Grandma Van Gogh: All my paintings are real objects.

Words? Figure/Chang Fang Some pictures provided/Chang Xiufeng

It sounds like a legend, but it is true: Grandma Van Gogh is an ordinary rural woman in Funiu Mountain, Henan Province. She has been farming all her life and can't read or draw. When she was in her seventies, her wife left, and her son who worked in Guangzhou took her to Guangzhou. In order to describe her hometown for her granddaughter who grew up in the city, she couldn't read, so she picked up a brush and inadvertently became "Grandma Van Gogh" who touched countless people.

Grandma Van Gogh held an exhibition of paintings in Hong Kong, and was invited to participate in The Date between Lu and Yu twice. Chen Danqing spoke highly of her paintings, and Ruben, a famous French photographer, and Jiu, a Taiwan Province province, collected her paintings respectively.

It's incredible, just like a miracle-let's walk into the legendary world of this super grandma ... How did Grandma Van Gogh come from?

Grandma Van Gogh has four names: Guihua, Chang Xiufeng, Dongtan Niang and Grandma Van Gogh. Chang Xiufeng named herself. Xiu is excellent, Feng is a mountaineering peak, and Chang Xiufeng will always be an excellent mountaineering peak. In addition, she has several names: when she was a female doll, her parents called her osmanthus; After marrying into Jiangjia Village, the villagers called her "He Dongniang"; After 70 years old, she also has a playful nickname-Grandma Van Gogh.

"Grandma Van Gogh?" She has been whispering in her heart, do we still have this place in Guaihe Town?

Now she finally knows who Van Gogh is, but she still doesn't understand why so many people like her as a "country lout". She used a strong Henan saying in the program "An Appointment between Lu and Yu": "This man named Van Gogh, his sunflowers don't stretch, his paintings are bitter, and he must be very unhappy. My sunflower has sunshine to warm her, land to support her and water to moisten her, just like I painted her mood, which is very happy. If you ask me, I can't understand that painting by Van Gogh, but the sunflower painted by Van Gogh is not as good as mine. Sunflowers can't be put in vases. Without water and soil, it will die. " It is this simple sentence and those simple and immature paintings that touched countless modern people and aroused the homesickness of urbanites, calling her "Grandma Van Gogh".

On the day of the interview, I called her "Grandma Van Gogh" as soon as I saw her. She said, don't call me "auntie", so that I, who is also a native of Henan, instantly ignited my homesickness. They chattered on the balcony with a strong Henan accent. Painting begins with hawthorn tree.

How did the hand that once held the hoe sickle all its life pick up the brush? Grandma Chang said, I didn't expect it. In 2003, at the strong insistence of her son, she left her hometown for the first time and came to a strange metropolis, Guangzhou. Grandma Chang is used to rural life, but not to the new city life. My son's house is on the fourth floor, and the old lady's legs and feet are inconvenient. It takes a long time to get to the next floor. The same buildings and roads in the city often make the old lady get lost, so she seldom goes downstairs and begins to live in "Little dovecote".

Like all the old people, Grandma Zhang's greatest pleasure was telling her little granddaughter, who was only three years old at that time, stories about her hometown: hawthorn trees and dogwoods on the hillside, foxes and wolves in the mountains. The little granddaughter who grew up in the city couldn't imagine it at all and said, "Grandma, can you draw it for me?"

This sentence changed grandma's words in her later years. Since then, the old lady has told more and more stories and painted more and more things. By chance, Art editor's daughter-in-law was shocked when she saw these crayons that didn't pay attention to perspective and proportion. My son and daughter-in-law can't believe that an old man who hasn't learned to paint has such a talent. When he picked up a hand, it became a "big hand" of "post-impressionism".

After half a year, there will be thirty or forty paintings by Grandma Chang. The paintings given to her by her daughter-in-law were scanned and printed into a book and began to spread in small circles. Some people even come to see grandma's paintings. Later, some media came to interview, and "Lu Yu has an appointment" also came, and Grandma Van Gogh became famous.

Warm heart

In the corner of the balcony is Grandma Van Gogh's studio. Outside the balcony, there are shady trees and old trees covered with bauhinia. The wind shuttles between trees, and the green light makes people tremble. Grandma Van Gogh sat there as if nothing had happened, absorbed in drawing her own paintings. After a long time, the corner of the balcony is full of crayons, paper and colorful oil paints, which looks like a painting.

