Do you need to train sketch to draw Chinese painting? What is the current situation of sketch art and sketch education in China? Reporter The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) visited experts from major art institutions and art colleges in Shanghai to discuss this topic from various aspects such as Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking and sculpture.
Zhang Peicheng (Vice Chairman of Shanghai Artists Association):
If Chinese painting wants to draw lessons from sketch, it must be cut in the way of Chinese painting.
Do you need to train sketch to draw Chinese painting? This issue has been controversial for a long time.
Everyone has a different understanding of the connotation and extension of sketch. Personally, I think that no matter oil painting, Chinese painting, printmaking or even abstract art, they are all in modeling. If sketch is a convenient way to solve modeling problems, it should still be necessary to learn sketch. Of course, there was no concept of sketch in ancient China, but the line drawing at that time was also a kind of sketch to some extent.
Sketch is actually a kind of judgment on modeling. This is the ability to feel the object.I think this ability to feel is very important for an artist. For example, when he sees a person, a scene or a bottle, he will feel and have the impulse to express himself. If this sensibility is innate, it is also necessary to tap this potential through sketch training. Of course, there are different ways of sketching, such as passively simulating nature and actively expressing objects. In fact, Chinese painting is adapted to the latter.
Western sketch also solves the problem of space. Stereo and perspective are basic skills in oil painting. For Chinese painting, the picture is flat. Even if we want to draw more realistic Chinese painting now, this space is different from oil painting. So,If we want to learn sketch in Chinese painting, its emphasis must be different from that in western painting. Otherwise, it will bring many negative effects.
In fact, among some Chinese painters older than me, some are very successful artists, but they still encounter bottlenecks. The reason is that too many western sketches were instilled in those years, and this influence is hard to get rid of, and problems arise when they are expressed with brush and ink lines of Chinese paintings. This kind of sketch training has become a shackle, which makes the performance of Chinese painting very free. From this perspective, sketch and Chinese painting are two systems. Especially for painters who paint landscapes, flowers and birds, it is absolutely impossible to use this sketching method to train, and they can’t paint plaster like western painting, and they can even not sketch.
But from a broad perspective, the sketch of Chinese painting can be trained in another way. For example, China’s drawing characters requires strong modeling ability, so modeling training is essential. The expression of Chinese painting is written, which requires the painter to express what he wants to express in one go very skillfully. If he hesitates a little in modeling and the pen stops, his writing will be greatly affected, and his breath will be "broken" immediately. However, the modeling training of Chinese painting should not draw long-term homework, otherwise it will damage the artistic expression.
Zhang Peicheng’s sketch works
In addition, the drawing method of Chinese painting sketch should also abandon the method of completely simulating the object and drawing in an orderly way. In today’s era, we should also encourage the diversity of modeling, draw our own feelings and create freely. I think this is more in line with the requirements of art.
In fact, in ancient times, although we didn’t learn sketch in the western sense, we also learned modeling by studying mustard seed garden and earlier pastels. For example, painting flowers requires a very good understanding of the structure of flowers. Take Qi Baishi as an example. He has never drawn a western sketch, but he knows the structure of the object very well. I remember once reading a document that Qi Baishi wanted to draw a duck. He carefully studied what the other paw was like when the duck landed on the ground, and he knew it clearly.Strictly speaking, we can also understand his process of figuring it out as a kind of sketch, because he is not only figuring it out in his mind, but also showing it in writing, so this is actually a study of modeling.Therefore, for Chinese painting, the training of sketch should have its own set of methods, instead of being "led by the nose" by the object, it should not be too realistic, but should capture more meaningful shapes.
Qi Baishi’s Works (Partial)
Teachers should always inspire students’ feelings about art. If everyone has their own unique interests, they can find themselves, and our art world will be rich and colorful. Although it’s hard to do. Of course, it is also necessary for traditional learning. Otherwise, this culture will not be handed down.
Traditional Chinese painting teachers used to teach students the modeling of objects and a program when teaching. Students know what peony looks like, how many painting methods there are, and the unique formal language of Chinese painting, that is, the program of painting. I think there are advantages to this, but there are also shortcomings, that is, unless students of Chinese painting have special talents, they can leave their teachers and draw peony and bamboo that are different from their teachers, otherwise they will easily fall into a stylized mode.
