Chapter 3 Author's Preface

A society without art is a society of blind ignorance.Such a society always closes itself in simplistic rules and regulations, and knows nothing about the rich and colorful external world.Because of this, once the authoritarians come to power, they will immediately open the door to banning, banning and burning books and burying Confucianism in the cultural and art circles.In this way, they achieve the purpose of killing different opinions and paralyzing people's thinking, making the people forget history and give up the pursuit of ideals, so as to consolidate their autocratic rule.However, such a society is precisely the fertile ground for new art and artists.

The term "artist" is used here not so much as a definition but as a designation for all those who make art.This title has caused a lot of dissatisfaction and discussion.The more sublime, great, simple and beautiful the art, the smaller, the more despised, and even cast aside by the artist.People often only pay attention to the form of things and ignore their essence. They often only see trees but not the forest, and a leaf blinds their eyes but not Mount Tai.From Picasso's blue overalls, Vlaminck's wooden tie, Braque's hat to the surrealists' fights and provocations, some naive people and many hostile people generalize and make masquerade Treat supplies as works of art, treat fighters as hooligans, and forget (the essence is pure ignorance) that all the above-mentioned behaviors are just a person's appearance, and can never represent the essence of his thoughts, let alone his creative achievements.

In LapinAgile, a venue for Parisian artists. ——Annotation The painters who are active in the area are in the "Lilac Garden" Closerie de Lilas: a tavern in the Montparnasse district of Paris. ——Annotation The poets who are active in the area also wear some strange costumes from time to time, organize some weird activities, and sometimes shoot in the public, provoking the bourgeoisie in various ways.The main reason is: in that era, the bourgeoisie never liked them, and even always discriminated against and insulted them.The bourgeoisie at that time stuck to all the ideas formed under the old system, but those poets and painters believed in anarchism, and in later years they also believed in communism and Trotskyism.They belong to two completely irreconcilable camps.

It must be understood, however, that artists produce a great deal of art beyond their dress and everyday behaviour.At the heart of artists' lives is artistic creation.Picasso can wear whatever he wants, Alfred Jarry can play with his pistol at will and never give up, Breton and Aragon are ready to shake their fists at those who despise them, but their pranks are related to their lives. The merits of creation are insignificant in comparison.Modern art was born out of the hands of these outstanding meddlers.From 1900 to 1930, they were not satisfied with pure artistic creation, but also participated in and engaged in a large number of political activities and joined political parties.Although they created a unique language for the times—the language of art, they were slandered and attacked by some people, and at the same time aroused the envy and even hatred of others.

"King Yubu", "Rite of Spring", "Beast Cage" and other self-proclaimed cubist paintings, as well as Matisse's "Joy of Life" exhibited at the Independent Art Exhibition in 1906, aroused public interest. Public indignation is enough to reflect how strongly the avant-garde received social resistance and resistance at that time.Although Stravinsky was insulted in every way, he still accepted the reality frankly.He believed that the public should not be asked to show tolerance for artists, but artists should be asked to try to understand why the public attacked them.Because if he had heard his own music in the year before it was written, he might have shrugged his shoulders and expressed disrespect.

Any avant-garde will arouse people's dissatisfaction, but society will eventually understand and accept them.New currents of thought and art always replace the creations of predecessors, making people forget the recklessness of previous generations.The back wave always drives the front wave, and each wave is higher than the last wave. This is how history promotes the development and progress of artistic creation: In the field of painting, Impressionism also aroused great anger from the public when it appeared, and aroused criticism from all walks of life.After the emergence of Neo-Impressionism, the public gradually forgot about Impressionism and turned to criticize Neo-Impressionism, but far less strongly than when the terrifying Fauvism appeared.Cubism, which was deformed like a devil, dispelled people's public indignation against Fauvism.In terms of poetry, Parnassiens is an anti-romantic literary movement that emerged in 1866 and was named after the Parnasse (Parnassos) mountain in northeastern Greece. ——Annotation replaced the romantic school, and the symbol school drove out the parnas school.In the music world, Bach has always represented the baroque artistic style that flourished from the 17th century to the first half of the 18th century, while Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven created symphonies, and Berlioz’s symphonies were more harmonious and beautiful than the twelve-tone system Beautiful.

At the beginning of the 20th century, France became the world capital of the avant-garde.But there are two factions among the avant-garde factions active in Montmartre on the right bank of the Seine in Paris: Su Bo and Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), French painter and son of Susan Valadon. , Susan Valadon, Utter and some other artists who have never burst out of the spark, they still continue Toulouse-Lautrec Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), French painter, lithographer Painter, poster designer.tradition of.The other faction is some accomplished artists who live on the "laundry boat" in Montmartre.The former is created for the sake of creation, while the purpose of the latter is to explore new art.People who come from different countries, speak different languages, have been influenced by different cultures, and have absorbed the nutrients of different lands gather together to be able to freely engage in painting and poetry creation, and to get rid of too complicated, boring, Rigid and rigid rules and regulations, engage in creation according to one's own wishes.Among them are: the Spanish Gris and Picasso, the Dutch Van Dongen, the Italian-Polish Apollinaire, the Swiss Sandras, the French Braque, Flemish, De Lang and Max Jacob. cloth.

