Yuan Yunsheng was a legend in the Chinese painting world in the 20th century, from a gifted student to a famous artist at home and abroad, and he returned from living overseas to devote himself to the study of traditional Chinese modeling. As an outstanding artist, trained by the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), his talent is appreciated by many people and always attracts the attention of the painting world. What is more valuable is that his art is not always confined to one form, but has a strong vitality for continuous updating and exploring. Zhang Ding once said, “Yuan Yunsheng is a sincere artist. From his youth, he has lived a troubled life, but he has always shown concern about the fate of mankind.”
The exhibition “Revel in the Universe's Infinite Flux——Yuan Yunsheng and His Dream of Murals Painting” is grandly opened in Gallery B on the third floor of CAFA Art Museum on September 15th. It is hosted by CAFA and organized by CAFA Art Museum and the Department of Oil Painting of CAFA. This exhibition is Yuan Yunsheng’s first retrospective large-scale exhibition held in his alma mater, with more than 80 pieces of works on display.
The theme of the exhibition, “Revel in the Universe's Infinite Flux”, comes from Tao Yuanming’s famous quote, “Even in the great waves, one should keep a balanced attitude, not happy or afraid, and do everything to the best of the capabilities without thinking too much.” It also comes from Yuan Yunsheng’s largest mural in his life, Revel in the Universe's Infinite Flux, created in 2011, which is also the most important core work of this exhibition. “Revel in the Universe's Infinite Flux” is a portrayal of Mr. Yuan Yunsheng’s attitude towards life. He is “infatuated” with and committed to art, with his own firm ideals and beliefs since his youth, and it is difficult to shake his determination no matter whether it is controversial or not.
What kind of ideal is this? What kind of artist is he? The curator hopes to answer these questions in the exhibition by displaying works, literature, and the artist’s self-statement.
The main thread of this exhibition is the most crucial subject in Yuan Yunsheng’s lifetime creation – the dream of mural painting. It was his dream during his studies at CAFA. His mentor Dong Xiwen was a great admirer of Dunhuang and was passionate about murals, and he once said, “A brush can bear a thousand years of heavy responsibility.” In their minds, mural painting is not simply a genre of painting, nor is it just a personal dream, but rather, mural painting can unveil the great wealth accumulated in traditional Chinese culture, and is a way to lead the revival of Chinese culture and let it has a place in the world’s art. “For me, the important cultural legacy of traditional Chinese culture in different historical periods is the endless treasures and the source of artistic spirit and artistic language. It may stem from the Chinese ideal of life and way of thinking.” Under the influence of his mentor, the young Yuan Yunsheng began his “dream of mural painting”. He has embraced the opportunities and setbacks of history and sincerely pursued his ideal. And this dream has lasted more than 60 years.
Mural paintings run through Yuan Yunsheng’s artistic career, and the exhibition brings together nine representative works or pictures created during the four periods of his life: Memories of the Water Town, Water-Splashing Day – An Ode to Life, Red + Blue + Yellow = White? – Two Mythological Stories About China, The Affairs of the World Are Inconstant, Luxury and Dissipation, Scholar in Contemplation with Guqin, Revel in the Universe's Infinite Flux, Kuafu Running After the Sun, Gong Gong Hitting Buzhou Mountain & The Goddess Mending the Sky. The four sections – “First Attempt of Mural Painting”, “Dream of Mural Painting and Chinese Soul”, “The Restless Chinese Heart”, and “The Return of the Soul” – effectively sort out and classify Yuan Yunsheng’s artistic career and constitutes the main narrative framework of the exhibition. More than 80 representative works of different periods are displayed, fully showing the context and changes of styles of Yuan Yunsheng’s art journey to the viewer. At the same time, the exhibition focuses on exploring the artist’s thinking in the process of creation, and selects Yuan Yunsheng’s important artistic views to be displayed against his works, so that the viewer can better understand the spiritual power behind the artist’s creation.
Many important works and documents in this exhibition are presented for the first time, providing us with more clues to know about the artist. From the exhibition, we can see the growth path of an excellent artist, his concern for the value of life in artistic creation, and his forward-looking thinking in artistic exploration.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Mr. Yuan Yunsheng has a deep affection for his alma mater, the Central Academy of Fine Arts. For this exhibition, he will donate the unfinished first draft of his graduation work Memories of the Water Town, which marks the beginning of his dream of mural painting, and the largest mural work in his life, Revel in the Universe's Infinite Flux (6 m X 18 m), to CAFA Art Museum together.
Section One: First Attempt of Mural Painting – Memories of the Water Town
In 1962, my graduation work Memories of the Water Town can be regarded as my first draft of a mural painting.
That spring, two ghostly thoughts haunted my mind: one was Dunhuang, as I had just seen a large-scale Dunhuang exhibition for ten consecutive days in Shanghai; the other was Bo Gu Ye Zi by Chen Hongshou. Around the Spring Festival, I imitated a set of 48 pieces in line drawing. In order to digest them, I went to Luzhi, a town on the outskirts of Suzhou.
