Inheritance of ink and wash landscape painting

Culture and art have a strong national color, and ink painting is an important part of China culture, which conveys the "psychological harmony" and "inner appearance" of the East. The random infiltration of water and ink can easily make us feel introspective. The purpose of modern ink painting, like traditional ink painting, lies in the experience and taste of life process. The difference between the two is only the topic and the way of discourse.

On the surface, the relationship between China and the West is becoming less and less a problem today. The nationality of Chinese painting is a cliche, but it is actually lingering. German historical nationalism, which originated from J.G. von Herder (1744- 1830) and william von humboldt (1767- 1835), is still enlightening. They hold the view of historicism, and believe that each nation and culture of each era has its own special value, emphasizing the principles of individualization, individualization and development and change. The reason why two independent expressive elements of ink and wash in traditional landscape painting are extracted and named as "ink and wash" is actually to purify landscape painting and give it a particularly interesting expression. In this sense, modern ink painting has completed the opposition with the "other", thus realizing the establishment of self, and its diachronic "other" is the expression form of Chinese painting; Its * * * time "other" is other contemporary Chinese paintings that have been westernized or borrowed from western art forms. Then, trying to create a new form of modern ink painting language aims to make materials make new sounds and make new expressions.

Hegel once said: "What is presented in front of people's eyes and hearts at that time must belong to people at that time if it is to fully arouse people's interest at that time." ① Since the 20th century, Chinese painting has always been unable to get rid of the crisis that can't reflect the current environment, whether it is the arduous exploration of the "fusion school" that advocates the integration of China and the West or the diligent development of the "tradition school" that advocates sticking to the tradition. This crisis comes from the pressure of western modern culture and also from Chinese painting itself, namely history and reality. Because works of art are the expression of artists' individual activities, if the individual survival experience of any artistic creator must be concrete and historical at the same time, then the creative idea, language form and aesthetic interest reflected by any works of art must also be concrete and historical. Therefore, the deep-seated reason for the sharp difference between traditional art and modern art is that ancient people have ancient cultural survival and aesthetic ideals, while modern people have modern cultural survival and aesthetic ideals, which in turn constitutes the aesthetic cultural development context of a nation's internal historical logic. New experimental ink artists, they are more in the continuation of the traditional cultural concept of ink, they hold an open sense of value, and think that only the ink art itself is oriental, local and national, not personal, psychological, spiritual and human. Therefore, as a product of a certain era, art form must be consciously integrated into the environment of the times, reflect the ideological and cultural life environment of modern people, and seek the right to speak in its context. For ink painting, "when the processed ink media tells us what it has never said and can grasp for us, it is that new feelings and experiences have found their own way of speaking." ② The most typical one is the teaching reform of Chinese painting in sichuan fine arts institute since 1980s.

As far as the origin is concerned, Chinese painting teaching in Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, like other domestic art colleges, has been strongly influenced by the western modeling system represented by western sketch since 1950s, and at the same time by the Chinese painting teaching system led by two masters, Huang and Pan Tianshou, so it is generally in line with the situation of Chinese painting in China, and the teaching personality is not very distinct. Bai Song, a famous painter, has been the head of the Department of Chinese Painting since the 1980s. Perhaps it is because almost all the teachers are young people, who have neither too many traditional burdens nor authoritative power, so their understanding of "Chinese painting" is not too bound. They believe that "literati painting is an important part of China's ancient painting tradition, but its ancient society, culture, philosophy, religion and other foundations have undergone major changes today, and copying this painting from emotional connotation to expression form is obviously unable to meet the needs of contemporary artistic expression"; (3) They also emphasize the importance of many traditional arts other than literati painting; They think that the pattern of "Chinese painting" based on literati painting in Ming and Qing Dynasties is too strong, too stereotyped and too narrow, thus forming the concept of pan-Chinese painting or "big Chinese painting". They broke the unification of literati painting, abolished western-style teaching with sketch as the main form, and tried to make it possible to establish image modeling rules and design training programs with new materials, tools and techniques. Therefore, this kind of free exploration has become the teaching feature of Chinese painting department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts.

Art itself is a creative activity, and the creative process of artistic works is to transform objective truth into subjective expression, and to express the artist's personality and emotion, which is one of the characteristics of China traditional ink painting. While drawing materials from nature, the painter is not completely realistic about nature, but incorporates his own feelings and ideas. Therefore, the works of art have the painter's strong personality, and the rocks and plants he shows in his paintings are alive, which is a new beauty and new realm that is not found in the world. However, the traditional ink and wash discourse is facing embarrassment at present, and it can't communicate with the world contemporary culture on the same level.

