Elegant style, love and sports.
-Appreciation of the works of the famous painter Zhang Xiaogang.
Without profound cultural heritage, all artistic sources are like rootless water and will eventually dry up. Look at Zhang Xiaogang's hometown, Kaifeng, Henan, also known as Bian, which is now a prefecture-level city in Henan Province. It is one of the seven ancient capitals of China and one of the first 24 historical and cultural cities announced by the State Council. It is located in the middle of China, on the bank of the Yellow River, and is the cradle of China's history and culture. This is an ancient city with a long history and culture. In the history of China, Kaifeng was once called the Girder, the Capital of Song Dynasty, Tokyo, Bianjing and so on. With a history of more than 2,700 years, its capital is well-deserved in the Central Plains. During the Warring States Period, Wei, the Five Dynasties, the Later Jin Dynasty, the Later Han Dynasty, the Later Zhou Dynasty, the Northern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty all established their capitals in Kaifeng, so it was called "the city of the Seven Dynasties". Kaifeng, together with Xi, Luoyang, Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Anyang and Zhengzhou in China, is known as the eight ancient capitals, enjoying a high reputation at home and abroad. Kaifeng is an important tourist city and an open city in the Central Plains with its superior geographical location, mild climate, rich products, convenient transportation, developed culture and education, scientific and technological progress and economic prosperity. This China culture, which has a long history and a hundred schools of thought contend, fascinated Mr. Zhang Xiaogang and deeply influenced his thoughts. It is this culture that breeds this lofty art of calligraphy and painting.
Teacher Zhang Xiaogang's works are unique in style, elegant in modeling and vigorous in brushwork, and advocate innovation on the basis of tradition. He is good at animals, flowers and birds, landscape painting, especially China rooster. His cock painting is realistic, accurate in shape, rigorous in structure and vivid in image. It is the most common theme in painting, with strong and handsome shape, bright in color and auspicious in meaning. Since ancient times, people like to have good luck in their lives and pin this feeling on an animal. Among them, chicken is auspicious, which means auspicious and satisfying people's feelings.
The ancients said that a rooster has five virtues, namely "literature, martial arts, courage, righteousness and faithfulness". Teacher Zhang Xiaogang's pen and ink techniques for roosters are unconventional. The posture and modeling of roosters in his paintings are very vivid, which accurately and realistically depicts the scene of roosters holding their heads high, their feathers fluttering and singing. Its majestic and energetic momentum vividly shows the vitality of the rooster on paper and is ready to go. The generous brushwork not only shows the three-dimensional structure of the rooster, but also has high hopes for it. Chicken is auspicious, auspicious, good luck and other beautiful feng shui meanings. It wishes children and grandchildren full house, good luck and happiness. Moreover, its depiction of the rooster, because of its towering red comb, gives people a magnificent and beautiful appearance, and the crown is homophonic with the official, literally meaning ceremony. The ancients took Gao Yi as a gift, which meant promoting to a higher position and making a fortune. People place more auspicious and prosperous meanings on chickens. Teacher Zhang Xiaogang vividly described this meaning in his cock painting. Zhang Xiaogang's works are still full of charm. "Vivid charm" is an important criterion for China to judge the quality of paintings. Chinese painting is not only skillful in modeling, techniques, composition, texture, pen and ink, color and other skills, but also lies in an artist's own cultivation and perception.
Teacher Zhang Xiaogang's paintings are bold and rough, giving people a magnificent beauty, but they never lack details. Roosters and peonies are lifelike on paper, with bright colors and great tension. The rooster with auspicious meaning and the peony with rich meaning jump from the paper, which makes the viewer feel particularly reluctant to part with their vitality. Not only that, Mr Zhang Xiaogang is also good at painting landscapes, trees, birds and animals, and his works are all inspired by life. The inherent life tension in his paintings is the basis for the generation, existence and growth of painting art in real life. Without this macro foundation, painting art will be exhausted and lose its life and value. In order to make her artistic life evergreen, Zhang Xiaogang often overcomes many difficulties to conceive realism. It is precisely because of this profound artistic insight that his paintings often make people shine at the moment and have profound images, but he also deeply realizes that painting is not a photo of real life, and copying life is tantamount to betraying life. He pays attention to drawing creative sources from life, so the peonies and chickens in his works are full of vitality, winning the spirit, nature, rhyme and emotion, and pinning their escape on their chests, forming their own elegant and meaningful artistic style, skillfully combining traditional pen and ink with modern elements, which is profound and natural, giving people a refreshing feeling and leading people to explore such a graceful world.
People who are immersed in art and have a thorough understanding of the world will see the fate of the creator through gestures of different shapes and sizes when looking at a painting or a word. Time is fleeting, but everything is eternal. Teacher Zhang Xiaogang works hard, and we are full of expectations and blessings.
Editor: Cheng Nan