Most of the colors are bright and beautiful, except for a few black colors representing miserable life. Grandma said that her pigments green, red and yellow were used the fastest. After so many hardships, she still expresses her understanding of life with bright colors. How warm and sunny the old lady's heart is!

Grandma Van Gogh described rural life in mountainous areas. Crops in the fields, animals in the mountains and flowers on the ridges are all related to her past life. In grandma's pen, everything in my hometown, such as Jiang's old house where she once lived and raised five children, red hawthorn trees, golden sunflowers and naughty wild cats and birds in the mountains, is particularly beautiful.

She likes painting sunflowers best. Sunflowers in the painting are all chubby in the soil, with slightly green hearts and full heads hanging down, all like little suns. Grandma's animals have crooked eyes, so do cows and wolves. I asked my grandmother, are wolves scary? Grandma said, not scary. In fact, wolves are similar to dogs. They are all afraid of people.

During decades of working life in rural areas facing the loess and facing the sky, those small animals on the mountain are mountain friends who have accompanied Grandma Van Gogh for many years. Those flowers and plants on the ridge were trampled underfoot, and she kept them in mind.

Grandma, do you want to copy according to the photo? Gee, do you remember what you planted all your life?

When painting, she sometimes talks that the tree in this painting is a poplar tree in front of relatives behind the mountain; It is her mother-in-law who cuts wheat, and the child in dirty clothes doesn't know where she comes from ... In her paintings, all people and things are famous and real. Grandma said, "What I draw are all' real' things, not made up!"

I said, grandma, you have lived in the city for so long, can you draw us a picture of the city? Grandma said, I can't draw, I can only draw the trees I planted, and I can draw the trees in the city at most. I know she's thinking about home 3000 miles away.

Journal of private rural life

Grandma's eyes are not very good. Every painting is slow. It takes at least 2 ~ 3 months to finish a painting. She is not so much using paintings to express her art as she is using her heart. When the light is good, grandma carefully adjusts the exact color and puts the reading glasses close to the canvas. At first, she was fascinated by the painting. I took a picture of her with my camera and made a big noise. If you don't look at her for a while, your hands will shake involuntarily. This is the sequela of hemiplegia. Sometimes when she has a headache, she rubs her temples with her brush-pinching hand without saying anything.

What Grandma Van Gogh paints most smoothly is the rural things she has dealt with all her life: sweet potatoes, pomegranate flowers, corn, wheat and pomegranate, from spring to autumn. Grandma Van Gogh's paintings give urbanites with heating in winter and air conditioning in summer the concept of "solar terms". Grandma said, what is autumn like? Persimmon leaves are red like wheat, and the leaves are burnt yellow, which is different from the leaves in spring. Her mouth is full of natural solar terms hidden in the painting: sweet potato in March, sweet potato is big and sweet. Pomegranate flowers in May, pomegranate flowers have passed the Dragon Boat Festival. In September and a half, the persimmon leaves are red, the leaves are red and the wheat grows ... In her world, if you look at the color of persimmon leaves, you will know that spring, summer, autumn and winter have reached that stage.

Grandma's life can be summarized in a few words: farming, cooking, taking care of her husband and educating her children. If it weren't for these paintings, it is estimated that no one would be interested in her life. But it is these paintings that evoke our collective memory. "As soon as I painted sesame seeds, I went to the sesame field; As soon as I row the wheat, I hear the sound of a sickle cutting the wheat; I will draw what I think in my heart. " She said that many people in her paintings are old or dead now, and the yard of her hometown, Jiangjia Village, is full of weeds, but in her grandmother's paintings, it is still a beautiful rural life.

The illiterate grandma Van Gogh created that she can only recall and record the past through simple paintings. She is self-taught. She painted old houses, plants and animals on mountains, ridges and fruit trees. She has no restrictions or profound ideas, but she has worked hard for decades and is full of wisdom in life. Many people were moved by her sincerity and love for life in her paintings at a glance. Isn't this the highest state of art?

On the other hand, I also want to say that if you still don't show any talent, don't worry, live well and love the people around you. Who says you're not another super grandma when you're old?