Preface to "Liu Wenjin Painting Collection" by Liu Wenjin

I received a letter from Qian Wenzhong (professor and scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai) and Mr. Liu Wenjin, asking me to write a preface to his upcoming "Collection of Paintings". Although I was frightened, of course I followed the orders carefully. However, at the end of the year, I encountered some incredible twists and turns in the collection of miscellaneous things. I couldn't keep my mind at peace, so I couldn't finish this "Preface" in the first time. In addition, not long ago, I moved into a new study room. There is a huge amount of books and materials that have not yet been completely returned to their places. The picture albums that Mr. Wen Jin has given me many times are all deep in the mountains of books. It is quite laborious to find them. In particular, I had to find my own treasured first and only letter from Mr. Wen Jin, which was indispensable when writing this "Preface".

It was this letter dated March 25, 2009 that gave me the honor to establish diplomatic relations with Mr. Wen Jin. This is a private letter, in which Mr. Wen Jin introduces himself concisely, concisely and extremely humbly: "I am from the Northeast. Affected by the times and region, my foundation in Chinese studies is close to zero. When I was young, I worshiped foreign countries (mainly Russia). ), I started to learn oil painting. In the mid-to-late 1980s, I started to have some exposure to Chinese culture. In the 1990s, I returned to oil painting, hoping to incorporate Chinese elements into my paintings. In 2004, my painting style changed. After several years of exploration, I have made some progress. Mr. Wen Jin also wrote on another piece of paper: "Chinese people face a dilemma when painting oil paintings. There are two cultures and two nations, China and the West." The aesthetic tastes are so different that Chinese oil painters often find themselves in a desperate situation, especially when faced with the strong culture of Western modernism.”

I also sent a frame of figures with the letter. paintings, and "Twenty Chinese Oil Painters: Liu Wenjin" published by Beijing Fine Arts Photography Publishing House in 2004. That painting should be a work after Mr. Wen Jin's painting style changed. He used an oil painting knife and Western paint to create a soft and beautiful banana lady on the canvas, which is intoxicatingly beautiful. I have two study rooms, one Chinese-style and one Western-style. It took me a lot of time to consider and experiment before I finally decided to hang her on the wall of my Chinese-style study. Usually, I go to this Chinese-style study room first after getting up, and I spend almost all my evenings here, copying ancient books with a brush, or writing paragraphs of notes, or using outdated pen and ink to write an outdated letter to a good friend. I have always been immersed in the beauty brought by Mr. Wenjin, and I have never felt that Mr. Wenjin’s oil paintings are out of place in a Chinese-style study room. Isn't this exactly the "melting" artistic conception that Mr. Wen Jin used in his letter to me?

As for the picture album, together with the picture albums sent by Mr. Wen Jin one after another, before I moved, it was always a gift on my desk and I often showed it and looked at it. I found that next to or under each work, there were words clearly written by Mr. Wen Jin, which embody and exude the artist's deep philosophical and artistic thinking. In my humble experience, this is quite unusual. I know that Mr. Wen Jin advocates that "contemporary artists should be scholars", which is definitely not limited to painters or artists. He himself is also very critical and ideological. I greatly admire and agree with Mr. Xuanzhen's article "Criticism of Spiritual Desolation - The Humanistic Spirit of Liu Wenjin's Oil Painting "Girl Series"". Mr. Xuanzhen has long noticed Mr. Wenjin's unique care and strength as a painter.

Around the 1980s, Mr. Wen Jin had already published academic papers such as "The Evolution of Social Economic Types and the Renewal of Concepts" and "On the Function and Characteristics of Film Aesthetics", as well as the film and literary script "Farewell". "No Choice" and "On the Square", which was praised by the famous theorist Mr. Fan Di'an as "the most avant-garde work of the time", used the fearlessness and momentum of a prophet to criticize "trampling on human nature, subjectification, and authoritarianism", and passionately called for "transcendence" To become more and more developed, civilized, democratic, free, and open society, ecumenical, and individualized.” It is this kind of conscience, responsibility and responsibility of a great artist that made Mr. Wen Jin, who has been working in movies for decades, return to the studio like a martyr and start working again after the movies lost their ability to resist excessive marketization and commercialization. I use my brush to explore, describe and express the humanistic spirit and transcendent care that I am obsessed with.

This is a pilgrimage that is destined to continue. The "sudden change in painting style" in 2004 is a transcendent breakthrough and a reflection of Mr. Wen Jin's "serious technicalist tendency" that he laments. The spiritual connotation is empty. Painters have become increasingly utilitarian and eager for quick success. They lack the pursuit of lofty spirituality and the sincerity and independent personality of artists. They follow trends, blindly imitate, and copy the existing discourses of Western modernism and postmodernism. , model style, satisfy the shallow cultural pursuit of Western postmodernity, and even propose a transcendent breakthrough that "dispels humanistic enthusiasm".

A few months ago, Mr. Wen Jin traveled to the south. My friends and I were fortunate enough to watch Mr. Wen Jin paint live in Pudong, Shanghai. Mr. Wen Jin, who has returned to his original nature, is indifferent and elegant, and is like a hermit without striving for anything. Once he holds the brush and faces the canvas, he immediately emits the astonishing brilliance of a pilgrim, a missionary, and a martyr. I felt a kind of shock nearby, and no one at the scene said a word.

I stubbornly agree with the words of the famous art critic Mr. Duan Ting: "I don’t know when the Muse went crazy and Venus also quietly left. With the trend of using ugliness as beauty, the influence of art on art During the long-term rule, people not only lost the creativity of beauty, but even almost annihilated the ideal of beauty.

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The creativity of beauty and the ideal of beauty are supreme and vital to any nation or culture. Mr. Wen Jin found the beauty of human nature and demonstrated the beauty of human nature. . However, for Mr. Wenjin’s artistic exploration, perhaps this is not the most important thing.

The paintings so profoundly reflect the beauty of human nature, and why their author, the painter Mr. Liu Wenjin, repeatedly said that he Is the work "sub-religious"? I think that beauty is concrete, but it is also, or rather transcendent. What the painter Mr. Liu Wenjin is definitely not only concerned about is the art of painting itself. Perhaps it is, how to discover awe, following and devotion to transcendence in a nation and culture without its own religious belief tradition?

Nearly a century ago, the great educator Mr. Cai Yuanpei once called for " "Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education". A century has passed, should we listen again and seriously think about Mr. Cai's words? Yes, we don't know whether "aesthetic education" can really replace "religion"; but, do we still think about it today? I don’t know, is beauty, the beauty of human nature, worthy of our lifelong pursuit and conversion?

This is the most fundamental reason why I am willing to follow Mr. Wen Jin on the road of seeking beauty.