Faced with the dilemma of traditional ink painting, many artists have explored and reformed in different degrees, among which two complementary orientations, namely "learning from the past" represented by Huang and others and "prospering the country by borrowing foreign countries" represented by Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian, have been formed. Lu's later works rebelled against the "neutralization" norm of traditional aesthetics in spirit, confronted the flesh and blood of life, revealed the psychological space covered by classicism and created a unique realm of tragic beauty. However, his art has never surpassed the traditional masters in depth and height. The large-scale ink paintings of Guda in the mid-1980s were born out of the smooth, sharp and brisk lines and blurred strokes of porcelain paintings, which proved the possibility that the transformation of ink language could produce new meanings. Guan Liang combined the exertion of ink painting with the exaggerated deformation of modeling, and made a breakthrough from the perspective of destroying the stereotype of traditional ink painting and dispelling the "bone method" function of lines, and cut into modern expression. By purifying the elements of calligraphy and ink painting in traditional painting, he turned lines into pure ink lines, brought the special charm of light ink lines to the extreme, and realized the transformation of ink characters. The characters in Guan Liang's ink and wash plays have strong game elements, and have made groundbreaking technological progress in the modern transformation of ink and wash discourse. When Nan Li changed the traditional line writing method into the wanton splashing of ink and wash, the essence of ink and wash got unprecedented development. The rich expressive force and visual power of ink and wash media in his works undoubtedly inspired the later explorers of modern ink and wash language. The emergence and development of art can not be separated from the social and economic environment on which it depends, but art, as a spiritual expression, can obtain some eternity, which can transcend its specific history. Therefore, ink painting also has permanent significance, from which people can obtain spiritual sustenance and aesthetic satisfaction. Compared with other kinds of art, the performance of ink painting is special, and its means are most directly related to emotional expression. Pen and ink become the trace of true feelings, which is the independent value of ink painting.

However, the independence of China's ink painting system is relative. It is not a closed system. It can not only communicate and talk with China traditional arts, but also communicate and complement with foreign cultures. In the past century, western art has entered China, and China's traditional art has suffered an unprecedented impact. The introduction of western art types and styles has changed the pattern and unification of traditional art in China for thousands of years. Modern ink painters have accepted the modeling ideas of western modern art, whether impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism and abstraction, or even conceptual art, young and middle-aged ink painters in China have their own needs and absorbed them to some extent. At the beginning of the 20th century, when the context of traditional ink and wash discourse was just destroyed by modern industrial civilization, sensitive people, an intellectual class, began to advocate painting revolution. Representative figures, such as Kang Youwei, criticized the four kings of the Qing Dynasty for not seeking innovation and advocated "a new era of painting combining Chinese and Western". From then on, the modern transformation process of ink and wash discourse "making foreign things serve China" began for more than half a century. Xu Beihong and Jiang took the lead in drawing lessons from Chinese and western realistic painting, and introduced words such as light and shadow, light and shade and volume into ink painting.

Gu Wenda combined the concept expression of western modern and post-modern art with the expression of China's ink painting. By directly using some westernized concept symbols in his later ink painting, he not only exposed the lack and weakness of traditional ink painting language in the current cultural context, but also provided a breakthrough for the modern transformation of ink painting discourse, and also confirmed the possibility of this transformation through his own ink painting operation. The ink and wash discourse in the 1990s has been in line with the current cultural context, and many personalized ink and wash expressions have had a visual impact on modern people's minds. Their spiritual orientation is to reflect on the loss of naturalness brought about by the development of modern industry and high technology. The ink vocabulary they used has been fully expanded under the broad background of China traditional ink culture and western modern art. In his ink dot installation behavior, Wang Chuan presented an unprecedented pure ink dot situation, which almost completely stripped off the ink cloud deposited in the history of ink painting, providing us with the possibility of infinite interpretation of the original meaning in carefully set modern scenes. Compared with the expression of "minimalism" in western modernist artistic discourse, ink painting has a new meaning of "opening from the East" as the author said in his life. The tendency to strip away historical deposits as little as possible is almost the same orientation of abstract ink painters in the 1990s, but this orientation is emphasized as different spiritual orientations and different ideas in the artistic treatment of different painters.

Wu Peng 1994' s works "The Collection of Ink Soul" and "Notes on Ink Images" also have an obvious tendency of "minimalism" in picture form, which is quite different from the trivial floating ink images created in his previous works. Different from Zhou Wang, Wang Xiaoyu pursues the richness of ink painting through extreme reduction, so as to highlight the delicate and subtle change characteristics of ink painting. These new ink images created by him show an open vision for the future and are full of China's philosophical spirit. The recent abstract ink and wash works are also "only set in Fiona Fang", and the simplicity and intensity of the schema are clear at a glance. However, he intends to use ink and wash to express his spiritual strength and heaviness, to express "the twilight hidden in the shadow" and to express the energy hidden in silence, which is not as delicate as Feng Yuan's, but has its own unique massiness and restlessness. Ink painting installations "circle series" and "minefield series" attempt to expand the spatial mode of ink painting thinking. His approach is similar to Wang Chuan's in two aspects: the reduction of schema (often few) and the introduction of ink painting into modern installation environment. However, Wu Peng emphasized pen and ink, and thought that with strong pen and ink language, the picture would have vitality. Therefore, in synchronization with the overall schema restoration, he fully interprets the ink paintings of all parts of his works, so that the ever-changing structure of points, lines and ink produced by the infiltration of ink can freely reveal his artistic reverie and reveal his secret life experience.

