Chapter 35 The Consciousness of Radish and Cabbage

I don't know how to draw, but I like to see pictures.Influenced by the environment when I was young, I read more Chinese paintings; later, I was influenced by Western humanistic thoughts, and I was once obsessed with Western paintings; now I am middle-aged and feel very autumnal, as if I have realized the mystery of the horizontal windows with sparse shadows, and I am fond of traditional Chinese paintings.Since I have this preference, it is said that I should learn some painting principles, and only by looking at paintings can I see the real world; but after all, I am lazy, and I always feel that what I love, why should I be reasonable?Therefore, when I talk about tradition and style, I don't refer to painting skills, but painting consciousness.Zhang Daqian drew a painting of radish and cabbage, and wrote a poem by Shi Tao: "He is indifferent to his career as a Confucianist, and his family is poor and hungry and has no fish; don't cook the roots in too much oil, and leave some green lights to teach his children!" The radish with green tassels and red heads , Fresh and green cabbage, here has become a symbol of integrity in the cold soil, with that poem, the strength of character is naturally more and more outstanding.

Besides, most of the mountains and rivers in landscape paintings linger on the dream of the hometown, inevitably entangled with political associations of love and hate. Distinguished.Huang Binhong painted a landscape for Chen Zhu in 1924. Chen Zhu responded with two poems, one of which was: "Thousands of ravines and peaks want to penetrate the clouds, but it is difficult to distinguish the old mountain village; the setting sun reflects red in the blood." Do you know that the country is bloodstains?" The second song even said that it is difficult to look back when China is broken, so I only look at it from the painting of Mr. Chen Zhu. With a deep understanding of the consciousness of Chinese art and the integrity of Chinese painters, the poems will not fail to live up to the sustenance in Huang Binhong's paintings. As for Li Keran's paintings "Wanshan Red" and "Jinggang Mountain", the intention is of course to depict the landscape of "changing China's destiny" , the political consciousness at the bottom of the pen could not be clearer. When he was labeled as a "black painter" and suffered persecution, he locked himself in the studio and wrote works based on principles. Thinking about it, he turned the mountains and rivers of his homeland into hills and valleys in his chest; these ink marks, It must be more to see the present situation in the classics.

In Li Keran's theory of landscape painting, there are eight characters of "the courage of the valuable, the soul of the desired", which not only covers the experience of painting art, but also reveals the embrace of the painter.Every time I listen to painters talking about paintings, what often comes to mind is not paintings, but people.A few days ago, Guan Shanyue came to Hong Kong and brought me a few films of recent works for publication.Guan Lao wrote about plums, and I don’t know how many people have turned them upside down; I have read one of his ink plums, and Wang Mian’s big characters are inscribed "Don’t let people praise your beauty, only leave the clean air to fill the universe", with iron stems and curly branches, and the solitary signs are beautiful , What a miracle!Then, talk to him about the problem that contemporary painters don’t know how to enter and exit traditions, and eventually cannot innovate on the basis of traditions. Guan Lao said: There are people from Dongguan who sell mats, and customers think the mats are too short and not suitable for their length.The table vendor said, "Do you sleep for the living or for the dead?"The guest replied: Of course it is for living people to sleep!The seat vendor said: "If you are a living person, don't you curl up and sleep?" !The guest is dumbfounded.This is true for mats and traditions; this is true for writing and painting, and it is also true for viewing paintings.The redness of Wanshan can be the setting sun or the bloodstains: Chinese painting is valuable for the mind, what is needed is the awareness, and the awareness and awareness are combined. Of course, radish and cabbage are no longer radish and cabbage.

June 1986