The Artistic Features of Mei School

The Mei School art of Peking Opera conforms to China's traditional aesthetic consciousness of justice and peace, and embodies linear artistic norms and harmonious forms. Behind Mei's unremitting pursuit of Peking Opera art is the artistic spirit of Taoism, and combined with her years of artistic practice, she put forward the artistic concept of "moving without deformation". This idea just points out a way for the development of traditional art, that is, to seek development and innovation on the basis of respecting and inheriting tradition. Beijing opera's inheritance of Mei school art can be said to provide us with a very valuable example. As a drama different from other countries in the world, China's traditional opera art has its own set of artistic symbol system in terms of its artistic form. In a word, the unique artistic symbol system of China Opera is a kind of line art, and this "line art" is a rational abstraction. ⑵ The perceptual knowledge of this linear artistic norm is actually the product of rational abstraction. China's traditional operas, no matter the plot structure or the stage performance, undoubtedly need to be treated with corresponding techniques and techniques, and a living artistic whole can be effectively constructed through various artistic symbols and means of expression. Through careful and true observation of life, artists, with their unique artistic thinking and artistic sensibility, keenly capture and grasp all kinds of details in life, process and sort them out, remove the rough and extract the fine, and sublimate and condense them into a figure with the beauty of dance sculpture and indicative ideographic meaning under the principle of freehand brushwork, which we call procedure. Sleeve, feather, catwalk, eye, cloud hand, arm and other programs, as artistic symbols and expression means of China traditional opera, creatively and artistically arrange and combine actors according to the emotions and personalities of different characters, unfold plots, tell facts and drum up emotions. To sum up, the linear art norm is the application of this series of programs, that is, whether it is the external form of the actors on the stage or the aesthetic feeling in the hearts of the audience, it gives people an internal linear development process and communication effect.

By the first half of the last century, Peking Opera had become a mature drama, which entered its heyday in the aspects of vocal performance of actors and performers, accompaniment music, operating position on the stage, artistic inheritance and education. In particular, the emergence of four famous Dan headed by Mei Lanfang made this stage the second peak in the history of Peking Opera. During this period, Mei Lanfang enjoyed the highest reputation, and Mei's artistic exploration was always ahead of other contemporary artists. Both his traditional old plays and his new plays conform to linear artistic norms. So specifically, the plot structure of China's operas is generally linear, and so is the repertoire of Mei School, which gives people a sense of beauty of line art to some extent. The performance of Mei School presents a linear artistic norm in the external performance of the stage, which is particularly prominent. For example, Hua Mulan's Walking Horse, Scattered Flowers, Long Sleeved Dancing, Liang Hongyu, Rinsing Zi Ling and so on. In Farewell My Concubine, the concubine played by Mei Lanfang has a double sword singing and dancing, which can best reflect the ever-changing style of lines on the stage. Mei Lanfang's character design not only has its own innovation, but also draws lessons from Tai Ji Chuan and Taiji Sword in Wushu. Two swords are two lines. These two lines can intersect, and there can be countless intersecting angles; It can be parallel, horizontal parallel or vertical parallel, and the double swords have a certain length, so two parallel swords can be aligned in parallel or staggered in parallel; Can be combined into a line, can be a combination of double swords, that is, overlapping together, can also be divided into two hands holding swords, taking the body as the central axis, and the arms and double swords form an oblique straight line to intersect with the body, which takes the body as a line. At the end of this paragraph, there is a figure with a low waist. The process of lowering the waist is a process from one line to two lines, and then from a broken line to a curve. In other words, there are both static line modeling when it appears and dynamic line modeling that shows the movement process. Let's look at a concrete example. My concubine has two swords on one hand and two fingers on the other. She uses Tai Ji Chuan's knee-bending step, and circles her palms upward from her chest to her back, then puts strength on her two fingers to push her forward. In this picture, the double-fingered arm intersects with the double sword behind it, not with the sword but with Yuji's weak double fingers, not with her graceful figure, but in a straight line. This little gesture, set off by the double swords, is decisive, clean, vigorous and straight, and merciless, freeing the overlord from Kyrgyzstan and encouraging him to pick up his ambition and rally again. The mood and intention are very clear and infectious. Mei Lanfang's stage performance makes us feel that as long as we follow the linear artistic norms, according to the development of the plot and the identity, personality and emotion of the characters, we can achieve more perfect artistic effects by rationally using the combined linear expression program. Another example is Yang Yuhuan's hand-held folding fan in "Drunk Imperial Lady". In the graceful posture and tactfully singing, the folded folding fans make various shapes, which show different postures and emotions in coordination with various forms of Yang Yuhuan's body. The unfolded folding fan, while shaking, swinging, flapping and rotating in Yang Yuhuan's hands, presents a linear and smooth movement process, and the curves connected by each movement track are particularly rich and diverse. The straight line between two points is the shortest, and other curve paths except the straight line are endless. The flying, turning, ups and downs and waves of the moving curve present different levels of space, which makes the audience's inner aesthetic heart spin around. It can be seen that Mei Lanfang follows the linear artistic norms and makes good use of linear programs to achieve the effect of formal beauty. "Give priority to the circle" is the criterion in China's traditional cultural ideal. As an important category of China's classical aesthetics, Yuan is an important standard of literary criticism and art in past dynasties, and Peking Opera is no exception. Mei's artistic practice constantly pursues beauty, and beauty needs roundness. In the early years of the Republic of China, Mei Lanfang often discussed the art of Peking Opera with the famous pianist Chen Yanheng. Mr. Chen Yanheng said, "(Beijing Opera art) should avoid several words: strange, chaotic and vulgar. This play is for others. If you want them to listen comfortably, you must understand the truth that "harmony is the most important thing" ... consider singing, avoid chaos and hard mountains, and make listeners puzzled. "

