The artistic characteristics and cultural contribution of the school of ice and snow painting

The development history of an art school is actually the history of self-shaping and self-improvement of an art group. The development of ice and snow painting school in 1980s depended on physical geography, culture, humanistic tradition, social environment and world culture. Regional characteristics, innovative spirit and aesthetic orientation are the main fulcrums for the existence and development of the school of ice and snow painting, and all efforts of the school of ice and snow painting are centered on these three aspects. Under this guiding ideology, the greatest contribution of the ice and snow painting school to the northern culture is to set off a cultural upsurge in the northern half of the cold zone. Ice and snow landscape painting has promoted the development of ice and snow culture in the north, and promoted the development of sister culture and art such as music and photography and other fine arts disciplines. The song "Snow in the North of China" and a number of excellent photographs showing the theme of ice and snow have emerged, and other paintings such as prints, oil paintings and watercolors have also shown unprecedented enthusiasm for expressing the theme of ice and snow. Snow and ice landscape painting has become an indispensable cultural phenomenon in the north.

As a group phenomenon of artistic creation, the school of ice and snow painting has the following five characteristics: the school of ice and snow painting was born in the social background of the collision between Chinese and western cultures after the reform and opening up in the 1980 s, and it is an inevitable product of the reform and opening up and the times. Because it is not according to the traditional method of 1000 years, it is a successful attempt to transform the traditional form into a modern environment.

In the early 1980s, it was a period when China painters, who had just developed, suddenly accepted a large number of new concepts and styles of western modern art, and compared and reflected on China traditional culture and western modern culture. The members of the Ice and Snow Painting School are mostly young and middle-aged. They are quick-thinking and quick to accept new things. Therefore, it is easier to accept the brand-new style of ice and snow landscape painting in the creative mentality, and on this basis, we will continue to explore and develop, maintain strong creative enthusiasm and creativity, and begin to show a special style. Zhou Zunsheng skillfully transformed traditional pen and ink into ice and snow language, and Wang Junbing emphasized writing Chinese paintings in ice and snow language; Guan Qiang pursues modern composition; Xu Juguo, Chen, and Chen borrowed printmaking language to make the picture simpler. Ding consciously transformed the language of ice and snow into an abstract structure; Wang Weihua and Gao Fengshan are looking for subtle changes in "white". Although some works are not mature enough, they show the enterprising attitude of these young and middle-aged painters to distance themselves from their leaders. After 20 years' efforts, Yu Zhixue created a new style of ice and snow landscape painting in the late 1970s. For a considerable period of time, ice and snow landscape painting should solve the language problem of new pen and ink techniques that the tradition does not have, that is, to solve the performance problem of ice and snow images that the tradition cannot express. The artistic language of ice and snow landscape painting is refined from years of artistic practice, which embodies both tradition and modernity. It is not only readable and acceptable, but also universal and operable. After years of hard work, it has formed its own artistic program, its own language and its own "tradition". The constant renewal, change and establishment of painting language is the enduring charm of Chinese painting for thousands of years. All the academic debates and discussions about the core, existence value and noumenon spirit of Chinese painting, as well as the inheritance relationship with tradition, as well as the absorption of advanced artistic nutrients and the values of Chinese painting, are finally focused on the exploration of the artistic language of Chinese painting, which is the main ideological source for the ice and snow painting school to attach importance to the exploration of painting language. Grasping this essential problem firmly, it is the purpose of the school of ice and snow painting to maintain the spirit of traditional Chinese painting, continue the Chinese painting created by foreign teachers, and break through the traditional barriers and traditional language symbols to create artistic works that reflect the painting characteristics of the times with the new tradition of ice and snow painting.

On the basis of this basic painting technique and means, members of the Ice and Snow Painting School created rich and colorful themes and contents, showing different aesthetic pursuits, artistic interests and pen and ink forms. It not only fully shows the artistic individuality among the members of the painting school, but also embodies the overall * * * nature of the painting school. Similarly, to express the world of ice and snow, the means of painting has also changed, which is manifested in the diversity of styles pursued by the shape, structure, pen and ink and charm of the works. Zhou Zuncheng extended the application of alum in ice and snow landscape painting to figure painting, trying to express a humanistic feeling; Yang Dongping, Wang Yuyan, Wang Limin, Zheng Shenglu, Bi Keqin and others integrated the techniques of ice and snow landscape painting into traditional painting, and connected the traditional context with ice and snow pen and ink; Jiang's performance of urban ice and snow scenery since the mid-1980s reflects that ice and snow landscape painting has also been integrated into the context of urban painting since the end of the 20th century. The ice and snow flowers and birds represented by Lu Dawei and Wang Jianzhong, on the basis of inheriting the ice and snow landscape paintings, pursue the interest of pen and ink. The creative team headed by these ice and snow painting school backbones has made the painting style and characteristics of the painting school be displayed in many directions, reflecting modern feelings and pursuits. Looking at the development and changes of the ice and snow painting school in the past 20 years, we can see that the overall style of the painting school group has been strengthened and its individual characteristics have been publicized and highlighted, but on the whole, it has not lost the independent painting style of the painting school and maintained its distinctive independent characteristics. Therefore, it is often said that you can know that it is an ice and snow painting school by looking at a work. The unique artistic characteristics of the ice and snow painting school are inseparable from its distinctive academic ideas and artistic concepts.