It was an ancient town, with strong characteristics of Jiangnan Water Town. The clothes of the people there, especially the women, were in perfect harmony with the environment, and everything showed the signs of the ancient culture. The banks of the small river in the town often have stones sticking out to the water, which are used to tie up the boat line, not only with holes, but also with relief patterns. I sat on the bank side, beside a small bag of fried noodles, and sketched with a bottle of ink, feeling very cordial and joyful.
……
What was the biggest inspiration for me in this creation? I think it was the confidence to paint, because I had painstakingly drawn sketches for more than two months and enriched myself. I felt more at ease without models and even put the sketching aside, but the result was closer to my feelings than sketching. Perhaps this was the power of sincerity. Soon after, an article criticizing me appeared in a magazine, saying that the figures in my painting were demonized, and I couldn’t help but be dumbstruck. I might lose sincerity for praise. Since then, to insist on sincerity in art, nothing had been done for more than ten years. Not only did I achieve nothing, but I heard criticism all the time.
-- Yuan Yunsheng
Section Two: Dream of Mural Painting and Chinese Soul – Water-Splashing Day – An Ode to Life
Water-Splashing Day – An Ode to Life was my first practice of mural painting. Last year, my friends offered me a good chance to spend a few months in Xishuangbanna and the Lincang region of the Dai nationality. It was a long journey from the northeast to the southwest. The most exciting thing was the wonderful Xishuangbanna and the beauty of the Dai people. I had to suppress my excitement, concentrate my emotions, and preserve my feelings more precisely by painting slowly. I kept trying to build my Xishuangbanna in my mind and my paintings. The images of rich, dense, powerful and holistic flora, as well as the images of simple, colorful, unaffected and beautiful Dai women, constitute the general image of Xishuangbanna in my mind. This is a world of both rich and simple lines – soft and elastic, straight and beautiful, but also persistent, lingering and slow.
The Dai people are a friendly and enthusiastic nation. The famous folk tales of the Dai people are recorded in the ancient Pattra-leaf Scripture, which is regarded as a treasure by the Dai family. It contains the flames of passion of this tropical nationality, free imagination, and clear and simple philosophy. Each story is clear about good and evil, and the pursuit of love, freedom and happiness is the most common theme, and there are heroes who remove the things that are harmful to the people, suffer a lot of hardships yet remain faithful and unyielding. One legend about the origin of the Water-Splashing Festival particularly attracted me and deepened my understanding of this beauty-loving nation.
When I was commissioned to paint a mural at the Capital Airport, the only subject I could think of was the Water-Splashing Festival. It was really a dream for me to paint a mural painting on a huge wall of 27 meters wide and 3.4 meters tall to praise the spirit and character of the Dai People.
-- Yuan Yunsheng
Section Three: The Restless Chinese Heart – Symbolizing the Value of Life with Lines and Color Blocks
The abstraction of art is, above all, the abstraction of lines. This is just a feature of Eastern art. The independent lines do not exist in the world. In this respect, Western art has learned it the hard way. It was not until the 20th century, as Western artists were inspired by Eastern art and had a new understanding of lines and colors, that revolutionary changes took place in the modern schools of art. The emphasis on the line as an expression of the spiritual world is, in fact, the most important cognitive leap towards the expression of individuality. Of course, there is also color. The essence of the line is abstract, which is its independent characteristic, and people can only feel the existence of the line in the real world but cannot find its entity. When it rises to the main means of artistic expression, changes in artistic expression are inevitable. Calligraphy is an important part of Oriental art, and it is an art of independent and abstract lines. Calligraphy and painting have been separated in the East for more than a thousand years. In the past hundred years, the West has awakened and desperately looked for the development of abstraction in the art of painting. This phenomenon is enlightening to us in some sense, and the development of our modern art can also be able to absorb more nutrients and make new achievements from the treasure of the great calligraphy art that has been handed down by our ancestors.
-- Yuan Yunsheng
The combination of arts will produce a comprehensive art, and we should review our art in the past, and reach out to the world and the future. For the future development of art, we must strive to enrich ourselves. There are too many things to learn, and the traditions we have inherited are still narrow, not to mention the world we are familiar with and know.
-- Yuan Yunsheng
Section Four: The Return of the Soul – Traditional Chinese Plastic Arts and Its Education System
I believe that after we truly study ancient art and reflect on the pursuit of modern art, we may be able to find a common foundation and realize that modern art’s quest is not very far from ours in essence, and that we can draw the necessary insights from it. At that time, there will be one, ten, or even a hundred kinds of sketches that are content-oriented, emotion-oriented, and spirit-oriented.
Tracing the true spirit of national art is the essence of the so-called inheritance of tradition. As for the rest, nothing else matters. May the soul of Chinese art come back.
-- Yuan Yunsheng, 1982
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