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朱士杰 |
Biography |
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Zhu Shi Jie |
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A native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, he began to learn painting at 12 and was deeply absorbed in oil painting. Prompted by a passionate devotion to oil painting, with neither teacher nor experience to draw from, oftentimes he had to pay a high price in order to get a little useful material. Together with Yan Wenliang he founded one of the earliest art schools in China─the Suzhou Arts School in 1922 and for long years served as dean. In the twenties, it was under extremely difficult social conditions to be a painter. Without loyalty, faith and whole-hearted devotion to art, it would be inconceivable to achieve anything. The art life of Mr Zhu offered us a deep inspiration in this respect. During the twenties, China was in an enlighten period of the New Culture Movement. The oil painting of China was in its infancy. Only a few replica oil paintings printed abroad were accessible. Painting materials such as canvass and paints had to be self-made. At that time Mr Zhu made his own paints and canvass which seems to be unworthy of mentioning nowadays, but it was not so easy at his time. Mr Zhu was fond of painting when he was a child, and he studied diligently for long years. Being versatile, in addition to painting he was also fond of music, sculpture and industrial arts. For tens of years, Mr Zhu painted a lot of works. But owing to chaos and moving from place to place during the resistance war against Japan, it was a great pity that many of his works were lost. The majority of his themes in oil painting were landscapes and still objects. His landscape paintings were simple, meticulous and refined, with a strong native flavour. They were brimmed with the painter’s praise of nature. His works had lingering charms and artistic conception, with a distinctive style of his own. “Casting a Net” was one of his works favoured by spectators. It shows an operation of a fishing boat on a lake, but it is not simply a description of labouring process. The scenery is made to express emotion. With the painter’s deep understanding through personal experience of the fishermen’s life in the Taihu region, his artistic treatment of the composition and colouring achieved excellent art effect. In the picture, the broad lake is far-reaching and vast, from the clouds scintillating the rays of sunlight with inverted image on the water, the light of waves glistening; a fishing net is thrown into the lake, its action meticulously integrates with modeling, in uneven density; under contrasting grayish blue and tainted yellow colours, the fishing net edge and the twilight shades make up a splendid rhythm leaping to a melody of beauty, with a moving charm, from which one can appreciate the artistic talent of the painter. In the technique of oil painting, Mr Zhu both absorbed the strict modelling of the classical school in stressing composition and the lighting technique of the impressionist school in playing up colouring. His works are exquisite but not boring, beautiful but not in poor taste. Instead of an objective portray of natural scenery, his works are an artistic sum-up with deep feeling, a crystallization of emotion. His painting style emphasizes artistic conception. They are strict in appearance, colourful and stressing more on emotion. His art productions are representative of realism and impressionism. The works “Early Spring”, “Pale Moon”, “The Future” and others vividly show the landscapes of South China, reflecting both the scene and feeling. The feelings of a painter is inseparable from the time in which he lives. This is especially true for an old painter from old China. After liberation, apart from painting at his hometown, Mr Zhu traveled extensively to paint in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shaanxi and other scenery spots. The success of a painter cost long years of training. Mr Zhu often braved the weather for painting. The painting “Timely Snow” was made after his return from Xuanwu Lake of Nanjing in a snowy day from memory. Through long years of practice, he could paint with the scenes in his mind. Sometimes he happened to discover a pretty shot on TV, and then he could sketch it in his memory for future reference. Though he was an accomplished painter, he still was modest and listened to others’ suggestions in order to improve his skill in art. | ||
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