As the lecturer of "History of Western Art", one of the most popular elective courses at Peking University, Ding Ning has always infected and impressed countless students with his unique personality charm and profound academic accumulation during his many years of teaching. The a

What is art? What to study in art? What majors are included in the art category? Does art have to be beautiful? What misunderstandings do the public have about art? What does it have to do with the lives of us ordinary people?

As the lecturer of "History of Western Art", one of the most popular elective courses at Peking University, Ding Ning has always infected and impressed countless students with his unique personality charm and profound academic accumulation during his many years of teaching. Attract the attention of students with many shocking works of art and the unknown stories behind them. On June 22, Peking University School of Arts Professor Ding Ning was a guest of Peking University Press "Famous General Knowledge Series" series of activities "Hello! University - Peking University Famous Teachers Talk about Professionals" to "get involved with art" As the title, we will lead everyone into art.

Ding Ning, a professor at Peking University School of Arts, was a guest at the live broadcast event "Hello! University - Peking University Famous Teachers Talk About Majors". (Photo provided by the organizer)

A world-famous painting can open up various horizons

"I myself once had a life as a middle school student. When I was in middle school, I liked music, drama, and had a lot of contacts with art. 1977 When I was in college, I also liked poetry and musical instruments." Ding Ning started from his student days and mentioned his many connections with art during his studies.

During and after his postdoctoral research, Ding Ning often went to the British Museum, and often took students to visit the exhibits collected there. In the rotunda of the British Museum, two lines from the poem "Two Voices" by British poet laureate Tennyson are engraved on the ground, highlighting the significance of the museum, "It can keep you ahead of your fellow travelers, your era, and let you stay in the knowledge that has not been dreamed of for thousands of years." Ding Ning said that these two poems point out that the museum is a broad world, which can give us a lot of enlightenment and cultivate our imagination. , "In this way, you may be ahead of your contemporaries."

In 1998, Ding Ning went to Harvard University for further study, and had the opportunity to visit the Guggenheim Museum, where the "Five Thousand Years of Chinese Civilization and Art Exhibition" " is on display there. This exhibition made Ding Ning realize the enlightenment that cultural relics give us, "It is a power without words, and this power is extremely powerful."

In " Da· "The Vinci Code" mentioned a Renaissance masterpiece "The Madonna of the Rocks" by Leonardo da Vinci. Ding Ning introduced that "Our Lady of the Rocks" actually has two levels: one is the so-called religious theme that everyone has seen, which here has become a very positive rendering of maternal love in the world; the other level, "The Virgin of the Rocks" 》The rock has a symbolic meaning and a metaphor - maternal love is eternal.

Stills from the movie "The Da Vinci Code" (2006).

Here, Ding Ning said that the painting "Madonna of the Rocks" can be more in-depth. An Italian female geologist was very moved after seeing this masterpiece in the Louvre. She used her professional vision to discover that all the rocks in Leonardo da Vinci's painting, no matter their shape, texture, size, or details, Almost invulnerable. This female geologist believes that it must be Leonardo da Vinci's curiosity and persistent study of nature itself that could paint the rocks so beautifully. And this is also the reason why many Chinese people feel a little warm when they see this painting - "Because the scenery is more or less like the strange mountains and rivers in Chinese Northern Song Dynasty landscape paintings ." Ding Ning guessed based on this, "It's really surprising. I’m curious whether Leonardo da Vinci saw Chinese Northern Song Dynasty landscapes - of course we don’t have evidence yet. "

So, can the painting "The Madonna of the Rocks" be explored again? Ding Ning mentioned that an undergraduate student from the School of Life Sciences of Peking University once asked in the "History of Western Art" class whether a research report on this work could be written from the perspective of a biology major, and whether the plants in it could be identified one by one. Come out and explore why there are so many flowers and plants in this painting?

Ding Ning said that the student has already completed the first two tasks.But the student also discovered a problem. The British National Gallery also has a painting of "The Madonna of the Rocks". Compared with the flawless rock in Leonardo da Vinci's original work stored in the Louvre, the student believes that it is hidden in the The painting in the British National Gallery has some loose rocks and does not look very professional; moreover, through the eyes of a biological science professional, he discovered that the paintings collected by the Louvre have many types of flowers and plants, and they are all in the same season. , but there were flaws in the painting in the National Gallery's collection - there were fewer plants and they were in the wrong season. Therefore, the student came up with a very interesting inference in Ding Ning's opinion: He suspected that the rocks in this painting were not painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and the flowers and plants were probably painted by students who studied with Leonardo. .

Stills from the movie "The Da Vinci Code" (2006).

This incident made Ding Ning realize that a world-famous painting can open up various horizons and allow us to gain the influence of beauty in the true sense. This is a discovery obtained through layer-by-layer exploration. This attitude also allows us to Fully aware of the greatness of the art master, his paintings contain many opportunities for us to discover. "Looking at such works sometimes gives us a lot of inspiration."

