Flower and bird painting "Snow Bamboo"

Author/Cao Zuimeng

The stylized and symbolic features of Chinese painting are obvious. After the artist's understanding of the natural objects and thinking, the extended meaning of the objects is deepened. For example, the green bamboo in the eyes of the artist is no longer a purely biological bamboo . Bamboo in the rain, bamboo in the dew, and bamboo in the snow have become excellent borrowings for the painter to express his feelings such as "good weather".

        The appearance characteristics of the species can arouse the painter's emotion of borrowing things to express his ambition. Bamboo is straight and not like the seeking of miscellaneous trees, and it is open-minded and not like the complacency of other trees. It can survive in different regions of cold and warm, and in different nutrient places, especially in the barren geographical environment. , They can grow quietly without being discouraged and ostentatious... The "character" attributes and characteristics of these species have long been favored by Danqing painters.

        Wen Tong (Wen Yuke) of the Song Dynasty, in order to paint bamboo well, planted many green bamboos in front of the window, and carefully observed the shape changes of bamboo branches and leaves in sunny, rainy, snowy, and in different seasons and different weathers. During the observation and understanding, he summed up a set of bamboo painting methods. At this time, the bamboos in Wen Yuke's works are no longer the bamboos in the eyes of ordinary people. Symbolized and anthropomorphic, the idiom "with confidence" came from him.

        Su Shi (Su Dongpo) is also a master of bamboo painting. He once said to those who commented on his paintings, "When discussing paintings based on similarity, they can be found in children's neighbors." Same aesthetic.

        Zheng Xie (Zheng Banqiao) of the Qing Dynasty often watched bamboo under the moon and behind lamps. This kind of bamboo, which is reflected in the paper window and under the powder wall, looks graceful and graceful, just like the black bamboo on rice paper. Advocating sentiment, he was the magistrate of Fan County and Wei County, and he was very concerned about the sufferings of the people, and he reflected more in his calligraphy and painting works, such as: "Ya Zhai is lying down and listening to Xiao Xiaozhu, which is suspected to be the voice of people's suffering. Some officials from my Caozhou County , A branch and a leaf are always concerned with love" and so on. When he wrote about bamboo, he often inscribed his titles between the bamboo and the stone, expressing his lofty sentiments with the bamboo's "in between, firm and knotty".

*This article is published with the authorization of the author.