Two Reviews of Liu Xinchun's Paintings

--An Appreciation of Liu Xinchun's Script Flower and Bird Paintings (Xinmin)

Chinese flower and bird paintings, as a traditional and important subject, have not been able to take up a heavy sense of mission in its modern artistic development like figures in landscape, but as a traditional form of visual expression, its unique artistic aesthetic value is something that cannot be replaced by any other kind of paintings. However, as a traditional form of visual expression, its unique artistic aesthetic value is irreplaceable by other kinds of paintings.

Many painters in Chinese history have been attracted to birds and flowers, which is related to the worship of nature and affinity, but also because of its distance from the social reality, but also from the unpredictable. Today's era, the political and human harmony, cultural prosperity, unprecedented tolerance for the field of art, showing a colorful and pleasant scene. Liu Xinchun in his bird and flower painting interpretation of a new context of ink and brush, his works are fresh, bright, show a flower a world of artistic charm and rich connotation, and can give a person a sense of the Buddha's heart.

Appreciating Liu Xinchun's works of Chinese calligraphy and birds, one can not only feel the infinite charm of traditional ink and wash, but also explore the unremitting efforts he has made in persistent innovation. He is able to integrate the delicate emotions expressed in his works into the subtle flow of nature, following the objects and wandering with his heart, and through his images, he expresses a rich idyllic atmosphere, creates a harbor for the spirit, and expresses the humanistic concern of purifying the soul. In the use of the language of ink and brush, he is good at using color, and his use of color is ancient and fresh, colorful but not vulgar; the contrast between color and ink is strong, with great visual impact and infectious force. His works are simple, vivid and full of interest, overflowing with a strong sense of life and modern aesthetic interest.

From Liu Xinchun's paintings such as "Frosty Winds of Plain Practice", "Summer Intentions" and "Deep Spring Intentions", it can be seen that he has inherited the traditional characteristics of Chinese paintings such as using line as the skeleton, ink as the rhyme, and resembling and not resembling, and at the same time, he has also poured in his deep love for the nature, and poured in his endless love for the nature, and his creations are the outpouring of his true feelings and the eulogies and praises to the life, and the melting of his true feelings have given the paintings a life. His paintings are the expression of his true feelings and his eulogy and tribute to life, and the infusion of his true feelings gives his paintings life, thus, generating a strong ****ming with the readers.

Close to life, division of nature, division of creation is Liu Xinchun always adhere to the pursuit of artistic creation. He can sketch the scene, with his own eyes to find the discovery of beauty; with their own way of thinking to recognize the world; with their own unique means to misery, performance of their own ideal of the object. He opposes the application of traditional patterns and symbolization, but creates with his own perception and expression. He believes that "real life is the source of inspiration, insist on sketching, in the fertile soil of life to capture the passion and the feeling of beauty, in order to create the shape of both God, vivid, rich in the spirit of the times of the excellent works".

Liu Xinchun in the deep understanding of the aesthetic spirit of predecessors at the same time, he can be diligent thinking not only in the creation of the inheritance of the spirit of the art of Chinese painting, but at the same time not be confined to the predecessors of the ink and brush pattern, his works are not a simple copy of the ancients on the surface, but also to express the transcendence of the nature - both material and spiritual, and is the form of the individual life meaning of the externalization. Chinese painting on the realm and ink and brush almost harsh requirements, so that the painter must go beyond the technical level of refining, excellent Chinese painters, not only to have a high level of skill, but also have a wealth of education, character, sentiment. It is because Liu Xinchun can achieve both physical and mental training, coupled with his natural wisdom, enlightenment and diligence, he has gradually formed his own unique style of painting, which not only covers the traditional pattern of Chinese flower and bird painting, but also better accomplishes the modern conversion of traditional patterns, and gradually forms his own symbols of ink and brush language.

Liu Xinchun is now a member of the Chinese Artists Association and vice president of the Beijing Dapin Painting Academy. In his creation, he is able to learn from the spirit of artistic creation of his predecessors on the one hand, and inherit their virtues and feelings on the other hand, and respect his masters and teachers as sages. This is exactly the reason why he can get achievements in the art field. As the old saying goes: "The saints contain the Tao and respond to things, the sages clarify their minds and flavor the images. Dong Qichang said: "When the dust and turbidity are removed from the chest, the gullies and ravines will naturally camp within. Liu Xinchun is a gifted and enlightened painter, and his works of birds and flowers have been widely acclaimed, highly sought after by collectors and praised by the painting industry. In recent years, his works have frequently won awards in major exhibitions and exhibitions, indicating that his paintings have been recognized. With his nature and talent, he will bring us more splendor. As fellow artists, we are full of blessings and expectations. (Xinmin)

In my impression, Liu Xinchun is a painter with individuality. He is not good at publicity, his heart is straight, and he keeps a solitary rule in his life, with some rigid edges and corners preserved relatively intact. Therefore, in the creation of paintings, this character of his has been brought into full play, and he has achieved the artistic realm of painting like a human being. His paintings have a distinctive personality, techniques from the traditional out of the innovative brushwork, works of ink moist, faraway mood, the picture novel atmosphere, has been generally recognized by the art world.