Ding Ning borrowed from the British critic John Ross A passage from Jin , "A great nation writes its autobiography in three ways: the merit volume, the vocabulary volume and the art volume..." Ding Ning said that the merit volume is something left by those who created many great achievements in history. , the vocabulary volume is literature, novels, poetry, and especially epic poems - the history of the development of a nation, but the last volume (the art volume) is quite credible. why is it like this? It’s because art itself can inspire us so much.

Falling in love with art may be the beginning of a lifelong romance

Just this month, the new National Museum of Norway (The new National Museum), composed of the National Gallery of Norway , the Museum of Architecture, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design and the Museum of Contemporary Art, ) Open in Oslo . Ding Ning once visited the National Gallery of Norway in 2007. He was shocked by the paintings here. "I didn't expect that in a country as small as Norway, there would be such majestic (landscape paintings)." Because they are not allowed in the museum. There was no photography catalog for sale, which made Ding Ning a little disappointed. However, he later searched for some information and found some landscapes that had a special northern Scandinavian style. This kind of scenery appeared around the 19th century. Ding Ning said that a very important reason is that this kind of scenery is not just what is seen and recorded, but reproduces a unique landform and unique scenery. Norway can confirm that through the scenery One's own personality or national identity as a nation, "So, when you look at paintings like this, you will find that it is not (just) a landscape, there is a unique mood behind each landscape, especially what you will see Some special situations, particularly strange scenery.”

The New National Museum of Norway is located on the edge of the fjord.

This reminds Ding Ning of Haruki Murakami 's " Norwegian Forest ". After actually entering the Norwegian forest, Ding Ning discovered that the scenes he saw could correspond to the scenes in the pictures, and he realized that this was not imagination or fiction, but the power of the majestic landscape itself. "It is very real in art." "Ding Ning said that seeing these scenery will make us feel the wonderful light and shadow presented by the unique terrain, geographical environment, and climate. This light and shadow is precisely a very important means for a nation to prove its uniqueness, "Look at this This kind of scenery will also give us more associations, and the scenery is not just a simple scenery.”

Here Ding Ning takes Chinese landscape painting as an example, mentioning that Chinese landscape painting often has a kind of literati’s interest, ambition and sustenance. "When the picture unfolds, it is actually the unfolding of a national character and a historical unfolding, which contains extremely rich content. Of course, there is also one thing: you can see the innermost spiritual world."Among the collections of the National Gallery of Norway, the Norwegian painter Munch has a world reputation. His masterpiece called "Scream" is sometimes translated as "Scream". In Ding Ning's view, "Scream" actually means "Scream". Not exactly, it should be "screaming". He said, "What is 'screaming'? When an extremely sensitive modern person is under a kind of pressure, a kind of fear - such a anxiety state , he will have a mental state, which turns into this picture. Anyone who has seen this picture will never forget that there is a person in such a state, and the expressiveness of this state is extremely visually impactful. "

German literary giant Goethe once said: "We can only see what we know." "Ding Ning believes that this sentence can also be extended to mean that when you don't understand, you may "turn a blind eye." Ding Ning takes the long scroll "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan of the Song Dynasty as an example. He painted countless people, the prosperity of the city, and various aspects of life, including pawn shops, hotels, teahouses, large car shops, etc., and even beggars. Once, Ding Ning happened to sit in on a Japanese female scholar at a history seminar. In her speech, the female scholar raised a question: “Why are there no women among so many people? "If you look closely at "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", you will find that there are five or six women in it, but it is "too disproportionate and uncoordinated." Based on this, female scholars raised a question: Could it be that in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, women Is it not allowed to go out on the street? Who is the woman in the picture? Looking at "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", you can see that the woman is probably a servant. In Ding Ning's view, what kind of social reality does this illustrate? From a unique perspective, this female scholar discovered details in a familiar masterpiece that we should not ignore from a historical perspective.

"Fifteen Lectures on the History of Western Art (Second Edition)". , written by Ding Ning, published by Peking University Press in June 2016.

What is the most important "inspiration" for art? Ding Ning said that so far, psychology and brain science have not completely solved the problem of human beings. What is the mechanism by which the brain generates inspiration? But the Greeks had the concept of "inspiration" very early on. "The root of this word is very interesting, and it refers to the gas that comes out of the ground when you breathe it. "So, we often see such a scene in ancient paintings - a priestess sitting on the cracks in the earth, and wisps of smoke-like gas seem to escape from the cracks in the earth." But scientists tell us that this is not The rotten smell of vipers, this is vinyl . "This made Ding Ning realize that people who study chemistry, geology, and can read the core concepts of a civilization from such a special perspective and understand the various magical legends about the Temple of Apollo. .

So, why should we study art? Ding Ning said that he often hears this saying: Falling in love with art may be the beginning of a lifelong romance - because art can bring us a lot of romance, imagination, Aesthetic pleasure gives us an encyclopedic enlightenment.

Reporter He An'an

Editor Shang Chongming

Proofreading by Lu Qian