Judging from Mei Lanfang's decades of stage career, "harmony" is the most precious and "harmony" is the most beautiful, which is the principle that he has been practicing all his life. His artistic achievements and generous and harmonious Mei style have not left this principle. Until the early 1960s, when Mei Lanfang met Chen Yanheng's son, Chen Funian, he did not forget to praise Chen Yanheng's artistic thought of "harmony is precious", which was an "outline of experience" and "worth pondering". It shows that Mei Lanfang attaches importance to this harmony word as the program of Beijing Opera's artistic style. This harmonious artistic style is reflected in Mei's harmonious temperament. Mei's singing skills are praised and imitated by her peers at home and abroad. "Mei's singing has been popular for decades. Mr. Mei's voice is crisp, bright and round, soft and firm, his singing method is euphemistic, his aftertaste is endless, and his pronunciation is clear and powerful, which conforms to the phonological norms. "

Mei Lanfang was born brilliant, her voice was bright, sweet, watery and crisp, with a stone-like high voice, which was very sonorous; Bass is like a trickle, continuous, full and restrained; Among them, the sound zone is generous, the sound of the chamber is full, and * * * sounds far away. The harmony, unity, integrity and perfection of the three music areas make people feel mellow and moist. This is the technique of coordinating musical cavity with circle as the standard. For example, Mei Lanfang's favorite play "Cosmic Front" in his life can be described as never too old to learn, changed to the old, and played to the old. It was also made into a movie and handed down as Mei's masterpiece. Mei Lanfang loved the play deeply and changed it cautiously. In this play, there is an anti-Huang Er aria which is the most difficult and has the richest melody. After years of practice and revision, this aria has become a masterpiece of his singing art. The third sentence of this aria is "I want to call that official with one voice, my husband with one voice" and the second sentence is "Call him with one voice". "Some people call this kind of singing" Steady and Ascending ". Actually, it's a Huilong cavity. After I changed it a little, it was completely different from the rising height. " The Huilong cavity used by Teacher Mei here is spiral forward and upward, and the sound line is constantly moving in circles. Each circle has a certain rhythm and rhythm, which is very clear, and the notes seem to be constantly jumping. In jumping, Miss Mei always follows the principles of high first, low first, tight first, high first, low first, high first, low first, low first and soft first, so as to achieve the effect of clear rhyme and fluency. Mei Lanfang's great success in art typically proves that only by pursuing the beauty of artistic harmony can we give full play to the unique rhythm and charm of Beijing opera.

