Tangible, affectionate, tolerant
Mr. Wu Shanming is gone
But there are "long lines" drawn by him in the world
Wu Gaolan is far from enjoying his father's love.
"I just saw the photos of my father. He was always so gentle and loving. In my memory, my father didn't say a word of seriousness to me. All major problems encountered were'discuss with you, see for yourself, this is mine. opinion.'"
But Wu Gaolan's father Wu Shanming is gone.
Mr. Wu Shanming, an important leader in contemporary Chinese painting, an outstanding representative of the Zhejiang school of figure painting, and a professor at the China Academy of Art, is gone.
On the afternoon of February 6, the "Voxel Illuminating God: Mr. Wu Shanming Memorial Meeting" was held on the Nanshan campus of China Academy of Art.
Wu Gaolan said that his father was very kind, but he was actually very careless. "He is always busy, and sometimes I feel that (the father's love) is not enough. He is gone, and my heart is broken."
Mr. is a cruel man
In front of his children, Mr. Wu Shanming said that he was "a person of good luck". He said that some painters of his generation were very smart. He was hardworking, not the most talented, but the stupid bird flew first.
Yesterday at noon, after returning to the office from the funeral home after attending Mr. Wu Shanming’s farewell ceremony, Professor Gao Shiming, Dean of the China Academy of Art, re-read Mr. Wu’s picture album and read it, "It was like chatting with him."
Gao Shiming shared his thoughts about this spiritual friendship with her husband.
As listeners, we seem to understand a little bit about what kind of self-training Mr. Wu said "the stupid bird flies first".
Surprisingly, the painter Wu Shanming mentioned by Gao Shiming is a cruel man.
"Mr. Wu emphasized ink and wash sketches and used soft pens to write hard shapes. It is not only difficult, but the purpose is to practice the familiarity and sensitivity of pen and ink. From the sketching of ink and wash, this is exactly the language of Chinese figure painting. conscious.
He emphasized two points in his creation: one is the purification of language, and the other is the polarization of style.
Purification is easier to understand; polarization, Mr. Wu said, to push the style to the extreme, you must be aggressive, self-assertive, and defiant.
"
"This is another teacher Wu Shanming. He is such a generous elder, behind him is an explorer full of experimentation and adventurous spirit."
Professor He Shiyang from China Academy of Art accompanied Mr. Wu to India in 2017.
"In New Delhi, one night after having a dinner and returning to the residence, Mr. Wu said to his mother,'I want to have tea with Shi Yang.' It was about 1 a.m. that day, and Mr. Wu had no intention of leaving, so she talked to me. Apart from caring about me, what I am most concerned about is a lot of work in school and society. I have been talking about more than two points before returning."
One thing He Shiyang was particularly worried about was the teacher's body: "What I mentioned to him was to reduce social activities after returning."
All the students feel distressed that Mr. Wu is still very tired when he is old.
"Since I came back, I always blamed Teacher Wu for not paying much attention to his body. As students, we would feel that our teacher’s longevity is our happiness, and the happiness of the school. Later I learned that we came from the perspective of ordinary people. Thinking about this problem."
In October 2020, He Shiyang knew that Mr. Wu was ill and was hospitalized. He went to visit and discovered that his husband was already very weak.
Only then did the students know that in 2010, my husband’s illness was in the terminal stage.
"My mind is buzzing... I think Teacher Wu's mind is not something that we can measure by ordinary people. He hopes to dedicate himself to school, art, students, and do more for the society. These two days linger in my mind. However, we still cannot fully understand Teacher Wu's mind."
"Mr. Wu's mind is like the ocean, his selfless artistic personality, and his sincerity to care for the next generation are forever in the world."
Although He Shiyang still couldn't help but miss the situation of Mr. Wu for the first time after he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s-"At that time, Mr. Wu was walking by the door of the student dormitory, and others said this was Wu Shanming. He wore one. Windbreaker, blond hair, walked over. Our group of students think of the Academy of Fine Arts, they think of Teacher Wu. The Academy of Fine Arts where we study and work, and the place we are most familiar with is the Academy of Fine Arts where Teacher Wu walks around."
A landscape of the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts
The campus of China Academy of Art with Mr. Wu Shanming is like a unique landscape.
In 1985, Hua Jun (Associate Dean of the School of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, China Academy of Art) was still a student in the High School Attached to the Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, he studied and lived on the campus of the Academy of Fine Arts.