In fact, creation should go out and face nature directly, and sketching is very important. Of course, subjective things can be completely integrated into one’s heart. I have seen Mr. Zhu Qizhan’s sketches, and he hooked a house with a small notebook and pen, and so on. Many things are in his heart.
I can say that people who paint bamboo now rarely go out to see real bamboo, but only from the program, so people all over the country may paint the same bamboo. The program created by our ancients was summed up against real bamboo.If we have the ability to sketch today, we can also create a new program for today’s bamboo-this program is different from the ancients, but it is connected with the roots of our national culture. And this requires the ability to shape objects.
Just after the Cultural Revolution, the Ministry of Education had a big discussion about whether Chinese painting should be sketched. Is sketch the basis of Chinese painting? I think it is definitely wrong to say that "sketch is the basis of Chinese painting". But the modeling ability of sketch can be used for reference by Chinese painting. And this kind of reference should be cut in the way of sketching in traditional Chinese painting. In my opinion, students of Chinese painting can draw with a brush when they are in sketch class. For example, painting plaster Voltaire, you can draw it like him or not, but it has a lot of brush strokes in it. In this way, the bondage of western-style sketch to Chinese painting can be greatly reduced.
Jiang Jianzhong (Director of Oil Painting Department of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Ph.D.):
Sketch is a "buffet", and you can find yourself only by choosing it individually.
At present, the art scene in China is surging, but the concept of sketch teaching has lagged behind. At present, the meaning of sketch understood by the oil painting major in the Academy of Fine Arts in class is still the second-hand pirated mode of the former Soviet Union, and sketch is already a kind of "stereotyped writing" and a dogma; Placed in the background of the times, it is like salted fish in the refrigerator.
Sketch is like a swamp on the road to the other shore. If the sketch foundation is poor, the picture will be weak. However, for a long time, most of the students in domestic colleges walked into this muddy swamp, but it was difficult to extricate themselves. In the Academy of Fine Arts, sketch classes are met every day, but how to draw sketches today? Most people have not thought about it, but still follow the sketch dogma, and students learn passively. Students only know how to grind a sketch very delicately, but they don’t know how to capture features, how to shape, and how sketch is a way to recognize things. They only use models as props to sketch, which has no vitality and soul.
Students don’t know what to achieve through the rules while learning the rules of sketching.Most students enter the Academy of Fine Arts because they love painting. In the cultural class, they can’t help but smear some strokes on the textbooks and sketch some naive but vivid characters. But when they entered the classroom and faced the models, those imaginations were gone. They are lost in the baggage of "Soviet-style" sketches, and their eyes are blocked by countless blocks, tones, methods and laws, which create obstacles. Every stroke of his works is to embody these laws, but as for the vivid characteristics of the objects and his own feelings, he is numb.I think many people have this experience. When parents feed their children hard every day, the effect is often counterproductive, and the result is anorexia.
In the mode of passive education, there will also be a freak. The more students master the traditional plaster skills, the less they want to create after graduation. In our country, the sketch of college entrance examination is more exam-oriented education, and there are very few personalized things. This "publicity" criterion is very practical for knocking on the door of university, but after entering university, this sketch is unfavorable for a student to become an artist. Students should look for a "private" sketch road from their own hearts and feelings, not too much "publicity". In my opinion, students majoring in oil painting should advocate short-term homework and sketching, and train their eyes’ sharpness and modeling generalization. Capture the most vivid things in the most concise way. In fact, the growth path of ancient western masters is more about drawing short-term homework.
In fact, tradition is dynamic, and you need to "find" tradition according to your own needs.The history of eastern and western art is so long and rich, can you swallow it all? If you can’t digest it, it will be of little value to you. You can only choose the food suitable for your gastrointestinal structure by buffet. If Van Gogh goes to learn from Angel, then Van Gogh does not exist. When you discover and "digest" those "traditions", you will experience the mystery of "transformational creation" and you will gradually discover yourself.
The training of sketch is not only realized by sketching or simulating objects; More importantly, according to one’s hobbies, nature and times, one should constantly absorb and revise the history of art in terms of concepts, expression techniques and modeling, and borrow the experience of predecessors in sketching and implant it into reality.
