Unprofessional painter

 　　In today's society, we always add the word "professional" to the title of a painter. Just like the title, most of the painters are now painting as a profession, and amateur painters are rarely among the artists. In fact, since the Song Dynasty in China, due to the influence of the literati painting thought, most of the famous painters in the history of painting are almost all officials and celebrities, "non-professional", in their eyes, professional painters can only be regarded as "artisans". It just so happens that there are two foreigners, Lang Shining and Rousseau, who are also very unprofessional, and some of them are not doing their jobs properly.

　　Castiglione, formerly known as Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), an Italian, received systematic and good painting training in his youth, and later joined the Society of Jesus, a religious organization affiliated to European Christianity, and in 1714 AD In the 53rd year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, he left Europe as a missionary and went to the East. After a year of turbulence at sea, he arrived in Macau the following year (now occupied by Portugal), learned Chinese, took "Lang Shining" as his Chinese name, and then went to the capital in the north. Qianlong three dynasties. Lang Shining created many works for the emperor in the Qing court. Only "Shiqu Baoji" records as many as 56 works, which does not include works that are not signed on the paintings. Lang Shining came all the way to China for the purpose of preaching. In order to make it easier for the rulers to accept Christianity, he used his painting skills to please the emperor and served in the inner court as a court painter. However, in the end, it was his paintings that combined Chinese and Western styles that made Lang Shining famous all over the world, rather than his contributions to Christianity, which can be regarded as quite unprofessional.

　　Lang Shining's paintings can be said to be "Western learning for the body, middle school for the application", or based on perspective, with strong realism, but only adjusted according to the Chinese aesthetic habits in the use of light. Especially when painting portraits, let the face accept the frontal light as much as possible, avoid the side light, and at the same time, put a little weight on the sides of the nose, the nose, and the neck of the character, so that the facial features are more clear and three-dimensional. In addition, Lang Shining played a great role in the introduction of perspective in China. Nian Xiyao, a scholar in the Yongzheng period and the elder brother of the famous official Nian Gengyao, wrote the earliest book about perspective in China, Shi Xue. Due to his unique painting style, Lang Shining used his brush to record many important figures and events in the Qing Dynasty before cameras appeared. "Qianlong Great Reading" is such a work. The complete "Qianlong Grand Review" consists of four volumes, "Fortunate Camp", "Array", "Parade" and "Line Array", depicting the scene of Emperor Qianlong's military parade in Nanyuan, a suburb of Beijing in 1739. The whole painting method is delicate, the color is gorgeous, and it is basically shaped in color without any trace of lines. Among them, the second volume "Array" is collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing, the third volume "Parade" is a private collection, and the first volume "Fortune" is still missing. The fourth volume of "The Array" was auctioned on March 26, 2011 in Toulouse, a city in southern France, and was finally purchased by a mysterious buyer in our country for 17.8 million euros, plus commissions and taxes, paying a total of about 2205 10,000 euros, setting a new record for the auction price of Asian art in France. "Line Formation" is a huge silk scroll with a length of 24 meters and a width of 69 centimeters, and it is the only scroll among the four scrolls that bears the seal of a court painter. There are as many as 9,000 figures painted in the picture. Although they are not as long as half a finger, they have distinct faces and look just like them.

　　In addition to his documentary works, Lang Shining is also good at painting horses. The "Hundred Horses" now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei is a classic painting of horses by Lang Shining. This painting is 94.5 cm in length and 776.2 cm in width, with color on silk, and a total of 100 horses. The composition of the whole painting is complicated, the handling of virtual and real is very particular, and the gathering and dispersing of horses and characters is full of rhythm. Although the number of horses in the painting occupies an absolute majority and major parts, the entire herd of horses is controlled by humans. It begins with a shepherd and ends with a shepherd, which reflects a harmonious and harmonious relationship between man and nature, and is very cleverly conceived. In terms of specific depiction techniques, Lang Shining gave full play to the characteristics of European paintings that focus on light and shade, three-dimensional sense, accurate anatomy and perspective, making the paintings unique. Among them, the images of horses are well drawn, with different postures, accurate shapes, and the texture of the fur is particularly prominent. For example, there are several horses that have just stepped ashore from the water, and their wet fur is still clinging to their bodies, which is very vivid . A shepherd squatted on the saddle for fear of getting his clothes and shoes wet when he was swimming across the water. This detail is also full of life. The painter pressed the horizon a little lower, about a third of the way up the frame, so that the viewer's line of sight was wide and far, reaching far away. In the lower left corner of the picture, the inscription reads: "In the sixth year of Yongzheng, the age is Wushen Zhongchun, and the minister Lang Shining painted it." It is recorded in the archives: "On the second day of the third lunar month in the second year of Yongzheng, Prince Shen Yu Fengyi, the member of foreign affairs, instructed to write a volume of "Hundred Horses" painted by Lang Shining, and follow this". Thus, 1728 should be the year when it was completed. It took four years to complete the picture scroll, which shows how much Lang Shining has spent.

　　Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a French painter with distinctive characteristics. He never received rigorous professional training in his life, but he became a master highly respected by a group of outstanding artists. As a representative of naive painters, he It has an important place in the history of art. Rousseau was originally a tax collector and only used his spare time to paint, so he was called the "Sunday Painter". However, Rousseau's interest in painting is far greater than the work of tax collection. It can be said that "the body is taxing, the heart is painting", and it is also "not doing a proper job". In 1893, due to being implicated in a lawsuit, he retired early. Although he lived a hard life, he was able to devote himself to creating. When Rousseau was creating, there were no conventional constraints (to be precise, he could not do it if he wanted to), and it was all based on personal interests, which made his paintings similar to children's paintings. Simple taste, in short, it is a sound of nature.

　　Most of the figures, trees and flowers in his paintings are arranged frontally, giving people a sense of closeness. In addition, his world is full of fantasy and mystery. Whether it is flowers, trees, characters, or animals, it seems that they are controlled by forces from another world. That kind of weird shape seems to only appear in dreams. The Dream, now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is a typical work of Rousseau, showing the primitive forest in the artist's fantasy. To say it is a virgin forest means that the picture is full of strange beasts, rare tropical plants, in addition to the broad-leaved jungle, there are also beautiful orchids, fruits seen in the tropics, and so on. In such a fictional setting, a naked woman reclines on an impossibly gorgeous sofa. In the middle of the picture, a dark-skinned man plays his flute facing the viewer, and a lion peeks out into the jungle. All this is not real, the environment and the plot are counterintuitive, it is a dream, a strange dream in the mind of the painter. Rousseau's naive imagination is vividly reflected in this painting, and his ability to transfer his imagination to the canvas is even more impressive. No wonder one critic quipped: "His genius outweighed his innocence, and he should be regarded as the pioneer of the art of the century."

　　Another masterpiece by Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy, is also in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There is a full moon, a starry sky, a mysterious and vast desert, and a gypsy woman in colorful clothes. The woman seemed to be asleep, with her usual musical instrument and water bottle beside her. A male lion was sniffing at her lightly, without any murderous intent, but with some serenity and concern. The overall color of the picture is deep and dark, but the mountains in the distance, the back of the lion, and the colorful clothes of the gypsy woman are all plated with a mysterious moonlight. The peaceful and peaceful relationship between lions and gypsies always arouses the curiosity of viewers: is it caused by this mysterious full moon, or is it the expression of the painter's innocence? The whole picture reveals a kind of lonely beauty, which can make everyone who sees it feel like water, but also has a touch of warmth. Henri Rousseau may be the only one who can show such an unrealistic scene and make many people unable to let go after seeing it for a long time.