The avant-garde artists active in Montparnasse on the left bank of the Seine are also enriching and enriching the art treasure house of the world.Among them are: Italian Modigliani, Mexican Diego Rivera, Scandinavian Kroger, Russian Soutine, Chagall, Zade Keen, Diaghilev and French Loesche, Matisse, Delaunay. In the 1920s, some American writers, Swedes, and people from Russia, Romania and other countries also came to Paris and joined them. From now on, there are no longer three, five or ten artists active on the streets of Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris, but hundreds or even thousands.Among them are painters, poets, sculptors and musicians, as well as rich people who support culture and art; there are models and publishers, millionaires and poor people who have no money.They come from all over the world, bringing classical or modern culture and art from all over the world.As a result, Paris has become the cultural and artistic capital of the world in one fell swoop.

Before World War I, although Picasso had made a fortune, most of his companions still lived in unimaginable poverty.After 1918, many of them bought Bugatti cars and private mansions, and the era of enlightenment in painting ended.Guillaume Apollinaire died two days before the armistice, and the era of the avant-garde came to an end.Modigliani left in 1920, and the wandering life of the artists came to an end.The death of the Bulgarian Jules Parsons on June 1, 1930, permanently ended an entire era—and completely closed the door on the era of bohemian artists. The reason why artists from all over the world choose to live in Paris is because Paris is a city that is generous and welcomes guests from all over the world with brotherly enthusiasm at any time. free world.Today, Picasso, Apollinaire, Modigliani, Sandras and Soutine are no longer there.They were driven away from the Seine on the grounds that Picasso was taking drugs, Apollinaire was hiding precious cultural relics, Modigliani was making trouble in public places, Sandras was stealing, Soutine was poor and begging everywhere.

People can list more reasons to condemn them, but all these can only prove that artists, whether in the past or today, always live on the margins of society, have never been able to become the center of society, and have not received due attention.They are unable to change their status quo, so they become a special group and have to go into exile in other countries. The purpose of talking about the literary artists of yesterday is to love the literary artists of today.Memories can serve as reflections, and shadows from the past can help us check our reality today.After spanning decades, today's literary artists are still brothers to their predecessors.

Creation is the primary need of artists in life.Modigliani, Soutine, and Picasso devoted their whole beings to the arts, criticizing van Dongen and others for following high society.In their view, these companions living in the same era betrayed their own careers, damaged the image of the artist, and became mere craftsmen and craftsmen of painting.A craftsman cannot be called an artist.One day, Pierre Soulages Pierre Soulages, born in 1919, is a contemporary French painter. The main paintings after 1946 are abstract paintings. ——Annotation pointed out to me the fundamental difference between the two.He said: "Artists are engaged in research and exploration. There is no ready-made path for them to move forward. In order to achieve their goals, they must explore. But for craftsmen, their goals are clear, and the path to reach their goals is ready-made, which is right in front of them. " It hit the nail on the head. Artists work alone, employ no one, and have no career.Whether they create paintings or poems is not a matter of skill, but a matter of inspiration, and there is no fixed means.If a man lacks thought, has no imagination, and the thinking of the mind is malfunctioning, no one can save him by any means, no one can replace him with anything.A work of art is therefore unique, as is the person who created it.No caryatid created by anyone can compare with the caryatid created by Modigliani.Robert Desnos bought Picasso's charcoal drawing, but sold it as a Braque, because it was a joint work between the two of them during the great period of Synthetic Cubism. Both of them are engaged in research and exploration at the same time.The unknown and doubts are the eternal themes of the artist.For them there is never a new creation, because new art is always waiting for them to discover.They explore without any reliance, and never refer to the creations of their predecessors.Success and novelty are temporary phenomena.Every time you have to start from scratch, this zero is a bottomless abyss, the artist is always living in the abyss of exploration, once the abyss reaches the end, it means that the artist's new work is about to be born. The artists described in the book were born in the studio of the "laundry boat" in Montmartre on the right bank of the Seine, and grew up on the streets of Beehive Street and Montparnasse.The writing process of this book is intertwined with my novel "Sleeping Naked" published in 1998, and it is a supplement to the gaps, flaws and undisclosed mysteries in the novel "Sleeping Naked". I spent several years writing both books at the same time.If you feel tired after writing one book, put it aside temporarily and write another one.Therefore, it has not been possible to completely distinguish them, nor can they be completely separated.They are a pair of twins, the only difference being that one is a novel and the other is an anecdote.If it is not written, it is impossible to write "Naked Lying"; without "Naked Lying", there is no way.These artists from all over the world created modern art based on their different social and cultural backgrounds.Over the years, I have been paying attention to collecting relevant materials.I have so many materials and their stories are so rich and colorful, it is impossible to accommodate them in a book, nor can I dedicate them all to readers.They're some tenacious, terrific companions.In the process of collecting data, the deeper I got to know them, the more excited I became. I was the first to write "Naked Lying".The first draft comes off with such ease, it can be said that a thousand words are written in one stroke.However, I found that there was more truth in it than fiction.Faced with the information about the "laundry boat" and the characters of the Rue de la Vavans, I couldn't invent any other characters.Their lives alone are enough to constitute a novel. So I start over.I decided to remove all the ladders that would allow me to attack the castle and move them elsewhere.I set out to write two books at the same time. Sleeping Naked does not rely on the sources of witnesses of the era, but mainly through fiction, focusing on what usually happened in the studios, bars, and brothels of the era.The narration and memories of witnesses are fully used, and the real life and creation of literary artists in Montmartre and Montparnasse are described in the tone of the narrator. I'm not an expert on art history, I'm a writer.Writers have their own language.This book uses my own language, that is, to create another kind of fiction using the real people, real events, real places and real works who lived at the turn of the century to make the world understand a real era.