On Xu Bei-Hong's Painting Thoughts

The painting thoughts of XU Bei-hong is the cream in his art life.Its influence lasts until now.Today when we read his paintings,we are still striken by them strongly.The realitic thoughts is the centre of XU Bei-hong's painting thoughts.Since 1920, he first published his thesis about Chinese painting reforming and then brought forth his painting cream:we should keep old but good ways of painting,maintain dying ones,revise imperfect ones,and integrate adaptive western paintings.Until 1947,he brought forward the theory:sketch is the basis of all the sculpting art,as well as some other theories such as :learning from nature,learning from life.These theories consist of his main painting thoughts.Interpenetrating these theories are truth,good and beauty.When we look back on XU Bei-hong's painting thoughts,we could analyze his thoughts from the following five points:First,the historical reason and background of that age.Second,the rudiments of XU Bei-hong's painting thoughts.Third,the establishment of XU Bei-hong's painting thoughts.Fourth,the aesthetics in XU Bei-hong's painting thoughts.Fifth,the analysis of XU Bei-hong's painting thoughts.XU Bei-hong was born in 1895,and died in 1953.In his childhood ,he began to learn from the old works of China,and especially liked painting.When he was a youngster ,he began to learn how to paint from his father.In the adulthood,he was apprenticed to KANG You-wei who is a famous scholar in China,and was deeply by him,especially his western thoughts.The present situation of Chinese painting is the root of his painting thoughts reforming.He tried his best to reform it.In 1917,XU Bei-hong went to Japan and was striken strongly by Japanese paintings,because Japanese old paintings were not so ideal.But under the influence of western painting ways,they had made great progress.From 1919 to 1927,XU Bei-hong had been staying in Europe for eight years,and had been to many western countries,such as France,German,Span and holand,etc.He went back to China in 1927.From then on ,he began to put his idea of reforming Chinese old painting into practice.He thought realistic painting fit China at that time,and art should serve for the society,fit the times.Because his thoughts fit in with the condition of anti-Japanese war,they got great success.When we analyze XU Bei-hong's thoughts,it is not difficult to find that the greatest difference between XU Bei-hong and other painters is that he put most of his energy into education.Because he thought the reform of Chinese old painting was not so easy,it involves the efforts of many paiters.He brought up many famous painters,such as LIU Bo-shu,WU Zuo-ren,AI Zhong-xin ,and they have become the backbone of Chinese painting.Of course,XU Bei-hong's thoughts are not so perfect,especially he didn't pay much attention to literary painting,but we shouldn't be critical about him.Where there is no bias,there is no art.Furthermore,no one could escape from the society,the condition of politics,economy and thoughts of his time.We should analyze him from the two sides of his life.