Mei's wonderful performance and beautiful performance on the stage are not only the roundness of singing and the harmony of music, but also the harmonious and peaceful performance of characters. When Mei Lanfang visited the former Soviet Union in the 1930s, Meierkholid, a famous dramatist, praised Mei Lanfang's performance and pointed out with his keen feeling that "after watching Mr. Mei's plays, I felt that the movements in China's plays were all arc-shaped". At one time, Mei's gestures on the stage can be described as A Jia, a famous opera director and theorist. For example, the fish lying in the drunken queen, the sword bending in Farewell My Concubine, the sleeve and the square winding in Wood, even if it is an ending action, should be right first and then left, showing an "S" shape. In Farewell My Concubine, Yu Ji wakes up after a nap in the middle of the night, and the night is cool. She was full of gloom because of the difficult situation of overlord Xiang Yu, so she got up and took a walk outside the account. At this time, on the stage, Yuji walked and sang. When she sang "I am out of account, I am sad", the words "sad" made her high-profile, accompanied by a circus of Yuji, and then she turned around. At this time, her singing was changed to the word "love", and three decorative sounds were used on the word "love". Then when she grabbed the cloak and appeared, she issued a "sound". In the meantime, we can see that in music singing, every word pays attention to the segmentation of the prefix "jujube stone", and the transition is extremely natural. The word "love" is an outlet that has to be poured out because of the feelings it contains. It is a circular treatment to express the boredom and infinite melancholy of Kyrgyzstan at this time with the decorative sound of the circle on this word. In terms of characters, the moment of turning to grab the cloak is undoubtedly the core of the whole singing character, and the moment before that, in Lessing's words, is the "most fertile moment". Yu Ji made the transition by walking in a small circle, that is, turning in a small circle. This circle seems to follow one's inclinations, but it is this kind of treatment that gives the appearance full preparation, brewing and gestation, and at this time the audience under the stage is also the most exciting moment of aesthetics. This is also an intermittent rest and adjustment to the audience's aesthetic emotions. When the most wonderful moment came, the actors and the audience, the people in the play and the bystanders were baptized by artistic beauty at the same time, and together they completed a wonderful work. Because the actor's external performance is the combination of singing and doing, the integration of internal psychology and external emotions, the audience sincerely feels a sense of perfection from the heart after watching it. As can be seen from the above, Mei's circle on the Peking Opera stage is integrated, which is related to his balanced development of his own artistic skills and skills, and at the same time can be perfectly combined to make people appreciate the artistic conception of Mei School in Peking Opera. The highest concept established by Laozi and Zhuangzi is "Tao", and their purpose is to integrate with Tao in spirit, that is, the so-called "body Tao", so as to form the outlook on life of Tao and hold the attitude of life of Tao in order to settle down in real life. Zhuangzi's "understanding is clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever, clever and clever" is not the utility that technology itself achieves and needs, but the artistic utility that technology achieves. The enjoyment that I, a skilled worker, get from solving cattle is "standing with a knife, looking around and being full of ambition", which is the spiritual enjoyment and artistic enjoyment that his technology itself gets. From it, we can see that Zhuangzi used my skill to compare his pursuit of Tao. First of all, my skill "has never seen the whole cow", so its opposition to the cow disappeared, even the opposition between mind and matter disappeared. Then, because of his "meeting God without looking, and being an official with Zhi Zhi", the distance between the hand and the heart was eliminated, and the bondage of technology to the heart was eliminated. At this time, the skilled workers entered a state of infinite freedom and enrichment, and completed their understanding of cattle. At the same time, Zhuangzi also expressed Tao's situation in his life. In fact, it also expresses the artistic spirit of an artist in the pursuit of art, and the two are essentially the same. The difference is: the artist's achievements are works of art; What Zhuangzi has achieved from this is an "artistic" life for the Tao. Mr. Xu's passage can well explain that Taoism's spirit of life can also be regarded as Taoism's spirit of art. "Laozi and even Zhuangzi, the origin of their thoughts, have no desire for art at all, and have never regarded a specific art as their pursuit object. ..... If we don't take the metaphysical road of their speculation and only look at the realm of life where they have practiced time, the time they have spent is the cultivation time of a great artist; The realm of life they achieved through hard work was originally unintentional in art, but unexpectedly returned to today's so-called artistic spirit. " ⑽ Mei Lanfang's artistic pursuit and practice all his life are consciously or unconsciously practicing the realization of Taoist spirit in art, and the artistic spirit he showed in his artistic accomplishment kung fu is exactly the same as Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's "Tao" thought. Mei is decorating the language pavilion (the name of his study), talking about ci and fu with the poet Luo Yinggong, and painting with painters Qi Baishi and Xu Beihong. When Mei Lanfang was not performing, this group of literary companions and painting friends all came to Zhu Yuxuan, so Zhu Yuxuan's artistic atmosphere was rich and fragrant, and it became a famous salon in Yanjing. Mei Lanfang learned from them the nourishment of culture and the eyes of connoisseurs, and then consciously or unconsciously gradually formed a peaceful, quiet and elegant artistic style. He studies poetry, music, painting, calligraphy, sculpture, martial arts and so on. Not as a means of earning a living in exchange for material enjoyment, but as a whetstone to temper one's artistic accomplishment through the edification of various cultures and artistic attempts. It can be said that he is completing an advanced "art game" in order to improve his artistic taste, improve his artistic accomplishment and refine his artistic works. It can also be said that he is constantly crossing various artistic works. Mei Lanfang has been an artist all her life. He has a consistent and practical artistic concept, which is a Taoist artistic spirit. Mei's lifelong pursuit of art, as experts say: "Those who are good at it are also ministers, Taoist and advanced in technology." Mei's goodness is the way of art and the artistic embodiment of Taoist life view.