Xu Beihong's Life and Education

There is a river called Tanghe in Yixing County, Jiangsu Province, and there is a stone arch bridge called Qiting Bridge on the river. Xu Beihong was born in a civilian family in Qitingqiao Town on July 1895. His original name was Shou Kang, and later he was renamed "Beihong". Father Xu is a teacher in a private school. Good at poetry and calligraphy, self-taught painting. He often paints at the invitation of his fellow villagers to earn a little money to supplement his family. Mother Lu is a simple working woman. At the age of 9, Xu Beihong formally studied painting with his father. Every day after lunch, he copied a painting by Wu Youru, a famous painter in the late Qing Dynasty, and learned painting skills such as color mixing and setting. /kloc-at the age of 0/0, he has been able to help his father make up the minor parts, and he can also write Spring Festival couplets such as Harmony with Stone Terrace and Happy Birthday by Xu Beihong-Jiufanggao for the villagers. 13 years old, moved to rural towns with his father, selling paintings for a living and supporting his family. Although the life away from home is hard, it enriches Xu Beihong's experience and broadens his artistic vision. /kloc-at the age of 0/7, Xu Beihong went to Shanghai, the most developed city at that time, to make a living by selling paintings, and wanted to take the opportunity to learn western paintings. However, a few months later, my father was seriously ill and had to go back to his hometown. The ambitious Xu Beihong came to Shanghai again at the age of 20 and started a new life. With the help of friends, he was admitted to Aurora University sponsored by the French Catholic Church, which laid a certain French foundation for studying in France in the future. During this period, I got to know Zhou Xiang, a famous oil painter, and Gao, a representative of Lingnan School of Painting, and got their praise and guidance in painting, which enhanced my confidence in painting creation. He also met Kang Youwei, the leader of the Reformists, and established his own creative ideas under his influence. Under the influence of Kang's artistic concept of "despising the Four Kings and praising the Song Dynasty", he belittled the "Four Kings" who only emphasized pen and ink but did not seek novelty, and thought that only the realistic paintings of Wu Daozi, Yan, Huang Quan in the Five Dynasties, Li Cheng and Fan Kuan in the Northern Song Dynasty were profound and wonderful. With the support of Kang Youwei, he observed the development of various famous ancient monuments, and devoted himself to copying Stone Valley, Yan Long Monument, Zhang Menglong Monument and Shimen inscription. , get the essence of the north monument, so that calligraphy can grow. Later, he received a grant to study fine arts in Tokyo, Japan. In Japan, Xu Beihong appreciated a large number of treasures and masterpieces collected by public and private, and deeply felt that Japanese painters could be realistic and realistic in their creation, but they lacked the brushwork of China literati painting on Mo Yun, and did not hint at Piaomao's style. After returning from Japan, Xu Beihong was hired as the tutor of "Painting Research Association" in Peking University. During my stay in Beijing, I got to know Cai Yuanpei, Chen Shiceng, Mei Lanfang, Lu Xun and other celebrities from all walks of life, and was deeply influenced by the ideological trend of the New Culture Movement, and established the idea of democracy and science. With the support of Beiyang government, 24-year-old Xu Beihong went to France to study painting. At the beginning of his arrival in Europe, he visited the British Museum, the National Gallery of France, the exhibition of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Louvre Museum of France, and witnessed a large number of outstanding works since the Renaissance. Xu Beihong deeply felt that his Chinese paintings in the past were "clumsy and clumsy, unable to move the rope, like a horse without reins." Therefore, he studied painting hard, was admitted to the Paris School of Fine Arts, studied under Mr. Fleming, and began to receive formal western painting education. Fleming is good at figure painting with historical themes. His paintings pay attention to the harmonious collocation and contrast of colors, which has a great influence on the formation of Xu Beihong's oil painting style later. Xu Beihong likes to train the basic skills of western painting every day. He studies at the Paris Academy of Fine Arts in the morning, paints models at Syrion Academy in the afternoon, and sometimes finds time to watch various exhibitions. During this period, he was lucky enough to meet Dayang, a disciple of the famous painter Crowe, and came to Yang's studio for advice with his paintings every Sunday. The artistic thought of "not advocating fashion and being uneasy about the status quo" and paying attention to silent painting had a great influence on him, so that he did not follow the increasingly prosperous modernist painting style in France at that time, but