The most exciting thing for these young people who are determined to apply for the Department of Chinese Painting is that they can run into the "male god" Mr. Wu Shanming in school. "At that time, Mr.'s hair was already full, but it was still gray."
That year, Guan Huaibin (the dean of the School of Intermedia Art of the China Academy of Art) had already taken the entrance examination of the Academy of Fine Arts. "The day that Mr. Wu brought other examiners into the examination room, I stopped in front of our screen. I think my paintings are different. , Continue to draw, the mood will be different."
"After the annual teaching evaluation of the Academy of Fine Arts, as a junior in the supervision team, I am very honored to follow a big man like Mr. Wu." Guan Huaibin said, Mr. Wu Shanming instilled the starting point of the Zhejiang school's figure painting creation into the teaching. In the system, "this kind of thing is a trickle, and it will always nourish our juniors."
"Yes, Teacher Wu is the'Dinghai Shenzhen' of the Department of Chinese Painting." Wang Zan, former vice president of the China Academy of Art, talked about the teaching of Chinese painting figure painting at the memorial meeting.
"In the early 1960s, Mr. Pan Tianshou proposed that the three subjects of Chinese painting, landscape, and flowers and birds should be studied separately. Mr. Wu Shanming constructed the basic framework of this system. This system formed the China Academy of Art. The important means of university education and talent training are the characteristics of the Chinese painting figure teaching at the China Academy of Art."
Mr. Wu Shanming is the leader of the new generation of figure painting of Zhejiang School. He has been in the storm of figure painting teaching many times.
"The Eighth Five-Year Trend in the 20th century has had a great impact on the figure painting of Chinese painting. Mr. Wu is the leader of Chinese painting. He very firmly inherits Mr. Pan Tianshou’s tradition of teaching Chinese painting and always guarantees that the teaching system of Chinese figure painting is obtained. Good development. No matter what changes outside, the method of teaching figure painting is always in our artistic innovation and exploration to maintain its stability. We call him the "Dinghai Shenzhen needle of the Chinese Painting Department", because he is there, let us The teaching system has always been on the path of benign, reasonable and scientific development."
Mr. Wu often mentions to students that he only met Mr. Huang Binhong in his later years when he was a primary school student, but he talked with him throughout his life.
Because of this, Guan Huaibin said: "It is an honor for us to have so much communication with Teacher Wu."
Long lines in Chinese painting
In 1988, the Chinese ink painting cartoon "Shanshui Qing", which was designed by Mr. Wu Shanming as the character design and Mr. Zhuo Hejun as the background design, told a story of teacher preaching.
From today's point of view, this is about Mr. Wu's own life, his love for the landscape and the world.
"I often discuss art with my father. When we are together, we are more like a teacher-student relationship. He taught me that art creation is the same as being a person. As a person, I should leave room for others. Don't talk too much. Leave room."
Once, when the father and daughter were looking at the picture album, Mr. Wu told Wu Gaolan: "If you see this painting is too full, the people watching it will have no emotions and will not be able to get involved, so the painting should also be tolerant. There’s a little space for people watching."
"Father is a very innocent person, so his paintings are also very innocent. When I look at his paintings, I think his paintings have light, space, time, emotion, time, soul, and Fortune, added together, is life, between mountains and rivers. He is such a person who gives all his energy to art and life to painting, and his life is in his paintings."
Two days ago, when Wu Gaolan was sorting out his father’s manuscript, she saw him repeatedly mention the need to stretch the thread, “I didn’t care about it in the past, but now I can feel it when I recall it. He said that there is tangibility and affection in the long thread. It is the essence of Chinese painting and the most inclusive thing."
Mr. Wu is a very grateful person. He has always said to his children that he must think about his advantages, even if he only has 1% of them.
He never looked at the shortcomings of others, only the strengths of others.
This is probably the whole life of Mr. Wu: innocence and brightness.
Wu Gaolan said that his father was so conscious one day before he died: "He said he wanted to paint because he hadn't got a paintbrush for half a year." At that moment, he told his daughter that he could log on again after giving him two more years. A peak, a peak he wants to reach.
"Now, he must be painting with Uncle Lu (the old neighbor of Wu Shanming's family, the famous flower and bird painter Lu Kunfeng, who died in 2018)." Wu Gaolan said.
Our reporter Zhang Mijia