Lacquer painting is a painting with natural lacquer as the main material. Besides lacquer, there are gold, silver, lead, tin, eggshells, shells, stone chips, wood chips and other materials. In addition to vermilion, paint pigments include stone yellow, titanium white, titanium cyan, titanium cyan and so on. The techniques of lacquer painting are rich and colorful. According to its different techniques, lacquer painting can be divided into different varieties such as engraving, stacking, carving, inlaying, painting and grinding. Lacquer painting has the duality of painting and technology. It is not only a work of art, but also a practical ornament closely related to people's lives, and it has become a manifestation of wall decorations, screens and murals. China is the country that produces and uses the most lacquer in the world, and lacquer painting has a long history. The vermicelli bowl excavated in Hemudu, Yuyao, Zhejiang Province has a history of 7111 years. Lacquer wares unearthed in Changtaiguan, Xinyang, Henan, are painted with lacquer paintings of hunting music and dancing, monsters, dragons and snakes, and have a history of more than 2,111 years. There are also famous lacquer paintings on lacquer coffins of Han Dynasty unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan, lacquer screen paintings on Sima Jinlong's tomb in Datong, Shanxi, and a large number of screen lacquer paintings in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Lacquer painting has entered people's daily life more and more. It has become an indoor or even outdoor decoration, and at the same time, it has added artistic sense. China lacquer painting is a new kind of painting in the contemporary painting world. This national painting, which came from the 7,111-year-old lacquer art tradition, once represented the country as a cultural exchange and exhibited in the former Soviet Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other places, and was widely praised. This marks the new development of traditional lacquer art in China, and it is also the new creation of national painting in China.
As a painting, lacquer painting is no different from Chinese painting and oil painting. However, if lacquer painting stays in the material technique, or sticks to the traditional patterns such as pavilions, fairies and ladies, is far away from real life, is out of touch with modern people's thoughts and feelings, and lacks the painter's personality creation, then lacquer painting can't be a painting, but only a craft decoration.
The reason why lacquer painting can stand on the painting world lies in its unique aesthetic character, which comes from the characteristics of lacquer. Just as ink painting should be based on ink painting and Xuan paper, oil painting should be based on oil painting and canvas, so lacquer painting should be based on lacquer as the main medium. Therefore, people who are interested in lacquer painting must first learn to understand the language of lacquer in order to make a good article on lacquer painting. A good lacquer painter should be not only a painter, but also a painter.
The original lacquerware was for practical purposes, and then it was endowed with aesthetic functions. After the rise of porcelain in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the role of lacquerware in people's lives was blocked, and decorative lacquerware with aesthetic as the main purpose appeared. In fact, lacquerware with practicality as the main purpose and lacquerware with aesthetics as the main purpose, these two contradictory and interdependent tendencies, have always influenced each other and walked side by side. Generally speaking, lacquerware for practical purposes is mainly in the folk; Lacquerware for aesthetic purposes is mainly in the court. According to common sense, emperors spend money like water, they can use the world's treasures of gold and silver, gather skilled craftsmen from all over the world, and elaborate court lacquerware regardless of the cost. Their works should be excellent in both artistic level and technical content, representing the highest level at that time. Indeed, history has left many palace lacquerware or fine lacquerware with palace style, which are hidden in museums and go down in history.
It takes the four elements of weather, geography, beauty of materials and skillful workmanship as the comprehensive conditions of creation, and uses the technique of combining artificial and natural craftsmanship to draw half of people's paintings and half of heaven's paintings. Lacquer painting is beautiful, which is a national painting from the 7,111-year-old lacquer art tradition, and it is no different from the requirements of Chinese painting and oil painting. It can't be divorced from real life and modern people's thoughts and feelings. If it is divorced from reality and modern people's thoughts and feelings, it can only be a craft decoration, but it can't be a painting. China's four famous lacquer producing areas (Beijing, Fujian, Yangzhou and Pingyao)
1. Yangzhou lacquer painting has great influence in the whole country, and this innovative model will have a far-reaching impact on other provinces and cities. Yangzhou lacquer painting is mainly based on grinding lacquer painting. 2. Beijing Lacquer Painting: Centered on the former Central Academy of Arts and Crafts (now Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts). Advocated and fostered by the older generation of artists such as Pang Xunqin, Lei Guiyuan, Zhang Guangyu and Zhang Ding. In order to study mural materials, Li Hongyin and Qiao Shiguang were arranged to study in Fuzhou in 1962. Later, lacquer painting was included in the curriculum of mural painting and decorative painting, and a lacquer painting studio was established after the Cultural Revolution. Established lacquer art specialty in 1989. Over the past 31 years, the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts has trained many professional students. Some people in Minzu University of China, Central Academy of Fine Arts and Beijing Arts and Crafts School are also engaged in lacquer painting creation. Lacquer painters in Beijing are mostly from painting background. Besides lacquer painting, they also do oil painting, traditional Chinese painting, etc. They have been making efforts to strengthen the paintability of lacquer painting for many years, and pay attention to the inheritance of tradition in materials and techniques. Qi Diao is the most famous lacquerware in Beijing.
