evaluation of others as the criterion. If you are a person who really likes painting, you rarely go the other way, because you don't like this kind of painting in the first place. It is easy to fool others, especially laymen, but difficult to fool professionals, especially yourself. If you want to draw a painting that is different from others, that is, innovation, you have to memorize ancient things and contemporary things, learn from each other's strengths, and over time you will draw your own things. Several teachers of Shenke are accomplished scholars and painters. Mr. Fan is recognized as a master of landscape painting in sketching, using water and using colors. His doctoral supervisor, Mr. john young, is now an expert in the National Academy of Painting. His postdoctoral tutor, Mr. Chen Zhenlian, has made great achievements in painting and calligraphy. The trajectory of gentleman's struggle is the way Shen Ke should take all his life, but Shen Ke has never learned the style they created. He said he would go out of my own way, so that he felt worthy of you gentlemen. He doesn't learn the style of the ancients, not to say that the style created by the ancients is not good. Can you say that Tang poetry is not good? But we modern people don't use Tang poetry to write articles. The ancients painted landscapes, which was very problematic, especially the expression of mountain structure, especially this and that, which harmed many people. Most hills are painted as steamed buns or haystacks. In fact, when you have a comprehensive understanding of the styles of ancient and modern landscape paintings and are skilled in expression, you will draw new things when you go deep into the natural landscape.

Shen Ke gradually changed from sketch and realism to relaxed semi-realistic and semi-abstract expression. If you look at his paintings carefully, one is very realistic, which constitutes the main body of the picture, and the others are added by Shen Ke according to his own preferences. The mountain painting is not so comprehensive, what is added is the extension of the soul. Schenk tried to get rid of the traditional landscape painting style, and made a serious study on the structure of mountains, rivers, trees, bridges and cottages. The layman looks at the mountains mostly like steamed bread, which is flat. In fact, mountains have volume, background and mutual penetration. Ordinary people can't see these things. The painter's task is to clearly show these things that best reflect the characteristics of mountain peaks and make people look more relaxed and real. Isn't this "writing with a pen"? If you don't study hard and only learn one or two painting methods, the peaks you draw are almost the same, which is very boring. Tree, the traditional painting method of "antlers and crab claws, point leaves and clip leaves", has great limitations, so don't learn it. The trees in nature are very vivid. Take more photos, do more research, find out their laws, get familiar with their structures, and paint the trees naturally and vividly.

China's traditional culture has a long history, great inertia and its own complete system, and its artistic requirements are quite different from those of westerners. Westerners generally like science, excitement and reality. China people prefer stories, which are prevaricated and imply long-term significance. In China culture, writing, singing and touring landscapes is an important aspect of our elegant life, so there is a market for landscape painting. Speaking of which, we'll get straight to the point. What does landscape painting want to express? From Shen Ke's landscape paintings, we can easily see that what his works express is not the beauty of natural landscapes, but only a small aspect. It's not a fabricated beauty. That kind of beauty has no commonness, only limitations. The artistic conception of beauty expressed in Shen Ke's landscape paintings comes from books, which are the classics of China culture. We can see this from the inscriptions on his landscape paintings. For example, there are mountains and water on all sides, birds are singing in a forest, the ground is secluded and the clouds are deep, people live in huts and huts (the above two sentences were written by Wu Cheng'en), white clouds accompany two or three monks (Tang's sentences), and white clouds incline over deep valleys (Tang's sentences), so people are on the peach blossom bank until the stream flows in front of the door (Tang Changjian's sentences), and ". There are too many beautiful artistic conceptions in the works of literati in past dynasties, and what they write is not a specific scene, but a realm. With this realm, you naturally have what you want to express.