(1) south black and north white

Thousands of years of Chinese painting, in terms of form, is an artistic style dominated by ink and wash, and in terms of scope, it is a painting theme that expresses Jiangnan and the Central Plains. Paintings in the south can be expressed in various colors, mainly ink and wash, while the most prominent feature in the north is winter, which is expressed in white. Therefore, the artistic feeling of north-south painting is "black in the south and white in the north". The artistic concept of "black in the south and white in the north" of the ice and snow school laid the theoretical foundation and artistic example of the black and white system of Chinese painting, added new factors to the development of Chinese painting from theory to practice, and created a new field of Chinese painting.

(2) the beauty of cold escape

The school of ice and snow painting shows the inherent ice and snow theme in the north, which is the frozen soil culture. Painters who have lived in the north for many years deeply realize that the relationship between northerners and ice and snow nature is not antagonistic, but harmonious. Northerners, tempered by nature, have their own aesthetic concepts. As a cold zone culture, the northern culture is obviously inseparable from the "cold" theme and aesthetic content. "Cold" has a great role in purifying the soul, storing life, solidifying noise and subliming spirit. The artistic character of China's landscape painting itself is unique. When it is combined with the rhyme of Chinese painting, it produces the greatest aesthetic interest of Chinese painting-a sense of uniformity. The combination of this escape and the "coldness" in ice and snow landscape paintings constitutes a brand-new aesthetic connotation of Chinese painting-the beauty of coldness. Ice-snow landscape painting with "coolness" as the core of ice-snow aesthetics is a new cognition and sublimation of traditional painting through the aesthetic concept of New Oriental, a promotion and development of the deep aesthetic orientation of cold zone culture, a reflection of the idea of harmony between man and nature, and an infinitely broad space that can be continuously expanded. This "beauty of coolness and leisure" eliminates people's restlessness and anxiety caused by complicated colors, and embodies the simple, self-controlled and ethereal life realm of northern artists.

(3) Ink has rhyme and white has light.

The school of ice and snow painting emerged on the basis of breaking through the traditional thinking pattern, and thus produced the system of sketch Chinese painting. Looking at the core of the aesthetic connotation of black and white in Chinese painting is another brand-new aesthetic concept put forward by the School of Ice and Snow Painting. Mo Yun is the aesthetic subject of the black department of Chinese painting, while white light is the aesthetic intrinsic of the white department of Chinese painting. Mo Yun's pen and ink constitute the first and second aesthetic connotations of Chinese painting; Light constitutes the third aesthetic connotation of Chinese painting. Because of the existence of Mo Yun, Chinese painting has a sense of mystery and mystery with pen and ink, and because of the existence of exhaustion, Chinese painting has a new expression space and vitality.

(4) Cold culture

China has a long history and a vast territory. Rivers, lakes and alpine plains divide China into different natural regions. The great contrast between the geographical and natural conditions of the North and the South and the social factors such as historical evolution have long formed different cultural characteristics and aesthetic differences. Yu Zhixue summed up the cultural phenomenon representing cold characteristics as "cold culture", which is a feeling of transforming the climate into a kind of culture. Cold culture is characterized by rough, wild, unrestrained and heroic. Ice and snow painting has typical cold cultural characteristics, and pursues the aesthetic realm of expressing the magnificent, rough and lofty beauty of the ice and snow world.

Today, 20 years later, the school of ice and snow painting has been tested in the process of creation, hesitation, growth and development, and still has tenacious vitality and cohesion. This is undoubtedly the need of the times, the social recognition of the style of ice and snow painting, and a cultural phenomenon that cannot be ignored. It is in this social environment that the school of ice and snow painting can survive. Although we put the snow and ice painting school in a broad historical and cultural background and the overall artistic pattern of national art, we will find that it, as a regionally formed art school, has quite a few weaknesses compared with other influential art schools in China. The structure of the school of ice and snow painting needs further improvement and perfection. After it has finished speaking for the northern ice and snow, it is faced with a deeper problem of how to show the spirit of the ice and snow world. Therefore, the school of ice and snow painting is not only the product of regional culture, but also a part of global culture. We should continue to build the school of ice and snow painting from the perspective of deepening culture. This task is quite arduous and requires the efforts of several generations. Under the unprecedented excellent situation of Chinese painting, the ice and snow painting school will make unremitting efforts to meet the choice of future history and the more brilliant tomorrow of Chinese painting.