Xu Beihong loves to draw horses because he knows how to use the spirit of dragon and horse to contribute to the "cultural war of resistance"
article·Duan Honggang
never an animal can be as pleasant as a horse. It interprets those beautiful spiritual qualities to make people fascinate. From ancient times to the present, many poets, painters and philosophers have expressed their love for horses and their feelings for the house and the black. By singing the style of horses, they have elevated their personal life experience to the realm of expressing their feelings for the country and country, and have strongly released the educational function of art.
"Buy a horse in the east market, buy a saddle in the west market, buy a bridle in the south market, buy a long whip in the north market." In the heart of Mulan , who served in the army for his father in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, horses are the best transportation tool, and can transport themselves to the front line faster to kill the enemy and serve the country.
"But let the flying generals in Longcheng be there, and the Hu horses will not be able to cross the Yin Mountains." In the consciousness of the famous frontier poet Wang Changling , horses are the enemy's iron hooves, and stopping them is to stop the enemy's cruelty.
Xu Beihong's "Running Horse"
"Five-colored horses, a thousand gold fur, I will exchange for fine wine, and I will be sold with you forever sorrow!" In the heart of Li Bai, the great romantic poet of the Tang Dynasty, although horses are a very important personal asset, they can be abandoned compared to their own joy and freedom.
"Shoot the horse first when shooting a man, capture the thief first when capturing the king." In the thoughts of the great realist poet of the Tang Dynasty, although the horse is cute and respectable, the horse riding under the crotch of the evil man is a pitiful victim.
"The spring breeze is so proud that the horse's hooves are fast, and you can see all the flowers in Chang'an in one day." In the eyes of the famous poet of the middle Tang Dynasty, Meng Jiao , the sound of horse hooves is the rhythm that conveys his happy mood.
"I remember back then, my sword and iron horse, and my aura was like a tiger." In the hearts of the great poet of the Song Dynasty, Xin Qiji, the horse is a good comrade who accompanied him to fight the enemy bravely on the battlefield.
After thousands of years of exploring the spiritual qualities of horses by all the poets, horses have gradually become the most important and powerful responsibility and symbol in the national spirit.
Horse Benz
Streamlined appearance, agile posture, tenacious will, courageous spirit, loyal quality, and self-improvement vitality...
From external image to internal literacy, the horse is full of positive energy. Facing such a beauty, everyone is loved by everyone, and is especially loved by literati and doctors.
In peacetime, horses were good helpers and friends for people. In wartime, horses turned into heroes' right-hand man.
Through horses, literati and doctors seem to see another self, with a chic and unrestrained personality, a tenacious and unyielding spirit, a thrilling and outstanding temperament.
When the noble spirit of a horse crossed a long road of thousands of years, he ran until the 1930s and met the master painting master Xu Beihong (1895-1953), the two worked together to interpret a cultural history of the war of resistance against the dragon and horse spirit for people.
Xu Beihong's "Three Racing Horse Picture"
1919, riding on the east wind of the "New Culture Movement", the 24-year-old Xu Beihong saw Chinese painting from the middle and late Qing Dynasty and fell into the bad habit of learning from the ancients. If it cannot be corrected in time, it will be worse than the previous generation, which will hurt the quality of Chinese painting.
So he made a quick decision and decided to travel thousands of miles to France, Italy, Germany and other places to learn authentic Western painting skills and artistic concepts, so as to explore ways to improve Chinese painting.
After nearly 3,000 days and nights of hard work, in the autumn of 1927, 32-year-old Xu Beihong finally achieved success and returned to Shanghai and Nanjing, and embarked on his dream of transforming Chinese painting.
However, before he fully released the artistic idea of "combining Chinese and Western" the Japanese invaders were already ready to move in Northeast my country and made various small moves. Especially in just over four months on September 18, 1931 and January 28, 1932, the Japanese invaders created two incidents that shocked China and the world in Shenyang and Shanghai, pushing this wolf ambition from secretly to the open, and repelling the stance of snake swallowing elephant. From then on, the land of China will no longer be peaceful.
Xu Beihong's "Eight Horses Picture"
"Get up, people who don't want to be slaves build our flesh and blood into our new Great Wall..."
In the critical moment, the soldiers carried their guns and rushed to the battlefield with pride, confronting the enemy with weapons.
And artists like Xu Beihong set off a heroic "cultural war of resistance". They included writers, poets, painters, composers, etc., and wrote lines of verses, paintings, and strings of notes with the pen in their hands, encouraging all military and civilians to unite and fight to the end of the war. The artist's actions also contributed to the War of Resistance.
