Chapter 1,421 A rare and famous pen, extinct through the ages
Experts have verified that Han Huang's "Five Cows Picture" is filled with strong personal emotions, and the five cows refer to his five brothers.
They express their true feelings of love and loyalty to their emperor with the character of responsible, hard-working and docile cattle.
According to historical records, when Han Huang became prime minister, he paid great attention to the development of agriculture. He used cows as the subject of his paintings, which may have meant encouraging farming.
The five cows with different expressions painted in "Five Cows Picture" are either walking, standing, bowing their heads, or raising their heads, which are full of dynamics.
What is valuable is that there is no background in the picture, and the cow is completely used as the object of expression.
If you had not carefully observed the cow and were fully confident in the depiction of the cow's shape, you would never have dared to take the risk of this painting.
Although the lines outlining the cow are simple, the twists and turns of the muscles and bones drawn are very accurate.
Especially the fuzz on the cow's snout is meticulously detailed.
There are also bright eyes, which reflect the docile yet stubborn character of the cows.
In an era when farming was encouraged, using cows in paintings had a special meaning.
The five cows in the painting are lined up from right to left, each with a different appearance and posture.
One is tickling, one is tilting its head forward, one is standing tall and croaking, one is looking back and licking its tongue, and one is standing with its head straight.
Except for a small tree on the right side at the end, there is no other background in the whole picture, and each cow can form an independent chapter.
In the use of skills, the painter uses thick and powerful ink lines to outline the outline of the cow, showing the cow's strength, calmness and slow movement.
In particular, the careful rendering of the cow's eyes, nose, hooves, toes, whiskers and other parts highlights the cow's strong muscles and bones and the realistic texture of its fur.
The picture is also very distinctive in its use of color, with dark brown, yellow, and black and white representing the most typical cow coat colors.
[Recommended, Yeguo Reading is really useful. Download it here. yeguoyuedu. You can try it soon.]
Although only two colors are used, it gives people a rich and colorful feeling.
In addition, there is another technique, "the finishing touch", which is the key to the overall situation.
The artist appropriately exaggerated the bull's eyes and carefully painted them, making the five-ox boy's eyes bright and lively, achieving an artistic realm of both form and spirit.
The five cows all have bright eyes, which are profound and expressive, and vividly express the cow's docile and stubborn character.
The painter focused on depicting the cow's eyes and the wrinkles around them.
He also used sharp and sharp brush strokes to carefully depict the eyelashes on the edge of Wu Niu's eye sockets.
Through the depiction of these details, the unique personality of each cow is emphasized, making them clearly show their different expressions.
Viewers can clearly feel that these five cows not only have life and emotions, but also have different inner worlds. These are the five personified cows.
This picture is a hand-scroll composition, with cows as the object of representation.
Since there is no background, the arrangement of the composition really takes a lot of thought, and it is not easy to make it very distinctive.
The painter dealt with this problem relatively well through the left-right symmetry in the composition.
He painted the green cow in the middle as a frontal image, so that the green cow directly faces the audience, with a unique perspective, forming the center of the picture.
Two cows are arranged on each side, extending to the left and right in a symmetrical shape.
The five cows can also be closely related to each other. The five cows are single individuals and closely related to each other.
Finally, a very harmonious and unified whole is formed.
Although the five cows are arranged in parallel on the picture, their dynamic characteristics of raising their heads, lowering their heads, looking back and looking left and right prevent the picture from looking dull.
They respond to each other and see subtle changes in the composition.
This effectively solved the problem of rigid composition and created an extremely good composition style of hand-scrolled paintings of livestock and cattle.
"Five Cows Picture" breaks the Han Dynasty's decorative pattern of only painting the side and plane of cows, vividly showing the various dynamics of cows.
Especially the cow in the middle is facing the viewer at a unique angle.
Because the artist accurately drew the perspective relationship of the cow, it has a strong sense of three-dimensionality, so it is also unique in form and spirit.
The form and spirit are complete and the image is clear. If you can do these, you can become a master-level work, not to mention there are other things?
Therefore, this is definitely a master-level work, and it is no wonder that it has become one of the top ten famous paintings handed down from generation to generation in China.
Such a famous painting is naturally very famous, so many celebrities throughout the ages have spoken highly of it.
For example, the Yuan Dynasty painter Zhao Mengfu said: "Five Bulls are upright and upright, and they are rare and famous pens."
Li Rihua, a writer, calligrapher and painter of the Ming Dynasty, also recorded it in detail in his "Liu Yan Zhai Notes".
"Although the "Five Oxen Pictures" are colored and photographed, the turning points of the bones, the twists and turns of the muscles, and the entangled areas are all drawn with rough brushstrokes, just like the patterns on the clothes of Wu Daozi's Buddha statues.
It is like life, so it has been extinct through the ages.”
Rare and famous pens have disappeared through the ages. This is the highest praise for calligraphy and painting.
The inheritance of this famous painting is also very interesting.
The circulation history of Han Huang's "Five Bulls" can be seen from the poems, inscriptions and postscripts on the scroll that it was once introduced to the Imperial Household of the Southern Song Dynasty.
During the Yuan Dynasty, it passed through the hands of Zhao Bo'ang, Zhao Mengfu, Prince Yuan and others.
During the Ming Dynasty, Xiang Yuanbian and others collected it.
After entering the Qing Dynasty, it was once hidden in Wang's Qiushi Zhai, Tongxiang, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Jin Nong once viewed "Five Cows" twice, the last time in December of the eleventh year of Qianlong's reign (1746).
After that, "Five Cows Picture" flowed into the Qing Palace.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the paintings were transferred to Yingtai, Zhongnanhai for preservation.
In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces looted the Forbidden City, and the "Five Cows" was taken out of the country and has not been heard from since.
"Five Cows Picture" went through several twists and turns, and was finally bought by Wu Hengsun, an entrepreneur from Xiangjiang.
In the early 1950s, Wu's company was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Wu Hengsun knew that he could no longer preserve this famous painting intact, so he reluctantly decided to sell "Five Cows".
After the news came out, domestic leaders at the time received a letter from a patriotic person.
The letter said that the "Five Cows" painted by Han Huan in the Tang Dynasty appeared in Hong Kong, and the owner of the painting asked for 100,000 Hong Kong dollars.
He cannot afford to buy it himself and hopes that the government will fund the recovery of the national treasure as soon as possible.
The country immediately issued instructions to verify the authenticity and buy it back at all costs, and instructed reliable personnel to be specially escorted to ensure the safety of the cultural relics.
After receiving the instruction, China immediately organized experts to go to Hong Kong.
It was finally confirmed that the "Five Cows Picture" was indeed authentic. After many negotiations, the deal was finally sold for HK$60,000.
Although the famous painting returned to the motherland, it has experienced a lot of displacement. The painting is covered with dirt, scarred, and has hundreds of large and small holes.
On January 28, 1977, the "Five Cows" volume was sent to the Cultural Relics Restoration Factory of the Palace Museum, where it was restored by Mr. Sun Chengzhi, an expert on table paintings.
After washing the dirt, drawing the heart, uncovering, scraping, repairing, making sections, cutting squares, and holding the heart, etc.
Then the color of the hole in the center of the painting was filled, and then it was inlaid, overlaid, calendered, etc., and then assembled into a roll with Xuanhe style edges.
Eight months later, the acceptance expert group gave high praise.
This is the end of the restoration of a picture of the Five Oxen, and it has been restored perfectly.