3. Fujian lacquer painting: Fuzhou is the main lacquer producing area in China, and it is famous for its bodiless lacquerware. Fujian lacquer painting developed from students and lacquer artists of Fujian Arts and Crafts School (Xiamen Arts and Crafts College of Fuzhou University) and Fuzhou Arts and Crafts School (Fine Arts College of Minjiang University). The author has a large lineup and strong technical force. Representative painters are: Wang Heju, who graduated from lacquer ware major in sichuan fine arts institute. His work Salt Field participated in the National Art Exhibition in 1964, and later won two prizes in the National Art Exhibition. Zheng Liwei, who graduated from Fuzhou Arts and Crafts School and worked in bodiless lacquerware factory, has a good foundation in lacquerwork. Later, he taught in Fujian Arts and Crafts School and trained many lacquer painting students. His works are good at giving full play to the specialty of lacquer and rich in decoration, and have won awards in national art exhibitions twice. Zheng Yikun, a traditional lacquer painter, is good at painting goldfish and also works as lacquer ware. Painters who also serve as lacquerware are Huang Shi, China and Zheng Xiuqian. They all have exquisite lacquer skills and solid painting skills. Wu Chuan, graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in printmaking. His works pay attention to the expression of black and white, washing and summarizing. Tang Ming Xiu and Chen Lide are young lacquer painters with great potential. Fujian lacquer painting is rich in traditional skills, good at giving full play to the advantages of natural lacquer, and well-made, and has won many awards in national art exhibitions. Fujian lacquer painting first appeared in the national art exhibition (1964), was first selected for display in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (Wuyi Spring), and was first exhibited as a single-column painting in the China Art Museum and the national roving exhibition. Not only that, even the lacquer paintings in the two national art exhibitions won the most prizes and the highest level was Fujian lacquer paintings.
4. Chongqing lacquer painting: centering on sichuan fine arts institute. This is the place where Mr. Shen Fuwen, a veteran of China lacquer industry, has operated for many years. Mr. Shen studied with Matsuda Quanliu in Japan in his early years. Lacquer art specialty was founded in Chengdu Art College in 1941s, and changed to Southwest Art College and sichuan fine arts institute successively after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Lacquer art specialty continues to this day.
under the advocacy of Mr. Shen, a group of painters, such as Huang Weiyi, participated in the creation of lacquer paintings in the 1961s. Lacquer paintings also participated in the national art exhibition during the Cultural Revolution. The early representative authors, Yang Fuming and Xiao Lianheng, were both very good painters, the former was good at flowers and birds; The latter is better than gouache. Chen Enshen, a middle-aged lacquer painter, made great efforts to explore the application of synthetic lacquer, and his works won the silver prize in the seventh national art exhibition.
5. Jiangxi lacquer painting: Jiangxi lacquer painting is characterized by the use of synthetic paint (polyurethane). Representative authors are Chen Shengmou, Gong Sheng and Yin Chengzhong. They used the skills of traditional lacquer art, such as embedding, covering, engraving and grinding, to synthesize lacquer, and at the same time, they made many new discoveries and creations. Most authors in Jiangxi graduated from art colleges. Some are engaged in oil painting, some are engaged in printmaking, and some are engaged in decorative arts. Most of them have good artistic accomplishment and pay attention to the expression of artistic conception.
6. Tianjin lacquer painting: it is famous for aluminum plate lacquer painting, and lead plate lacquer painting uses nitrocellulose lacquer as coating and aluminum plate as tire. The founder is Huang Weizhong, a painter of Tianjin Painting Academy. Lacquer painting on aluminum plate is simple in process and bright in color, which is suitable for plane decoration. Li Jiaxu of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts has also been engaged in lacquer painting for many years.