Jiang Jianzhong’s sketch works
Due to historical reasons, many successful artists found themselves in the oil paintings of western masters after the "reform and opening up", not in sketches. Therefore, most people are more accustomed to thinking and expressing their ideas directly with oil painting materials and tools on canvas, and rarely think or explain their personal artistic views in the form of sketches. Sketch is only regarded as basic training, not an independent art. Many people completely separate creation from sketching. When sketching, it is a mode of thinking, and when creating, it is a set of mode of thinking, which sets them against each other. However, the works of such painters are hard to go far.
Therefore, sketching has been a long time for some artists, just like a student’s exam. After that, he can’t wait to dump his textbook. great escape doesn’t want to look back. Sketch belongs to a position that is hardly even marginal in China.In fact, for artists, sketch is still very important, and it is the artist’s artistic position. Sometimes the record of sketch is more appropriate, natural, simple and convenient. Sketch is an artistic note, an artist’s psychological trajectory and behavior, a front stop of creation, a part of creation and creation itself!What kind of sketch there is, what kind of oil painting there is. Such examples abound in history, such as Van Gogh, Angel, Egon Schiele, Freud and so on.
It is urgent to find your own thinking point and cultivate independent thinking ability, starting from yourself! Please choose your favorite painting style in stages from the huge menu of art history, and look for excitement! Especially when I was a student,We should constantly replace the slippers of masters, wander between art history and objects, and look for interfaces between life and history, and between modernity and tradition. Don’t put basic training in opposition to creation, there should be creative elements in basic training.Maybe this should start at the same time as the first day of laying the foundation!
By the way, in contemporary times, the modeling training of oil painting major and Chinese painting major is facing a common problem. If sketch is regarded as methodology, its meaning will be very broad. In fact, all ethnic groups in the world have their own modeling methods and uniqueness in understanding the world, but they are marginalized.
The difference between China’s traditional modeling concept and the West is that Chinese’s sculpture concept follows the painting, and the clothing lines are completely flat lines, paying attention to density, accessibility, smoothness and implication, and pursuing plane. Western painting follows the sculpture, paying attention to light and shadow, space and strength, and pursuing volume. It is for this reason that beginners advocate painting plaster statues.
Perhaps the world has always been diverse, but for various reasons, we have forgotten our traditions. Interestingly, the concept of Chinese painting specialty has appeared the thinking phenomenon of western sketch, while the west is close to the planarization of the East. In the formation of her culture, a nation is still choosing something suitable for its national development, and is always in the process of absorption, exclusion and integration. Choosing and teaching students how to find food is the most important thing.
The development of western aesthetics basically follows the development of science.The traditional concept of sketch is the result of westerners’ understanding and grasping of the natural world. However, after the popularization of photography technology, the concept of sketching to reproduce nature has been in crisis … If the history of China since the 19th century is a response to the West, can the present era finally be regarded as "the response of the West to the East"?If we bypass the strange circle of cultural opposition between the East and the West, it is possible not to fall into other people’s cultural nests or our own nests. Perhaps, what we have to do is to stand on our own soil, trace back and sort out the cultural traditions of the East and the West from our personal perspective, and integrate them to generate ourselves.
Lu Zhiping (Deputy Director of Print Art Committee of China Artists Association):
Activate the "Eighteen Martial Arts" of Sketch, and enlighten diverse and diverse creations.
The idea of sketch originated in the west. butIf sketch refers to all monochromatic paintings, then in a broad sense, the method of sketching lines with a brush in ancient China can actually be regarded as a sketch.. Even now, some people think that ink painting is a form of sketch, but it was not called that at that time. In fact, most of the early artistic creations in the world are expressed in monochrome, such as rock paintings, rubbings and so on.
Sketch is beneficial to the introduction and development of all plastic arts. For printmaking, for a long period of history, it is mainly monochrome, such as early black and white woodcuts, copperplate prints, lithographs, etc., so printmaking and sketch have a special origin. Sketch should be regarded as an important support for printmaking.
In the field of teaching, how to understand and deal with the relationship between sketch education and printmaking has always been an important topic.Before and after the "Cultural Revolution", in order to make basic teaching connect with printmaking (especially black and white woodcut) more quickly, some domestic art colleges specially designed a set of sketch teaching system at that time. They trained sketch not from light and shade, but more from structure and block. This is a special sketch specially designed for printmaking teaching.
