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Sunshine Plateau - Tibetan Images by Han Yuchen

Release Time:2018-03-20 18:19:01

  People who have been to the Tibetan area will have a deep impression on the sunshine of the snow-covered plateau. Where the snow-capped mountains, grass, blue sky and flowers almost reached the saturation of color purity, it is hard to believe that this is the real world of nature. Painters who have been to the Tibetan areas can hardly escape from that pure beauty. The colors and characters in there may thus have since become the subject of their art, at least as an indispensable color and simplicity of their artistic creation, for example, Folk Songs by Dong Xiwen, We Are on the Road by Pan Shixun, and The Tibetan Group Painting by Chen Danqing. These new Chinese art history classics that show the images of the plateau people often represent the artist's lifelong artistic image.
 

  The snow-covered plateau seems to have a magical power that uses its mysterious and vast aesthetics to attract the messenger who advocates and pursues beauty; whether it is near or far from it, whether it is visual senses or spiritual thoughts.
 

  Although Han Yuchen, who had done business for a long time and never entered the Fine Arts Academy, was fortunate enough to meet Li Hua and Su Gaoli, the professors of Central Academy of Fine Arts who squatted in the "Cattle Barn" at the time when he was in Art creation workshops in Handan in the early 1970s. Just because of the teachings of these great artists and close contact with them, he began to love the oil painting. At the same time, the visit to the Tibetan Sketches by the master Dong Xi Wen made his initiating to sketch in Tibet. Since then, he finally got the chance to worship Liang Yulong and Zhang Wengxin in the mid and late 1970s, laying the foundation for oil painting art. In 1976 and 1977, he was admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts for two consecutive years. However, he finally lost his chances to pursue advanced studies because of his absence from politics. In the new period of reform and opening up, Han Yuchen became the businessman in the tide of market economy at the time, but he was often in the "business" with heart in art. For decades, he has engaged in photography, calligraphy, made accomplishments both in capital corporation and art. However, he still could not gave up his share of oil painting. for him, it is a real art peak, is his dream home of art.
 

  In fact, he never stopped studying, painting and creating oil paintings. In the 1980s and the 1990s, his oil paintings Moonlight, Beach, and Scenery of Zhangjiajie appeared in the provincial and municipal art exhibitions and were published in the People's Daily and other newspapers and periodicals. Since the new century, he became more diligent--- Tujia Inn of Zhangjiajie won the "Wuyi Culture Award in Hebei Province"; since 2006, he sketched in Tibet for the first time, which began his journey to Tibet for more than ten times. He successively moved from Qinghai, from Sichuan or from Xinjiang to Tibet and across Tibet's Dabei Line, as if approaching the roof of the world from different routes to explore not only the disparity of scenery along the way but also the difference culture in these area. Hereon, he uses both a snapshot of a photographic lens and a brush to understand it - an inaccessible snowy environment that preserves the pure beauty of natural mystery and fantasy. It is a harsh climate in the snowy area that inspires the honest and courageous human nature of the people in the plateau, which is exactly the lack of human nature and aesthetic experience in the current urbanization.
 

  The vast and magnificent scenery on the roof of the world and the honest and resolute character of the people on the plateau once again aroused Han Yuchen's deep memory of the images of those Tibetans under Dong Xiben's writing. The more frequent the Tibetan invasion, the more passionate his passion for creation. From the Niyang Riverside selected into “Fertile Southwest---Oil Painting Invitation Exhibition for National lands and people” to Shepherdess won the gold award of "152th French National Art Salon", from the Road of Worship won the bronze medal of "225th French Artists Salon Exhibition" to the Brother and Sister selected into the “Twelfth National Art Exhibition" and to Sang Zhu of St. Lake and Dawn selected into the "Looking Back Exhibition of Chinese Oil Painting for One Hundred Years" etc., Han Yuchen was frequently selected into major academic exhibitions both at home and abroad and won prizes by virtue of presenting the images of the plateau people in the sunshine in his work. This is a glorious and arduous task for a non-academic artist. Compared with contemporary oil paintings that focus on formal language exploration and individuality, his oil paintings seem to be out of step with others. Instead of devoting artistic innovations to breakthroughs in art forms that combine with modern aesthetic experiences, he turns our attention to reality, especially to the performance of pure natural and humanistic images on the snowy plateau, and to arouse the lack of innocence and simplicity of contemporary urbanized material life. Therefore, he always insisted on the creation of realistic oil paintings. He not only respected the portray of the honest atmosphere of the French Barbizon School in the rustic pastoral life, but also sought the real-life discoveries and anthems of the Russian roving exhibition and painting school, strived to use the plain language to show the most real humanity and nature.
 