Since 1930, Xu Beihong began to deliberately select historical stories that can express the spirit of the nation, and created these historical stories in the form of painting, cheering the military and civilians with the meaning of painting.
Xu Beihong's "Five Hundred Heroes of Tian Heng"
In the spring of this year, he created the oil painting "Five Hundred Heroes of Tian Heng", which depicts Tian Heng being recruited by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, to Luoyang. Tian Heng understood that there was a lot of danger in this trip, so he had to say goodbye to his 500 comrades who had been through life and death. That was the determination of "the heroes will never return". Even if there were swords and fires ahead, he would ignore them. Through this painting, Xu Beihong aims to express the spirit of heroes to refuse to surrender and improve morale to the warriors on the battlefield.
1931 In the summer, Xu Beihong completed the masterpiece "Jiufang Gao" based on the story of the famous horse artists of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It took more than three months to create the masterpiece "Jiufang Gao". In this painting, four horses and four figures are depicted, especially the black horse led by the groom in the middle of the picture. Seeing Jiufang Gao about to choose it, he neighed and raised his hooves to try to break free from the groom's hand. It is full of dynamic and shows a rebellious temperament, both form and spirit, and portrays the horse's character and expression quite accurately.
The black horse is about to be taken away by Jiufang Gao, leaving the owner and joining the door of another new owner. At this moment, it is reluctant to leave the old owner, and can only use the body language of making things difficult for the groom to reflect its spiritual qualities of loyalty to the owner and never leaving him.
Xu Beihong's "Jiufang Gao"
Xu Beihong also laid a deep foundation in sketching when he was studying in Europe. When portraying the black horse, he not only portrayed the external shape of the horse vividly, but also vividly expressed the inner bones and muscles of the black horse through superb brush and ink skills. Therefore, such works are wonderful products in the eyes of anyone.
When this painting was exhibited in the fall of that year, it won recognition and praise from all viewers. Unexpectedly, he succeeded in painting a horse in China for the first time, which undoubtedly brought great confidence to Xu Beihong.
Immediately afterwards, the Japanese invaders launched a full-scale war of aggression against China, igniting the war from the northeast to the south of the Great Wall, and the fate of the nation suddenly fell into a critical moment.
"People should not be arrogant, but they should not be without pride." This is Xu Beihong's catchphrase. Faced with the trampling of the great powers, the mountains and rivers were broken. For a kind-hearted and ambitious man like Xu Beihong, although he could not step on the battlefield to confront the enemy head-on, he could fully cheer the heroes in the rear like cheerleaders to athletes. When everyone's spirits condense into a majestic Great Wall, are you still afraid of the invasion of jackals, tigers and leopards?
Xu Beihong's "The Lion of the Wound"
At this time, for the sake of family and country feelings, Xu Beihong incorporated all his passion into his artistic creation and into the object of painting of horses. In his writing, horses have become a spiritual symbol, heroic and full of passion and vitality. In the face of any bond, they can trust the horses to escape, dare to break out of the shackles, gallop freely in the wilderness, burst out with positive strength, and lead people to pursue freedom and light.
"Wrilling and fighting, standing back to the sky."
"The autumn wind looks back thousands of miles away, and we will understand the old battlefield of that year."
"The sinking water finally rises from a hundred years, and the light comes from the first sight."
These poems are all signed by Xu Beihong after he created the horse painting, which strongly demonstrated his determination and faith.
Xu Beihong's "Love Horse Picture"
In fact, Xu Beihong not only encourages all military and civilians spiritually, but also gives great support to the military and civilians materially. Since 1938, he has traveled around and told many places, entering many regions such as India, Southeast Asia, and Europe. While giving lectures and speaking, exposing the atrocities of the Japanese invaders, he raised funds and donated them to the frontline by holding exhibitions and selling paintings, fully fulfilling the responsibility of an intellectual.
From 1931 to the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan for more than 14 years, Xu Beihong created more than 1,000 works with horses as the subject, and on average, nearly 100 works were created every year, including Chinese paintings, oil paintings and sketches. Among them, more than 90% of them were sold, donated the funds, which really contributed to the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
It was such high-intensity creation that seriously damaged his physical health and eventually became ill after overwork, which made him pass away at the age of 58 in September 1953, leaving behind endless "Dragon Horse Spirit" for future generations.
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