It is mentioned in Aesthetic Principles: "Absurdity is the product of capitalist society now, which only appears in western modern and contemporary aesthetics." Perhaps the word "absurdity" comes from the west, but the meaning behind "absurdity" can also be found in China's ancient works of art. Besides "absurdity", I can't find a more appropriate word to describe the works of Zhu Da, an ancient painter in China.
According to the aesthetic principle, the most prominent feature of absurdity is rebellion. Rebellion can be divided into two ways: one is to return to nature and reject this society. After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Da, as an old man in the Ming Dynasty, lived in seclusion in temples and Taoist temples for many years, and lived in cottages in rural areas in his later years, avoiding court disputes and having little contact with people. Zhu Da's rejection of society is not only a helpless choice when his own country changed ownership, but also a reflection of his noble character of being world-weary and vulgar. The second is to return to self and go deep into the heart. In his later years, Zhu Da often painted in a "pretentious" state, which was eclectic in form and mapped his inner world with seemingly absurd flowers, birds, fish and insects.
This paper analyzes the absurd artistic features of Zhu Da's freehand brushwork in his later years, and further probes into the absurd reasons.
First, the absurd performance of Zhu Da's paintings
(A) Zhu Da's alienation and absurdity of things.
Zhu Da subjectively transformed the concrete forms of images in his works, making them absurd and eccentric, but meaningful and unforgettable.
The most impressive thing in Zhu Da's paintings in his later years is those white eyes: all the objects in his paintings, such as birds and fish, turn with big white eyes, which stand out. In real life, the eyes of birds and fish account for a relatively small proportion in the whole body. However, in Zhu Da's works, the eyes of these creatures are magnified three or four times, and the pupils are slightly thinner. A large proportion of white eyes add disdain and pride to birds and fish. For example, in the picture of Lonely Birds, a bird stands with big white eyes, as if expressing dissatisfaction.
Besides the supercilious look, Miscellanies of Geshan is also a typical embodiment of the absurdity of objects in Zhu Da's works. The rabbit in this painting has a trunk like a horse, donkey and cow, eyes like a panda eye and ears like a rabbit. This absurd feeling symbolizes Zhu Da's embarrassing position as a widow of the Ming Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty. Zhu Da skillfully abstracted his image into objects in his works with simple and exaggerated brushstrokes.
(b) The distortion and absurdity of spatial relations in Zhu Da's works.
Zhu Da liked to paint birds and fish in his later years. Birds in Zhu Da stand on the ground, hang on cliffs or live in trees, but rarely soar in the sky. The same is true of the fish he painted, with almost no tail dragging in the water. For example, in Bamboo Lotus Fish Poems, fish fly in the air, showing a form contrary to reality. In the picture of eagle and crab, the eagle on the rock looks down at the crab under the rock, and the crab bares its teeth at the eagle. An eagle and a crab go up and down, but these two images show a confrontational relationship, which is ridiculous.
(c) The absurdity and hidden meaning of inscriptions and calligraphy in Zhu Da's works.
Zhu Da calls himself "the Eight Mountain People". People who don't know may think that Badashan people are eight people, but they are not. To understand by the method of word separation, the word Zhu is eight when the cow is removed, and it is big when the ear is removed. They are called Badashanren because their family no longer has the ear of the world. There is another saying: He claims that "the eight great men are all around us, all great, but none is greater than me". Personally, I prefer the first guess. "Badashanren" is absurd not only in meaning, but also in glyph. The words "Badashanren" were written with a smile but not a cry, which should be done by Zhu Da deliberately, reflecting Zhu Da's helpless attitude towards life in a difficult situation.
Zhu Da's paintings often have a strange sign, which looks like a crane or a turtle. It is said to be "March 19th", the day when the city of Beijing was broken in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen. He is commemorating his old country with this small signature.
Second, the reason why Zhu Da's paintings are absurd.
(1) the identity background of the previous dynasty.
Zhu Da is actually an alias. His real name is Zhu Youzhi. As the ninth grandson of Zhu Quan, the seventeenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Da received a good education and had a high artistic talent. When Zhu Da was nineteen years old, the Qing army entered the customs and the Ming Dynasty perished. Shortly after his father died, Zhu Da exiled his mother and lived in temples and Taoist temples.
Because of Zhu Da's special position, he can only express his thoughts and feelings through subtle artistic techniques and distorted absurd artistic images. The flowers, birds, fish and insects he described often occupy only a corner of the drawing paper, always showing people with white eyes, as if representing his own dissatisfaction with the Qing Dynasty and the bitterness of his nameless life.
(2) The common noble character of literati.
Zhu Da was educated by traditional Confucianism since he was a child. He is full of enthusiasm and serves the country. Who would have thought that when Zhu Da was young, the Ming Dynasty was shattered, and Zhu Da's future was doomed to be miserable.
However, the cultivated feelings for the Ming Dynasty are still there. Coupled with the stubborn and noble qualities of literati, Zhu Da lived in seclusion. He used painting to express his desire to restore the Ming Dynasty and his unyielding spirit to death.
(3) Learn from previous painters.
Zhu Da used to learn and absorb the artistic skills of many painters, and Xu Wei was one of them. Xu Wei also suffers from epilepsy and his painting style is crazy.
However, their painting styles are still different: Xu Wei's paintings are full of passion; Badashan people, on the other hand, are burdened with more cynicism and the pain of national ruin and death. His paintings are more quiet and restrained, injecting his thoughts and feelings into flowers, trees, birds and animals in a grotesque and absurd way.
In a word, Zhu Da's freehand brushwork in his later years embodies absurd features everywhere. In his later years, when he was writing alone in a shabby country house, he had to face the absurd essence: anxiety, fear and disappointment when people faced the abyss of nothingness. Under the influence of internal and external factors, Zhu Da used obscure artistic means to hide what he really wanted to express, so that later generations could dig and sing.
References:
[1] Gao Juhan's Crazy Handstand in Badashanren's painting, Chinese painting,No. 1987+0.
[2] Chen Lili. Analysis of Madness of Badashan People. Journal of Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, 2009 (1): 25-27.