  The Shepherdess, created by the material that he found from danger situation encountered in Double Lake, at an altitude of 5,000 meters, at the expense of his life, presents the shepherd girl opened her grazing in the early spring with a super-wide composition. The work focuses on the shining outlines of a group of sheep that slanted in the morning and the rich and subtle color changes of sheep that arise from in this light. The Shepherdess back to audience shows her honest and beautiful appearance, especially her blue turban, is not only the purest color of the whole picture, but also makes the warm gray colors overall picture more rich sense of contrast. The On the Road of Worship, which depicts the religious beliefs of Tibetans, also sets the worshiping people in the backlit depiction of the early sunshine. The performance of the light sense comes from intensifying the three colors of hue, which are changed subtly on the golden light around the Tibetan people, the ember light covering on the soil slope and the the rose light dispersed in the distant air. The four figures entering the picture constitute five different kneeling process, making the picture appear full of dynamic rhythm. In particular, the shaping of the characters is both vivid and comprehensive, adding a sense of sculpture in depicting the image. And for people's favorite Sang Zhu of St. Lake and Dawn reveal their inner simple and clear spiritual world by a positive depiction of Tibetan women's daily life. Dawn occupies most of the picture with a half standing figure. The first sun casts on the dark brown face of the Tibetan woman and her outer veil, showing the rose, violet blue and puce, forming the unity of the hue and achieving a complementary relationship between the background of the yellowish and earthy green. Sang Zhu of St. Lake shows a warm, simple, pure impression with an image that the Tibetan women absorbing water; under the sunshine, her possession of dark brown cheeks could not hide her beautiful face, and her distant eye’s contact and slender figure also grow her prominent. The picture also meaningfully dealt with the relationship between deep blue of the holy lake, the rope pink and red ocher color of autumn grass.
 

  It is easy to see these painters' keen expression of the sunlight with rich-color of the snow-covered plateau. It is precisely through the depiction of these sunshine that the painter has found a key to expressing the plateau life. The sunshine that appears in different directions on his picture not only constitutes the cursor of the overall hue of the picture, thereby achieving a unified dispatch of the hue of the picture, but also the sunshine has also become the means and path for shaping those characters and revealing the psychology of them. Hereon, the realism of the image is not a mechanical copy of the aesthetic object, but a subjective reconstruction. In those seemingly realistic images, all of them are full of the painter's choice, design, shaping and construction of the image, and the soul of rebuilding is the pursuit of the aesthetic quality of simplicity, truthfulness, clarity and strong foundation.
 

  Although these paintings still need to be further tempered in the plastic arts, one of the humanistic ideals filled with the breath of life in the frames is vivid and profound. For our era, art is not too lacking in skill, but rather lacks the spirit and perception about the essence of art. Art is actually only a part of completing its artistic creation. Oil painting in Han Yuchen, is also the same. This is not to say that his work is in the highest grade, but he is devoted to the arts just like the action of pilgrimage of the plateau people. In recent years, Han Yuchen still persists in sketching to Tibet for each year as always. He lived comfortably in ordinary Tibetan families and collected cow dung and sheepfold in the morning together with Tibetans he did not know. During the daytime, he went down the pastures and heated barley; at night, he walked through the door and chatted with people. This is not so much to sketch, but rather to return to the vulgar, let his inner world return to plain, so that his realm of life could return to simplicity. Whether watching Leng Ben Dao Ji or Gannan Zhuoge or Gannan Suo Kao, people can feel some tranquil and self-confidence in their expression. Therefore, the villagers who have been acquainted with him have also shown their pure innocent expressions, and these people far from the hustle and bustle of modern cities and their harmony with nature are all the objects of painter's interest. Because of them, he saw the real and warmth of humanity. This is exactly the attractive point to him, but also something he uses his brush to capture and solidified in the picture.
 

  Those people who have been to Tibet have always had the most profound impression on the imposing sunlight on the plateau. The intense ultraviolet radiation has prevented many people from avoiding it. However, Han Yuchen so enjoyed the sunshine. Sunblown in black and red, he permanently solidified the sunshine in his paintbrush.