This is my
my 1318 painting since 2003,the 765th
Chinese Xieyi Painting, my 601st Assignment (the 194th Painting as an candidate of Degree of Master of Fine Arts ) in Chinese National Academy of Arts.
This is my first creating in 2018 which is my 7th year' in Chinese National Academy of Arts, the 8th year in Beijing (the other year was in China Central Academy of Fine Arts).
On the first day of 2018, I worked on the painting for 15 hours and also I recited 60 English words and also read 4 VOA English articles. I would really like to do my best to welcome the new year with a more optimistic and positive life attitude.
I chose pine tree, because it is an evergreen which can keep its green all of the weather or situations. Therefore, since very ancient time, Chinese have endowed a pine tree a lot of symbolic meanings.
Mainly include:
1. A pine tree is the leader of the trees – symbolizes some noble leader of the human being.
In Qin Dynasty (221 B.C－206 B.C), the First Emperor of Qin (259 B.C.-210 B.C.) conferred the 5 pine tree which had sheltered him from the wind and rain when he was in Tai Mountains “ Five Dafu Song (Pine)” . Here, Dafu is a senior official’s title, it was the 9 th of the 20 official ranks of Qin Dynasty.
And in Song Dynasty(960~1279), Wang Anshi (1021 - 1086) who is a politician, ideologist, scholar, poet, literature and innovator in Chinese history and one of the prime ministers of Song Dynasty admired pine tree very much so that he said that a pine should be listed on the position of Gong which is the No. 1 of the 5 the ranks of nobilities in Chinese feudal society.
Meanwhile, because whole of the pine tree itself has so much benefit to human being, since very early time, Chinese people have been respecting pine tree as a noble or distinguished one of all of the trees.
2. The symbolization of high moral principles and qualities of human being – no matter what kind cold weather or severe environment, always keeps the strong, unyielding, honest, upright, simple and unadorned…
Therefore, as far back as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period (770 B.C – 221 B.C.) Confucius (551B.C. – 479 B.C.), Chuang Tzu ( About369 B.C. – 286 B.C.) and Master Xun (313 B.C.-238 B.C.) admired pine tree’s these great qualities, and since then, pine trees have been praising by the numerous great philosophers, educationists, poets, literary men, artists and so on.
Until Song Dynasty, artists started to make the pine tree, bamboo and plum blossom as the 3 friends in the cold winter…
So, in Chinese culture, people usually compare the gentlemen who can keep their dreams and honest, upright and many moral excellence…. as a pine tree.
Also, pine tree symbolize the true friendship, love, cherish the memory of … therefore, we can often see the pine trees by the monuments, cemetery, to miss, commemorate and to accompany someone we love and miss forever.
3. It symbolizes the longevity – Because a pine tree has the longest life among trees. So, Chinese
people usually express their kind wishes to hope the old men in a family to live as an “ageless pine tree”.
In the artistic field, people often paint pine trees with the red-crowned cranes together, to compare someone to live for a long-lived and to compare something to work for a long time…
Because everything of a pine tree can be benefit the human being, therefore, Chinese people like pine tree and it is a very interesting and important phenomena in Chinese culture.
As a student who major in Chinese painting, pine tree and red-crowned crane are something my favorite materials of paintings. So, on the first day of 2018, I chose pine as my main materials to form my first creation of the new year.
At the first, I would just like to paint one single painting, but as soon as I finished it, I did not think that I want to stop, so, I painted the second one and I would really like to paint at least 3 or 4 or more single paintings and make them can be a bid one and some smaller ones.
I mean I want to create a group of single paintings. They can be some soles, while can be combined to be a big one.
Do you enjoy these /this paintings/ painting?
Do you think that I should color them or not?
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn,you can also publish your opinions on Message Board . :-)
--Shirley Yiping ZhangJan 6, 2018