This idea was reasonable at that time, and it was quite effective in promoting the development of printmaking at one stage. But from now on, everything has advantages and disadvantages.At that time, the basis of sketch teaching was: printmaking should have a fixed pattern-large area, big black and white, and sketch served this fixed pattern. However, when the country was opened, it was found that in fact, the forms of printmaking were various.For example, some copperplate paintings pay special attention to light and shadow, while some prints emphasize line texture and sense of form. And different sketches may inspire artists to create different styles of printmaking works, so that printmaking presents a richer look. In this way, it is one-sided to set a fixed routine for a sketch to correspond to a print from the beginning.
Lu Zhiping’s print "The Old Man"
In fact, it is the same in the creation of Chinese painting. For example, if you set the Chinese painting to use lines at the beginning, you emphasize that students should use line drawing more often, but later you find that Chinese painting can also be splashed with ink and boneless, and there are many other methods. The training method of setting the box at the beginning may become a constraint for students. On the contrary, if students are encouraged to try a variety of sketches at the beginning, they will have a broader vision no matter what kind of artistic creation they are engaged in in in the future. From this point of view, sketch is not only a means to teach students to draw, but also a training of observation method and thinking mode. Isn’t creativity advocated in all fields now? Then I think sketch can be used as a way to break through the original frame. It may be more meaningful and reasonable to practice sketch in this way.
As for the sketch examination method widely criticized in college enrollment, I think it is caused by the accumulated disadvantages in the whole education field for many years, which is completely utilitarian. Let the teacher set a model to facilitate grading and admission, and less consideration is given to whether it is beneficial to students’ future growth. Many students like me can be said to be "victims" of this educational system. Because in many cases, our print creation does not advocate to describe the object in front of us truthfully, but emphasizes creativity, so many students feel at a loss and have no direction after they arrive.
We try to let the students learn to change their original thinking that relies on describing objects by observing, summarizing, choosing, imagining, mutating and creating, and let them gradually reverse their thinking mode by using abstract methods, imaginative methods and design methods.
For example, when training students to practice composition, I will ask them: Can ten different pictures be constructed from the same theme? For example, can the same three apples be placed in a variety of ways? Can black-and-white relations be handled differently? This forces them to open their minds. When their composition is finished, I say that at this time, you can choose the one you think is the best. In fact, as long as the mind is open, the hand will keep up. Sketch and composition training are both a form of sketch, which is not only a creative means, but also a support for thinking. The later draft may not be exactly the same as the sketch composition, but it doesn’t matter. The creator can see more lines and possibilities from behind one of the lines, thus getting rid of the dependence on the object.
Of course, I think it’s beneficial to know and try any kind of sketch form, including the plaster statues widely criticized in college enrollment. In fact, there is nothing wrong with learning how to push the work deeper. The problem is that it is wrong to regard such a sketch form as the only golden rule. I think it would be great if we could master the Soviet-style rigorous observation method and step-by-step molding method, and at the same time jump out of it.
I have received this Soviet-style education before. My teacher at that time told me, "After three years, five years and ten years, you will probably realize the effect of this long-term homework on you." Now I have a deep understanding,The value of long-term sketch is not to restore the object realistically, but to let me learn to observe carefully and comprehensively;Learn to make careful and rigorous trade-offs; Learning the expression of full and proper layer-by-layer promotion can also be used to study and explore a variety of expression techniques. This is the training of ability, thinking and mentality.
In plastic arts, printmaking may be a kind of painting with particularly rich styles and techniques, so the corresponding sketch forms should also be varied. For example, there is a technique called "Merutin" in copperplate prints, which pursues rich and subtle color changes, unlike black and white woodcuts. For this printmaking technique, the Soviet-style long-term sketching work will come in handy. Eighteen kinds of martial arts have their own merits, depending on who they are suitable for and on what occasion.