Therefore, absorbing western methods in a certain range will also be beneficial to the development of Chinese painting. For example, the pen and ink used in Zhejiang figure painting, represented by Fang Zengxian, draws lessons from European painting, especially classical modeling methods, and plays a positive role in the development of traditional figure painting, which conforms to the aesthetic tradition and can be said to be a historic leap. Secondly, it draws lessons from western colors and enriches the expressive force of traditional painting.

When Zhao Mengfu emphasized the importance of ink painting as a medium, he once pointed out: "As a symbol of national identity and cultural etiquette, ink painting itself constitutes the essential feature of ink painting and is irreplaceable. It is a link in China's "cultural biological chain" and has symbolic significance. Once the medium of ink painting is lost, it will mean the arrival of China's' cultural and ecological disaster' (the loss of national identity and the rout in global competition). 4 "Pen and ink" is the word of Chinese painting. Chinese painting takes the form of "pen and ink", which is by no means created out of thin air, but comes from the psychology and mind of our nation. Chinese painting embodies the cultural characteristics of China people from concept to composition, from observation method to expression technique.

Su Shi once said: "Plain is gorgeous." . The Analects of Confucius also has the aesthetic view of "painting after the event". In China's traditional landscape painting theory, it even said: "Ink and wash are supreme, and mountains and rivers are big". Ink painting and traditional Chinese painting are also more beautiful, elegant and imposing. Mr. Zhao Mengfu once wrote in "On Painting": "Wash away the lead dust and blow away the yellow sand before you can see the gold. Painting to this point, it is wonderful. Therefore, "Ben" is expensive in being poor and white. . . . . . Shi Tao wrote a painting saying,' A stroke is like ink, like ice, so cold that it looks like Hinayana. If it is hot before your eyes, it is still illegal and unreliable. Its original intention is to use a pen to clean, use ink to clean, naturally clear the air and make people comfortable and refined. Darkness on paper is a sign of bad habits. Therefore, Wu Peng believes that when the painting changes from pure ink language to pure ink language and the color is reduced to the auxiliary position of "insufficient ink supply", it is required that the quality of the basic element "point and line" in China traditional painting and calligraphy should reach the level of "one person should keep it, and ten thousand people can't force it". Therefore, the importance of calligraphy is also highlighted in Chinese painting. From this point of view, a person who doesn't know calligraphy and lacks research on calligraphy can't talk about painting Chinese painting at all. Especially ink and wash landscape painting. His paintings, from connotation to form, are just simple but stupid "paintings". From the real painting art, it is nine days short of Wan Li. Therefore, Mr. Jiang said in "Painting Landscape Essays": "One painting is not painting, and no painting is not painting." In fact, the first sentence is about "using a pen as the bone method", and the second sentence is about "pictographs as things".

This is also the theoretical source that Chinese painting has always attached great importance to the homology of painting and calligraphy. Therefore, calligraphy is very important for drawing good works.

At the beginning of reform and opening up, China ink painting once set off a craze overseas. However, under the impact of foreign art, many ink painters who emigrated overseas gradually lost themselves and appeared the ideological tendency of denying tradition and brush and ink. After this change, people's understanding of ink painting began to reflect rationally, and the publicity of national personality, the inheritance of excellent traditions and the embodiment of the spirit of the times were reconfirmed.

As far as China ink painting is concerned, the traditional form may still be a dominant form. Of course, the "tradition" here is not an imitation of predecessors, but a traditional painting language with a sense of the times. Although the form of expression has changed, the traditional spirit has not changed. For example, Jude Shu uses collage and polishing to express the realism of the surface, which is similar to the traditional product dyeing method; Guan Shanyue used pen-and-ink painting, which combined the cursive brushwork. Perhaps in our opinion, the tools and techniques they use have nothing to do with tradition, but westerners think they are full of China spirit, perhaps because they pay great attention to absorbing the rules of traditional painting. Therefore, the formation of national forms must be based on certain techniques of expressing national styles.

In the process of the transformation from traditional ink painting to modern ink painting, in order to make the language of ink painting conform to the current cultural context, it must be in harmony with the national aesthetic psychology and changes of contemporary China people. It is necessary to adhere to nationality and modernity, and give full play to its compatibility, so as to give new vitality to tradition through innovation.