studied the academic art since the European Renaissance in a down-to-earth manner, and mastered the skillful painting skills while inheriting the rigorous and perfect modeling characteristics of classical art. After studying abroad for four years, Xu Beihong's painting level has reached the same level as that of European artists at the same time, and his oil painting "The Old Lady" was selected for the French National Art Exhibition. Because the Beiyang government once interrupted tuition fees, Xu Beihong was forced to transfer to Berlin, Germany, where the consumption level was low. There, Xu Beihong still missed every opportunity to study. He consulted the painter CommScope, went to the museum to copy the paintings of the famous painter Rembrandt, and often went to the zoo to draw various animals such as lions, tigers and horses to improve his sketching ability. When Xu Beihong regained the funds for studying abroad, he immediately returned to France from Germany to continue his studies. He seized every inch of time, with the formal systematic training of famous teachers and his unremitting efforts, his painting level improved day by day, and he created a series of excellent sketches and oil paintings with portraits, human bodies and landscapes as themes, such as Portrait of Cats, Old Man Holding a Stick and Self-portrait. At the end of his trip to Europe, Xu Beihong also visited Brussels, Belgium, Milan, Florence, Rome and Switzerland. He was intoxicated by the beautiful exotic scenery and benefited a lot from the excellent works of European painting masters. His eight-year career in Europe shaped his aesthetic taste, creative ideas and artistic style for the rest of his life. Xu Beihong returned to China at the age of 32 and began to devote himself to art education and develop his own art career in China. Participate in the "Southland Society" organized by Tian Han and actively advocate the "Southland Spirit" of "seeking beauty first, being kind and seeking truth later". He has created large-scale paintings with historical or ancient fables as themes. From these paintings, the audience can strongly feel the painter's sincere feelings of loving the motherland and the people. 193 1 At a time when Japan's invasion of China is getting worse and worse and the nation is in danger, Xu Beihong created a Chinese painting "Nine Square Heights" that hopes the state will pay attention to and recruit talents; 1933 created the oil painting "Worry for Me Later" to express the yearning of the suffering people for the wise. Xu Beihong-Tian Heng's 500 Literati Feelings: 1940, the Chinese painting "Yugong Yishan" was completed, which praised the perseverance and tenacious will of the people of China to win the final victory against Japan. In addition, he also created realistic themes such as Ba People Pumping Water and Ba Poor Women, landscape themes such as Spring Rain in Lijiang River and Paradise Returning to the Mountain, as well as a large number of portraits and animal works. 1949 after the founding of new China, Xu Beihong worked as a government official and administrator, but he still insisted on writing and enthusiastically described the new people, new things and new features in the construction of new China. He painted portraits of war heroes, experienced life at Daoshu Water Conservancy Project site in Shandong Province, painted portraits of model workers and migrant workers, and collected bits and pieces of information reflecting the construction of new China. Unfortunately, all these artistic activities came to an abrupt end because of the painter's premature death. Xu Beihong's works, whether oil paintings, Chinese paintings or sketches, occupy an important position in the history of modern art in China. His greatest achievement in oil painting is to combine the light and color expression of impressionism with the rigorous and perfect modeling of classicism. Among the early oil painters in China, Xu Beihong was the first outstanding painter. In sketching, Xu Beihong has made outstanding achievements. His sketch is not only the exercise of painting training, but also lays a solid foundation for his Chinese painting and oil painting creation, and it is also a work of art with appreciation and research value. He only drew more than 1000 human sketches in his life. Xu Beihong's attainments in Chinese painting are also profound. He is an artistic practitioner of Chinese painting innovation. On the basis of inheriting traditional painting, he took the lead in integrating European classical realism techniques into Chinese painting creation, creating a new Chinese painting with a sense of the times. Take the horse paintings of famous painters as an example. From this kind of works, we can not only appreciate the beauty of line modeling and pen and ink in China's traditional paintings, but also observe the decent modeling and light and shadow of objects. With his genius, wisdom, perseverance and lifelong efforts, Xu Beihong became one of the few artists in modern China who could fully master the painting techniques of the East and the West.