When you walk into Yang Henglin's home, you get the first impression that it is warm, simple and quaint. There are four screens of Yang Henglin's landscape hanging on the wall in the center of the living room, which is particularly eye-catching, and it is difficult for people to associate it with the tense momentum of meticulous tiger painting. The traditional China porcelain placed on the corner of the table reveals his love for China traditional culture in all details.
He said, "I paint traditional landscape paintings much longer than I paint animals." He took out some of his early landscape works, which were very skillful. His landscape works widely absorbed the broad artistic conception of the Song people's landscapes, and the misty clouds were full of weather. Though meticulous, they were as freehand as painting, and they were layered and dyed, which was profound. After splashing ink, when the water evaporates and the degree of dryness and wetness is reached, the ink lines with different shades of dryness and wetness are broken layer by layer to achieve the artistic effect of dry autumn wind, moist spring rain and dripping ink. Later, he absorbed the characteristics of the mountains and rivers of the Ming Dynasty, and studied the structure and purport of the landscape paintings of the Ming Dynasty from the perspective of "landscape paintings with figures", and combined the figures with the mountains and rivers just right. At that time, his works mostly showed three kinds of works, namely, immortals, sages and civilians: Intensive Reading of Fishermen, High Hidden Cliffs and Monks in Songtao, as his representative works at that time, showing his inner kind. Later, he absorbed nutrients from the four kings of the Qing Dynasty, especially Wang Yuanqi, and liked to use dry pen Jiao Mo, rubbing layer by layer, and using pen to calm down. He said: "A good painting should be original, unconstrained by the ancient law, ripe and not astringent, light and thick, solid and clear, and the air of the book is full of paper and ink." After decades of immersion, he studied animal painting and applied his solid traditional landscape painting to meticulous animal painting.
He said, "He always wanted to express his inner world through an image." His animal paintings are different from the previous impression that tigers are angry and afraid of people. He integrated his literati painting ideas into them, such as Listening to Springs, Morning Valley Mist, Slight Rain and New Sunny, which brought their characteristics to the extreme and became the main style of his works. In his view, the universe is naturally endless and cyclical, and the true qi flows in the human body without intermission. He said that he only paints when he is inspired, and he never writes when he is in a bad mood. He advocated that both meticulous painting and freehand brushwork should be full of vitality, pen is not sleepy, ink is not astringent, vitality is stable, and mind is calm.
In the era when pen and ink were dyed, Gan Kun gave birth to agility with the rhythm of color. His meticulous painting style escaped from people's previous impression that meticulous painting was too delicate and rigorous, and he went straight to freehand brushwork. This ink is a modern color block in a broad sense, not an abstraction of giving up the shape but conveying the image with the shape, which adds a bit of cultural painting atmosphere to his meticulous tiger works.
Yang Henglin's meticulous animal painting does not copy nature blindly, but indirectly explains the artist's inner world through animals as carriers. At the same time, from the works, we can always feel the painter's understanding and love for life in the world. Through his unremitting efforts and practical experience, he opened a door of his own art, and at the same time, let more people feel the life theme of animals and creatures through his works.
The composition of his works seems to be careless, but it is really ingenious. The mastery of lightness, fatigue, dryness, shade, density, gathering and scattering, and points, lines and surfaces has reached a good level. He learned from the Song and Yuan Dynasties and has been immersed in it for more than ten years. He has a solid traditional landscape skill, which is one of the few in the field of meticulous animal painting. He pays attention to the brushwork and ink method, and he emphasizes that "the pen is full of brushwork and ink seeks ink."
"The pen is based on its shape, the ink is based on its yin and yang, and the landscape is based on pen and ink." Pen is the bones and muscles of Chinese painting, and ink is the flesh and blood of Chinese painting. When it comes to charm, we should look at pen and ink first, and we can't talk about charm without pen and ink. Abandoning pen and ink is not Chinese painting. Pen and ink skills are not up to home, and he is not a successful China painter. He said, "The difference between the rough and the fine of Chinese painting art lies in the change of pen and ink, which is both clear and harmonious. It is both muddy and clear, and the change reveals the news of nature. " "The highest realm of Chinese painting art is to have pen and ink!"
Yang Henglin's meticulous tiger painting style is exquisite, from one eye to a hair, which is exquisite to the extreme. On the contrary, his landscape works remind people of cursive script with a flick of the pen, which has a free and elegant bearing. The picture is magnificent, hearty and natural. Some scholars have commented that "his meticulous beast is a literati painting in meticulous painting"
He thinks that the style of his works is not a simple pen and ink symbol, but his own unique picture feeling. As for his pen and ink, he often gives full play to the performance of carriers such as brush, ink and rice paper, works or writes at will according to the needs of the picture situation, and even extensively draws sketches, sketches, oil paintings, watercolors and decorative paintings to discuss its form.
"At the time of the meeting, people are successful." This is the conclusion of China's ancient painting theory, and the general meeting can't be achieved by the lifelong spirit of the poor. Therefore, Chinese painting is the art of life process, and its greatest significance is closely linked with human life, thus making life more meaningful.
after talking with him for several hours, I gradually found that his achievements in every stage, from "pursuing the grandeur of Song and Yuan Dynasties in the early days" to "literati painting style in Ming and Qing Dynasties" and then to "modern meticulous animal painting", seem to tell us that his success is not accidental. Art is a whole, but among them, everyone has his own artistic essence and cultural sentiment, and records his own art with pen and ink under the same time and space.