7. Guangzhou Lacquer Painting: centering on Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, on behalf of the author Cai Kezhen, he studied in Vietnam in the early 1961s and specialized in grinding lacquer painting in Hanoi Academy of Fine Arts. He used to be an oil painter, engaged in lacquer painting teaching for a long time, and once created large lacquer murals for the Guangdong Hall of the Great Hall of the People.
8. Nanjing lacquer painting: centering on Nanjing Art Institute. Thanks to the advocacy of two deans, Bao Bin and Feng Jianqin, lacquer art was also established, so lacquer painting developed well, and a number of young authors emerged: Li Yongqing, Tiger, Li Shu, Zhang Chengzhi and so on. Wu Keren of Nanjing Normal University is also a young lacquer painter with great potential. On the one hand, Nanjing lacquer painting is influenced by Yangzhou lacquerware. Nanjing Art College often takes students to Yangzhou and Jiangdu lacquerware factories for internships, and on the other hand, it is influenced by sichuan fine arts institute. For example, Li Yongqing went to Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts for further study, while Tiger graduated from Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts.
9. lacquerware in Pingyao, Shanxi Province: The lacquerware painting technique in Pingyao originated from Pingyao County in the middle of Shanxi (referred to as Jin), and it is a kind of advanced painting apparatus with craft nature, which spread to the vast areas in the north, and is famous for its palm-pushing and gold painting techniques. Pingyao push-light lacquerware has been circulated for thousands of years. China arts and crafts master Xue Shengjin and his descendants Geng Baoguo, Jia Xinglin, etc. Due to the impact of modern chemical paint and cashew nut paint, the lacquer art of pushing light with natural paint as raw material is shrinking day by day, which leads to the change and loss of artists, and the quality of lacquer products has declined and is in an endangered state.
11. Gold lacquer painting in Dongshan County
Gold lacquer painting, commonly known as "golden painting", is a traditional handicraft skill in Dongshan temple or ancestral temple building. It paints the decorated wooden board or bamboo ware for many times, and then "gloss-removing paint" (the paint material is "lacquer" or "Fujian paint" or "Jianshi paint"). After repeated polishing, it uses the "gloss-removing paint" to describe various pictures of people, animals, flowers, landscapes and so on on on its surface, and finally gilds it with a gold thin plate. It is mostly used for the decoration of wooden components in temples and ancient wooden furniture, and has the characteristics of resplendence, brilliance and long lasting.
Gold lacquer painting is not only used in architectural decoration of temples, temples and ancestral halls, but also widely used in the decoration of ancient furniture such as sleeping beds and wardrobes. This is why ancient furniture is expensive.
The theme of gold lacquer painting is very rich, including character stories, classical operas, animals, flowers, landscapes and so on. Because of the excellent paint, superb lacquer art and gold, it looks magnificent and radiant.
The historical origin of gold lacquer painting is generally believed to have originated from oil painting in the Central Plains, and it was introduced to southern Fujian in the Tang Dynasty with the soldiers of Chen Yuanguang, the holy king of Kaizhang. After continuous transformation and innovation by local artists, it gradually formed a decorative art with local characteristics in southern Fujian. The "Chulai Temple" has been built in Dongshan since the Song Dynasty, and the building of the temple is indispensable for the oil decoration of wooden components. Therefore, it can be seen that Dongshan gold lacquer painting may have been produced in the Song Dynasty. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the construction of Daxing temples and ancestral shrines in Dongshan, and the furniture decorated with gold lacquer paintings were also quite popular, and gold lacquer paintings developed rapidly.
Dongshan gold lacquer painting has a history of hundreds of years. The main characteristics are as follows: first, the dependence on the development of temples and ancestral halls in religious activities and antique furniture industry; Secondly, it forms a delicate, luxurious and never-fading feature that is different from the north or other regions and has the local characteristics of Dongshan. Gold lacquer painting plays an important role in folk crafts, especially in the production of antique temples, ancestral halls and ancient furniture. After the technique was introduced into Taiwan Province and Penghu, it was widely used. Therefore, gold lacquer painting is not only a unique artistic wonder in Dongshan, but also a crystallization of cross-strait cultural exchanges. As one of the treasures of traditional Chinese art, gold lacquer painting has a great influence in today's Fujian-Taiwan region and even Southeast Asia. In the summer of 1978, the tomb of Zeng Houyi in the early Warring States Period was excavated at Leigudun in Suixian County, Hubei Province, and a large number of lacquerware with exquisite shapes and gorgeous patterns were unearthed. Among them, lacquer coffins, lacquer suitcases and mandarin duck lacquer boxes depict colorful myths and legends, music and dance activities and other images, which provide extremely valuable information for the study of painting art in the Warring States period.