Some students or schools in the west don’t attach importance to sketching and can’t draw, which should not be the object we must follow.Of course, their training methods that attach importance to thinking also have some merits, but this does not mean that "being good at hands" is wrong. Now western painting is also returning, and it is normal to go astray for a period of time, and some overcorrection is also normal. As for us, there is no need to change our minds and follow the trend, as if everyone can’t draw is the "right way", which is completely unnecessary.
Yang Jianping (Vice President of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Professor of Sculpture Department, Doctoral Supervisor):
At present, sketch teaching is like smog, which is a "syndrome"
Sketch, as its name implies, is a way to describe an image in a simple and simple way. Historically, sketch and sculpture are closely related.For sculptors, sketching is a basic training, but also a way to record ideas and creative inspiration. Many sculptors leave a lot of manuscripts besides three-dimensional sculptures, such as Michelangelo and Rodin.
Michelangelo sketch
Relatively speaking, China’s traditional sculptures and paintings are different from western classical realistic styles and methods. It has unique artistic modeling styles and creative methods handed down from ancestors.The ancient sculptures in China have their own strict styles. Through the description of pastels and the dictation of written data, for example, the opening of a Buddha statue has very specific data, all of which have statutes.The East emphasizes inheritance rather than innovation, but these shapes are unique. Therefore, sketch, as a basic practice or recording creation method, has many forms in a broad sense.
Sculpture itself, due to the different cultures, materials and concepts between the East and the West, finally presents a very diversified style, even in a conceptual and installation way. As a sketch teaching, we should also keep up. Otherwise, you just train every student to draw concrete, but in the end, many people actually don’t do concrete at all. It’s not that the "academic" sketch we are learning now has no merit, but at least it’s not good for all of us to do it. There should be a distinction. For those students who insist on figuration, let them study the traditional realistic sketch well. Other students can learn from it, but there is no need to spend too much class time on it. Different students should have different training emphases.
There are various ways to sketch, for example, Bauhaus’s sketch training method is to draw structural relations. Look at the traditional masters, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Holbein and Diu Lei. Those lines are beautiful and expressive. We should oppose dogma and have active thoughts and critical spirit.
Yang Jianping’s work "Jing Zhe"
Our generation learned to sketch, and they danced all the way in "red dancing shoes" and enjoyed it. We visited a place, took out a sketch book and recorded it. It was very enjoyable to start painting, and a painting took half a day. But today’s young people are different. They are willing to take out their mobile phones to take a photo and make a video, which saves time and effort. Their current inspection is more about experience, with a faster pace and more things to see. In the Internet age, such a change is sometimes understandable, but it also raises a question: What kind of basic training do we need and what kind of sketch do we want to draw? Since the birth of photography, it has been an impact on documentary painting, and the artistic expression after that is more of an idea. Do all our students still draw the same sketches like photos? There must be something wrong with this.
We usually say that the master sketches well. In fact, Leonardo da Vinci was not only a painter, but also a naturalist, a scientist and thinker. Now we always say that we should learn from the lines of masters, but people are comprehensive. A person is an artist because he is capable and thoughtful, so he can paint well.The sentence in the allusion of my skillful solution to the cow "I am in a good mood, and I am also a Taoist;" It’s very reasonable to enter the skill. Now people have to "skill" instead of "Tao", putting the cart before the horse.
This also has a lot to do with our current college entrance examination system. It is these patterned sketches that students learn all day for the exam, and they don’t know what to do after entering the university. Some people think that’s how sketches should be drawn. So the students who come in are the students the teacher wants? But if you don’t want it, who can you want? China, with such a large population, how can we get into universities without this method? The sketch of the college entrance examination is indeed widely criticized now, but it is not that simple to reform it.
The existing problems in art education are actually a "syndrome", which is related to the national conditions in China, just like the smog in China. You said that students only know how to paint plaster, and you can’t blame them. They lacked aesthetic education since childhood. On the other hand, after graduation, students in China need to find jobs for their survival and family expectations, so what they have learned has to be "practical".To some extent, the Academy of Fine Arts does not train artists in China, but solves the problem of social employment.
The syllabus clearly says "sketch head" and "still life". You must take this course even if you don’t approve it. Comparatively speaking, the postgraduate stage is relatively flexible. In a word, a series of problems such as national conditions, education system, teachers and even ideology make the teaching reform difficult.
(This series of articles was compiled by Jiang Cen according to interviews)
