China News Service, Kunming, March 6, Title: Chinese Peasant Paintings: Art Flowers "Grown" in the Countryside
Reporter Miao Chao
"Spring Cattle Plowing" depicts a family of four plowing in a pear orchard in spring; "Spring Scenery of Fishing River" depicts nine golden-threaded barbels in Dianchi Lake, which means long-lasting and abundant years; "Dai Women Picking Bracken" depicts Pink is the main color, which does not seem like a color that an old man would use...
These paintings of Chinese farmers, which do not seek to be realistic, and whose compositions are not constrained by the principle of perspective, are free-spirited and clumsy but clever. They were selected by the international coffee brand Starbucks and printed on coffee paper cups in the spring when "the rhythm of spring returns and everything begins to renew." Above, there is elegance in the soil and full of spring fun.
On the 5th, some peasant painters who created the above-mentioned works held a sharing session in Kunming, Yunnan, and were interviewed by reporters.
The picture shows farmer painters showing their paintings printed on Starbucks coffee cups.
Photo by China News Service reporter Liu Ranyang
"The hoe is in the left hand and the brush is in the right hand." Zhuo Liping, a 52-year-old farmer painter, lives in Xiaoying Village, Chenggong, Kunming, surrounded by thousands of acres of pear orchards.
Whenever the spring breeze blows, the pear trees are covered with white flowers, and farmers plow the fields under the trees and sow broad beans and corn.
The "Spring Cow Plowing Picture" she created originated from the memories of spring plowing more than 20 years ago. "At that time, there was a fat cow. Just bark lightly and the cow would start working. The puppy who was kind to human nature accompanied him and worked hard. The husband is farming, the young children are playing and playing, and the pear blossoms are as soft as white snow..."
Peasant paintings are one of the unique types of paintings in China. They originate from farmers’ self-printed paper horses, door paintings, statues of gods, and auspicious pictures drawn on kang heads, stove heads, house gables and eaves corners, as well as patterns drawn for clothing embroidery.
Zhuo Liping first learned her painting skills from her grandmother. Her grandmother often embroidered aprons and made embroidered shoes. Before embroidering, she painted patterns of flowers, birds, insects, and fish on the fabric.
"Actually, this is a skill that most rural women must master."
In the 1950s and 1960s, peasant painting towns such as Yijun in Shaanxi, Xiaoxian in Anhui, Yongfeng in Jiangxi, and Jinshan in Shanghai gradually formed.
Later, various parts of China encouraged and supported people living in rural areas, pastoral areas, and fishing islands to create peasant paintings and record their feelings about the times in their own way.
The picture shows peasant painters introducing their paintings to the audience.
Photo by China News Service reporter Liu Ranyang
Yunnan Shilin, Guandu, Maguan, Chenggong and other places have successively hired professional painters to set up training courses to teach professional skills to farmers who love painting.
The Chenggong Cultural Center has been offering training classes since 1993. “The pear garden painting I created in the training class won the first prize in the Chenggong Painting Competition that year.” Zhuo Liping was happy about this for a whole year.
Since then, he has been working hard during the busy farming period and painting during his leisure time.
That first prize also brought her a bonus of 50 yuan (RMB, the same below). "1 yuan back then was enough to buy 1 kilogram of pork." Over the years, Zhuo Liping has created nearly a hundred paintings, with market prices ranging from The initial price rose from 100 yuan to the current maximum of 6,000 yuan.
But she has never calculated the total income from selling paintings. "I get happiness from it and it also makes the viewers happy. That's enough." People like peasant paintings because of the natural beauty revealed in them, which makes the appreciators unconsciously feel The beautiful life in the painting is pleasurable both physically and mentally.
"A place with water and soil supports a person." The regional environment, climate, customs and sentiments vary from place to place, and the expression techniques of farmers' paintings are also different.
Xi Faxian, the author of "Pictures of Dai Women Picking Bracken", is a Dai from Tengchong, Yunnan. He told reporters that everything revives in spring, but for Tengchong, it is a relatively poor season.
"The vegetables at this time have just been planted, and the fungi and fruits are not yet mature. Instead, the wild vegetables and bracken in the mountains are full of life."
In the past, every spring, men, women and children in Tengchong would go to the mountains in groups to dig bracken. This is their collective memory of spring.
Picking bracken is a tiring job, but Xi Faxian, who is nearly 70 years old, chose pink as the main color of the painting.
He explained that there is a proverb in the countryside that "people coax the land, and the land coaxes the belly."
Farming is hard work, but only with bitterness can there be sweetness. "Pink is a happy color. I hope to use pink to express and convey the joy and happiness of spring to everyone."
Throughout the paintings of farmers, most of them use labor as the theme, and they always carry the energy and attitude of Chinese farmers: only the happiness bought by sweat is valuable.
Luo Jiang, director of the Chinese Artists Association and deputy director of the National Arts Committee of the Chinese Artists Association, said that peasant painters use simple painting language, bright red and purple colors, concise and lively styles, and profound themes to vividly record social Historical changes.
These artistic flowers "grown" from the countryside have now become an important part of Chinese folk vernacular art.
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