Chinese flower and bird painting is an important carrier of the literati and artists to express their emotions, it contains the essence of the Oriental charm, the painter painting, the intention is not to copy the object in the eyes, but in the emotional outpouring and the expression of the heart, to create good works, you need to have a deep traditional skills and unique life experience, but also to have a kind of quiet and elegant spiritual realm. Liu Xinchun's bird and flower paintings have the above conditions, he has been overcoming the quick success and impatience, respect for tradition as an important means to improve their own, learning from Bada and modern Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Li Kuchan and other masters of the art of skills to start with, with the tradition of cleansing the impatience of the air, so that the body and mind of the brush and ink into the realm of the virtual, and then to achieve the "thing and I am two forgetfulness, the heart and hand unity! and then achieve the artistic realm of "forgetting the object and the self and uniting the mind and the hand". At the beginning of the century, in order to improve his education, he participated in the first flower and bird painting advanced study class of the China Art Association, and was instructed by Mr. Guo Yizong, Zhang Lichen, Huo Chunyang, Han Laiwen, Guo Shifu, and Jia Guangjian, etc. He y understood the significance of the flower and bird paintings and the expression of emotions from the sermons of the famous masters, and so his brush strokes conveyed the emotional catharsis and the portrayal of the spirituality of the things, which presented the readers with a pleasant enjoyment of the art.

Mood is a unique aesthetic category in Chinese art. The "meaning" of mood contains various subjective factors such as emotion, cognition, imagination, will and ideal, and integrates these factors with emotion as the base. In the creation of Chinese bird and flower paintings, mood is always a realm pursued by painters, and the beauty of the mood of the picture makes many painters rack their brains for it. The creation of artistic mood is by no means a product of subjective "internal camping" and "heart creation", but a result of the combination of feelings with the situation. Therefore, "there is emotion and then true", and the most important specialization process for the creation of mood is the formation of emotion with the environment. Mr. Liu Xinchun's bird and flower paintings attach importance to the creation of mood, and he uses the symbols of ink and brush to carefully organize the picture, so as to achieve the purpose of conveying feelings with the mood. The composition of Mr. Liu Xinchun's bird and flower paintings is quite unique. If you study his paintings carefully, you can easily see that many of his works are full compositions, with very little space left in the picture. However, he is able to use ink and color to chafe the intensity and distance, creating a multi-dimensional three-dimensional space and showing a sense of winding paths.

"Teach from nature", focusing on nature to draw nourishment, the characteristics and connotations of nature and the elements of beauty to blend processing, forming their own creative material, or make some of the scenery directly into the painting, is the inevitable path of every successful painter. Liu Xinchun in order to improve his artistic skills, he often deep into the life, the division of nature, division of creation as a pursuit of creation, close to life, from life to catch the highlights of their own way of thinking to understand the world, with their own unique techniques to express their own ideals of the object. In Xinchun's works, there are few traditional patterns and formulas, so his compositions, brushwork and ink forms are based on his own perceptions and expressive techniques. He believes that "real life is the inspiration and source of painting creation, insisting on sketching and searching for passion and beauty in nature, in order to create excellent works with both shape and spirit, vividness and the spirit of the times."

Reading Mr. Liu Xinchun's works, a long-lost feeling from the bottom of the heart. Not only for his pure flavor, full of masculine atmosphere of the beauty of the painting style moved. Throughout these works, the general feeling is sound, graceful and elegant, full of charm. The works not only show his profound traditional skills, but also have a strong flavor of the times. The work "Bamboo Rhythm", the picture is fresh and natural, the picture depicts the beauty of cleansing the dust and the style of a modest gentleman, the bamboo by the water swaying with the wind, the bird standing on the bamboo branches, showing the far-reaching scenery. There is an ancient style, have their own intention, the writing is exquisite, both everyone Mr. Zheng Banqiao's legacy of rhyme, but also another style. In "Lotus", the author describes the scene of the summer lotus pond, the painting is strewn with large pieces of lotus leaves, the lotus leaves are written in thick and light gray ink, mixed with lake blue water plants, the rosette is yellowish-green, light red lotus, dotted with black stamen tip. Under the dense leaf veins, there are rippling and floating water waves, and two water ducks are swimming to their heart's content. The work uses unrestrained, splashy brushes, drenching ink, and just the right intensity, dryness, wetness, and lightness to express the scenery of the lotus pond and the purity of the lotus flower in a divine way. Autumn Fun" is a work of the artist to express the harvest season in autumn, the picture composition is fresh, the branches of the tree hang down diagonally, the leaves are thick and luxuriant, the light red fruits correspond to the bamboo with smooth lines, and a greedy oriole stands on the bamboo trunk with its eyes fixed on the fruits emanating fragrance, the artist expresses the bird's demeanor in a vivid manner, which embodies the artist's mastery of the ink and the brush. Peonies after Rain" gives people a feeling of richness and atmosphere, the artist uses the contrast between ink and color to show the feeling of peonies after rain, and there is a pugilist standing on top of the stone as if sniffing the fragrance of the flower, which also reflects the beautiful phenomenon of the harmony between animals and plants in the nature, and creates a poetic and pictorial realm in which only peonies are true national colors, and the city is moved by them in blooming season. The work "Vegetarian Face" can be said to be a masterpiece of the artist. In this sound picture, Mr. Liu Xinchun has shown his mastery of water and ink, ink and color. Through the contrast, transition and intermingling of ink and color, the artist exquisitely constructs the harmony and unity of ink and brush, modeling and mood, creating a leisurely, tranquil, idle and elegant, and rendering the lotus, a spiritual symbol, to its fullest extent; in addition, the artist also uniquely superimposed the reeds into the picture, the vertical lines plus the horizontal leaves, which makes the picture more rhythmic. I have read many painters paintings of lotus, most of those works with traditional colors, but like Liu Xinchun lotus painting techniques or a kind of innovative approach, which is also in the tradition of painting the lotus road to create a shortcut for the creation of a new style of realistic flower and bird paintings. From this we believe that, as long as the art of their own path of continuous progress, his bird and flower paintings will be its graceful and generous effect, in the writing of bird and flower paintings to achieve greater splendor in the creation of achievements.