The artists are creating. Courtesy of Beijing Painting Academy
The Beijing Grand Canal Museum, the sub center of the city beside the Grand Canal, has opened to the public recently. The volume of "Range Rover of Beijing Grand Canal", jointly created by eight artists of Beijing Painting Academy, was unveiled in the exhibition hall for the first time. On this 0.5 meter high and 27.4 meter long scroll, the historical and cultural heritage along the Grand Canal and the landmark buildings in Beijing are scattered like pearls, and the beauty of the past and the present are complementary. Behind this masterpiece of contemporary Chinese painting is the two years and eight months of painstaking creation and pen and ink work of artists.
Visit important places on the Beijing Grand Canal
The volume of "The Range Rover of the Beijing Grand Canal" adopts the unique "scatter perspective" composition of traditional Chinese paintings. The picture starts from the Baifuquan, Wengshan, passes Wanshou Temple, Jishuitan, Wanning Bridge, flows into the three seas, passes Tiananmen (the Forbidden City complex) to the east to Qingfeng Gate, Baliqiao, Lantern Tower, and then to the administrative office area of Beijing's sub center, Green Heart Park, Universal Studios and other places, Finally, it passes through Qinglong Bay and other water conservancy projects to Tianjin and flows into the sea. "This long scroll is 27.4 meters long, implying a total distance of 274 kilometers from the source of Baifuquan to Tianjin's entrance to the sea." Guo Baojun, vice president of Beijing Painting Academy and deputy head of the volume creation team of The Grand Canal Range Rover, said that the whole scroll starts from the mountains of the West to the misty sea, and has a long artistic conception.
"In the first half of 2021, when we received this creative task, we were both excited and worried, because this painting task is huge and will test the creative ability of our entire painting team," Guo Baojun said. Zhuang Xiaolei, Mai Hongjun, Le Xianghai, Liu Xu, Niu Chao, Xu Weiguo and Fan Chen, who created with him, are full-time painters of Beijing Academy of Painting, and are also painters with rich experience in the field of landscape painting. To create such a magnificent landscape painting, how to plan the layout has become the first problem that painters have to solve.
Under the guidance of the cultural experts of the Grand Canal, the creation team started from the source of the canal and measured the cultural heritage, urban landscape and natural scenery along the Beijing Grand Canal with their feet. "On average, we visited one point in a day or two, and we spent nearly three months walking around important places on the Beijing Grand Canal. When we had a deep understanding of the history of these places, we understood their relationship with the Beijing Grand Canal, and had a preliminary thought about their presentation on the screen." Guo Baojun introduced that the creation team not only inspected the Beijing Grand Canal, We also went to Yangzhou, Hangzhou and other cities to experience the different styles and features of cities along the canal.
Repeatedly pondering over the world on paper
"The creation of the volume of" The Range Rover of the Beijing Grand Canal "roughly went through several stages, such as pencil draft, ink draft, color draft, and official draft." Guo Baojun said that each of the eight painters undertook an average of about 3 meters of painting, and the overall sketch, which was just a combination of pencil draft, had undergone more than a dozen repeated revisions. "After on-the-spot investigation and a large amount of data, our creation should go beyond 'drawing maps' to show the unique sense of rhythm and rhythm of Chinese landscape painting."
The creative styles of the eight artists have their own merits. How to make the whole painting harmonious and unified? Guo Baojun introduced that in the stage of drawing ink drafts, each painter stopped writing at six or seven minutes, and Xu Weiguo, a painter who is good at drawing large pictures, joined and enriched the whole picture to enhance the overall sense of the picture. "This process will take about a month. After Xu Weiguo prepared the manuscript, all of our painters will study together where the rhythm needs to be strengthened and where it needs to be weakened."
After the ink draft was completed, the artists also created three color drafts in different colors, and finally finalized a more elegant version of the color, showing the elegant atmosphere of the combination of Chinese traditional small green and light crimson landscape.
Tell a good story about the contemporary Grand Canal with traditional Chinese painting
When the audience stopped in front of the painting, it was like crossing the long river of time and enjoying the scenery of the 274km Grand Canal in the long scroll of painting. The newly completed three cultural buildings in the sub center of the city in the painting are particularly eye-catching, which contrast with the historic ruins of the old town of Lu County and the Lantern Tower.
The painter Le Xianghai also depicted hundreds of scenic characters, some of whom were tourists who punched in and took photos in the scenic spot, some of whom were citizens walking in the urban Green Heart Forest Park, and some of whom were express boys who shuttled in the street, making the picture full of vitality. Near the Tian'anmen Gate in the center of the picture, the audience can also see the water cube, the Bird's Nest, the Olympic Tower and other central axis landscapes.
"Only traditional Chinese paintings can draw such a long scroll with a unique perspective that epitomizes the ancient and modern charm of the Beijing Grand Canal." Guo Baojun said that when the Beijing Grand Canal Museum opened, the main creative team walked into a new exhibition hall and felt more excited and excited to see this scroll on display. "In this era, we are particularly honored and proud to be able to depict today's Grand Canal with our paintbrush. We will strive to do better in our future creation, and hope to tell a good story about the contemporary Grand Canal with our works of art, so that more people can understand the ancient and modern treasures on the Grand Canal." (Wang Guangyan)
