Chapter 11 Such a poetic and picturesque feeling——Cheng Dali's "That Piece of Blue Sky and That Square Land" Preface

Although the "sensational effect" has been lost, novels have always been the vanguard in the literary world, and poetry has been noisy for a while, while prose has been in a downturn for many years and has never been "sensational". After the "May 4th Movement", the prose masters such as Zhu Ziqing, Yu Pingbo, Bing Xin, etc. seem to have no successors.The proses in recent years are either from novelists or scholars' leisure pens, or from the practice of beginners, and there are very few wonderful works.Writing prose requires both leisure and elegance; although the prose is scattered, it must be coherent, but the loose language must be gathered with energy to have spirit.Fiction can use plot tricks, and poetry can impress readers with a burst of inspiration.Although prose cannot be said to require every sentence to be brilliant, at least your essay must have its own charm.The proses of novelists and scholars are "idle", so they are out of focus before they start; as for beginners, their gods have not yet been refined, and their articles are naturally horrible.This kind of genre is actually very difficult to write, and it is often thankless, so it seems that there are only a few people who specialize in prose writing now.

However, if you approach this genre from another angle, not from the perspective of a writer and scholar, but from the perspective of a painter, it can also give people a new idea, the so-called oblique entry is also true.Italy is an artist who has achieved high attainments in traditional Chinese painting. His works have been exhibited at home and abroad many times, and he has won awards in national art exhibitions.He lived a poor life on a barren land.Barrenness and poverty seem to have been the nourishment for Chinese literati since ancient times.To put it in a more pleasant way now, it means that I was born among the people and close to life since I was a child.Afterwards, he engaged in painting, and he was engaged in traditional Chinese painting focusing on freehand brushwork.I have always believed that the painting form of traditional Chinese painting can lead people into a profound artistic conception.It requires the painter's vision to break away from the concrete appearance and extract the inner spirit and spirit of the external world according to his own accomplishment.This art form not only concentratedly expresses the Chinese way of observing the world but also expresses the Chinese way of thinking to understand the world (if viewed from the form of drama, it is also the way of Chinese self-expression).In addition to painting, he also writes some articles, and now he has compiled a collection of essays.

After reading several of his essays, I have the above impressions.Indeed, it seems necessary to make a detour from the fringe art forms of literature in order to restore the decline of prose.In fact, the core of literature, the essence of literature, is not novels, prose, or essays, but poetry.If a person engaged in literary creation is not a poet first, then he will not be able to write well in any other literary genre.What is terrible now is that many young and middle-aged people who engage in novels and essays are not poets, and even lack poetic accomplishment.When a poet writes prose, he chooses topics that he cannot include in his poems, such as political comments, thoughts on current events, academic experience, etc., because he is not interested in doing projects that he is good at, so the fireworks of such articles are extremely strong. Poetry is gone.Poetry creation, "is all about the fusion of artistic conception, beyond the sound" (Zhu Chengjue's "Cunyutang Poetry Talk") to capture the aesthetic effect of "the moon in the water, the image in the mirror" (Yan Yu's "Canglang Poetry Talk").Please note that the poetic elements pointed out by the ancients are completely connected with painting.Since poets write poems that can be included in poems, and only draw leftovers into prose, they have to give up the field of prose to painters.

I can't say that Italy's prose has been written very well, but at least he has introduced a world full of light and color into the text.Observing reality with the eyes of a painter has a different flavor than that written by a writer.As the saying goes, "There are paintings in poems, and poems in paintings." As a painter, the proses written by Dali are quite poetic.I think this may not be what he did intentionally, because there is no trace of deliberate carving from Yuli's lines, and some sentences even lack embellishment.However, I think that's what's valuable.In my opinion, when a writer paints, he should not lose his duty as a writer at all times. If he wants to be a writer in his paintings, then even if his paintings are far from professional painters, that is, there are some things that are higher than painters or It is different from the characteristics of a painter's painting; similarly, a painter's composition should always use his own painter's vision.The text of Dali is exactly this way.

I think this collection will give some inspiration to those who are interested in writing prose.