(1) Paintings on lacquer coffins are the representative works of the first kind of lacquer paintings. The lacquer coffin of the tomb of Zeng Houyi is divided into two layers, the surface of the outer coffin has only colorful patterns, and the outer wall of the inner coffin has lacquer paintings in addition to the patterns of the mattress. The inner coffin is 249 cm long, 127 cm wide and 132 cm high. The appearance of the coffin is covered with lacquer as the background color, and decorative patterns and strange images are painted in yellow, black and gray.
On the left and right side plates and the head rail of the inner coffin, two geometric patterns consisting of boxes and diagonal lines are drawn with thick ink lines in prominent positions near the center of the picture. This pattern has been seen in the pictures of houses and buildings on lacquer plates unearthed from the Eastern Zhou Tomb in Langjiazhuang, Linzi, Shandong Province. Judging from its location and shape, it is undoubtedly a building component such as a window lattice.
on both sides of the door pattern, eight monsters are painted, with animal faces and human bodies, holding two daggers in their hands, and the two walls are curving and dancing. Among them, four in the upper level, with big heads and small bodies, wore four-eye masks like bear heads and stepped on flames; The four at the lower level have horns on their heads, long whiskers on their cheeks, which look like sheep's heads. Their legs are dyed black, and their chest ornaments are crossed and reticulated, and their earrings are moire. Some people think that the four monsters with bear heads on the upper floor are Fang Xiangshi in ancient Nuo opera (an ancient witch opera); The four sheep-headed monsters in the lower level are beasts dressed up by baili. Fang Xiangshi is the leader of Nuo opera, dressed as a bear skin or a copper bear head mask, holding a shield in his hand, and leading a beast dressed as Baili to perform a grand ceremony to exorcise ghosts and epidemics in winter. Painting Fang Xiangshi and God beast on both sides of the inner coffin obviously has the purpose of eliminating ominous.
On the left side of Fang Xiangshi and the beast, draw two feathered people, a bird with a human face, a bird's paw with a human leg, and zhang yi's tail hanging down, with two horns at the head and two hands. The role of feather people is to guide and guard the dead to ascend to heaven.
The right side plate of the inner coffin is close to the upper frame of Feather Man and Fang Xiangshi, and four husband and wife, the head of a chicken, the neck of a snake and the tail of a fish, spread their wings and spread their claws. Husband and wife are auspicious birds, which can be used as control objects in the immortal thought. On the lower part of both sides of the window lattice pattern, suzaku and white tiger standing opposite each other are painted. Suzaku has a feather on his head, standing with his head held high, with one foot bending and one foot stepping on the back of the white tiger; The white tiger opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, looking back in surprise. In the hearts of people in the Warring States period, Suzaku and White Tiger are also sacred objects to protect the ascension.
On both sides of the head block of the inner coffin and in the left boxes of the left and right side plates, a picture of Yujiang, a bird with a human face, two horns at the head, two snakes at the ears and two snakes at the feet (some don't practice snakes) is drawn.
Candle dragon is painted around the outer wall of the inner coffin, and there are as many as sixteen * * *, with a snake face and chain-shaped artifacts on the cheeks.
There are other images of Youdu Tubo, Bald, Snake, and Wuqi Resurrection, including dragon pattern, phoenix pattern, stolen song pattern, dragon pattern, tiger pattern, snake pattern, deer pattern and bird pattern.
(2) lacquered clothes boxes Five lacquered clothes boxes were unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Houyi. The boxes were rectangular, with a dome-shaped cover, 71.1 cm long, 51.1 cm wide and 38.5 meters high. The four corners of the box cover and the device body are provided with handles extending outwards, and the front and rear sides of the top cover are provided with rectangular buttons respectively. The inside of the box is painted with red paint or black paint, and the outside of the box is painted with black paint, and the pattern is painted with vermilion. Except for one piece which is badly broken, the others are well preserved. The red lacquer patterns on the top and next to the five pieces are different. Two patterns are obviously related to astronomy and myths and legends in the sky. One of them draws the Beidou in the middle of the box cover, with dragons and white tigers on both sides, surrounding the Beidou, and the name of Twenty-eight Nights is written clockwise. Thus, China had the concept of twenty-eight lodging as early as the early Warring States period, and was associated with Qinglong, Baihu and Beidou. in addition