What does Liu Bannong think of photography?

Liu Bannong (189 1 ~ 1934) occupies an important position in the photographic history of China. As a famous linguist, writer and poet, this valiant soldier of the May 4th New Culture Movement showed his insight into the art of photography from the beginning, and was called "the first person in China's photographic aesthetics".

Liu Bannong started taking pictures when he was seventeen or eighteen. At that time, he was just playing around. Later, I went to France to study, and then I really studied photography as an art. From 65438 to 0925, Liu Bannong returned to China and taught at Peking University. At that time, some people belittled the art of photography, but he didn't think so, and joined the "Beijing Light Society" which actively advocated and promoted the art of photography the following year.

1927, Liu Bannong published China's first photographic aesthetic book "Talking about Shadows by Half Farmers". In the book, he first refuted Qian's argument that "anyone who loves photography must be an imbecile" and all kinds of false words that painting is expensive and taking pictures is cheap. He said: painting is painting, and photos are photos. Although they have similarities, they have their own characteristics and cannot imitate each other. If the purpose of photography is to imitate painting, it is better to simply learn painting.

Then, Liu Bannong divided photography into three categories. Besides the accidents in the studio, there are two categories: repeated photography and non-repeated photography. He believes that different types of photography must use different rules. Instead of copying "artistic photography", it focuses on "freehand brushwork".

What is freehand brushwork? After pointing out that "freehand brushwork" is not "fake writing", Liu Bannong wrote: It is to express the artistic conception of the author through photography ... such as the main entrance. If you write with photos, it will still be a rigid front door; If you write in a freehand way, ten people will write differently: some can write magnificently, some can write vividly, some can write enthusiastically, and some can write coldly.

In other words, simple "portrait" and "copy" are dead, while "freehand brushwork" and "non-copy" are alive. In an era when people generally think that photography can only "copy" life, it is undoubtedly of great significance for Liu Bannong to boldly put forward that photography should express the artistic conception of the author.

Regarding the dispute between "clarity" (clear image) and "paste" (blurred image) in photography circles at home and abroad at that time, Liu Bannong thought that although it was a technical problem, it must be handled according to the needs of the author to express his thoughts and contents, and criticized some people's view that "paste" was beautiful: as for freehand photography, it depended on the author's artistic conception: he thought that only clarity could write his artistic conception, which was his skill. He thought he could write only after posting it, which was his skill. We can only ask him if his artistic conception can be written, ok; As for the clear and paste, it is up to him to consider: he has absolute freedom.

..... Some people don't know that paste is just a material to make beauty, but they actually recognize beauty as a whole, so paste! Paste! Paste! What a mess! It's terrible!

In addition, Liu Bannong also made it clear that showing the breath of China people is the requirement of China's photography. He opposes taking English, American and yearbook as "grandfathers" and blindly imitating foreigners' works. He thinks that this imitation is "white-haired, with ten boxes of works" and "just a fruitless one". In the preface written for the second episode of Beiping Guangshe Yearbook, he wrote: I think that no matter whether others respect it as art or belittle it as shit, we should not forget who I am, let alone that we are from China.

..... We must be able to fully display our own personality and the unique taste and charm of China people through the mirror box, so that our works, besides those of people from other countries in the world, will become another kind of breath, and then our works will not be in vain.

Today, more than 70 years later, this passage is still "shocking."