Mr. Song Yuanwen is a grandmaster fostered by new Chinese art education. During decades of artistic creation and art education career, with his great efforts of making an outstanding performance in printmaking and abundant achievement in imparting knowledge and educating people, he has made a significant contribution to the development of Chinese printmaking as well as the teaching of printmaking in CAFA. On the occasion of both the centenary anniversary of CAFA and the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up, we solemnly hold a large-scale art exhibition of Mr. Song Yuanwen, which is not only the best way to show and understand his artistic accomplishments, but also to better inherit and carry forward the excellent traditions of the elder generation of artists. With the spirit of selfless dedication, Mr. Song Yuanwen donated a large number of works to the university at the time of the exhibition, which is permanently collected by the university art museum, reflecting the high ideological level of an excellent communist party member artist and educator. His act of donation and the spectacle of the exhibition will become an essential record of the centennial celebration of CAFA.
Home-returning Birds After Sunset, 2018
Mr. Song Yuanwen was born in a farming family in northeast China. He has been longing for art since he was a child. He took part in revolutionary work when he was still a boy, thus setting up a revolutionary outlook on life and forming a pure belief that art serves the people. After entering CAFA, he rapidly developed his art techniques and made achievements in several fields, such as watercolor, illustration and printmaking. From the mid-1950s to the 1960s, he concentrated on studying creation traditions of printmaking and meanwhile paid more attention to explore innovation. With a large number of thematic creations of revolutionary history and works reflecting the construction of the new China’s socialism, he showed his talents and initially formed the artistic style of his personality, especially the creation method of integrating realism and romanticism. He laid emphasis on in-depth life, and through prints describing the production scene of workers and farmers, with bright and fresh print language to eulogize labor and new social climate. He also created a series of works full of revolutionary passion for expressing the atmosphere of the times and the aspirations of the people, such as the illustration for the novel Rainstorm, the series of works of “Battle Drum at the Equator” and so on. His works reflect the distinct characteristics of the times with a strong black and white relationship, rigorous image-building, and the form and rhythm of the picture. He combined the description of labor scenes with the symbolic expression refined and generalized from life, and conducted a profound exploration into the art form of printmaking and its technical language, adding new brilliance to the creation of new China’s printmaking.
River Snow in the Spring, 1998
Reform and opening up enabled China to usher in a new era for the development and construction of the society, and also brought new opportunities for the prosperity and advancement of Chinese literature and art. Mr. Song Yuanwen began a new creative journey with his keen artistic consciousness. He warmly welcomed the arrival of the spring of reform and opening up, and expressed his ambitions to sing the praises of the era, portray life and reveal the emotions for the people. Based on the experience of life in the northeast, he communicated closely with the group of printmaking artists in the Great Northern Wilderness and produced a large quantity of new works to present the boundless landscape and the scene of labor production in northern area, among which, “The Sleepless Earth”, “Chanty of Wusuli River”, “Summer”, “White Mountain and Black Water” and other works all express his deep feelings for the black land and also indicate his grasp of the natural scenery and labor spirit. These print works and his watercolor works during the same period opened a new window to show something from reality yet beyond reality. With a brand-new art style using threads of life while focusing on creating artistic conception, his spiritual pursuit is transformed into pure poetic lyricism through carving, and the pictures he created are rich in extended space, open sky, and vast horizon, in which forest trees, trailing geese in the sky, and the reed by the riverside weaved into a visual rhythm, arousing people a kind of soothing emotion. The poetic expression also mirrors the new development of Chinese society in the period of reform and opening up, particularly the features of the new era in terms of cultural connotation. After the havoc of the Cultural Revolution, the recovery of the human spirit required good image and lyric conception, and the restoration of society also needed poetic comfort. It was in this historical moment that Mr. Song Yuanwen showed the large picture of the landscape of China with a broad mind and revealed rich humanistic connotation by the refined language of printmaking, becoming a Chinese literary singer of the age of reform and opening up. His works have exerted a profound influence in printmaking and art circles.
A Flock of Birds Searching for Home, 1991
Mr. Song Yuanwen regards ordinary people as the natural parents whom he relies on and his artistic creation as a feedback to the people, which is an artistic spirit that has always been dominating his art practice. From the 1980s until his late life, his artistic steps have been significant and determined, and with a combination of realism and symbolism, he extracted the language of aesthetic form from real life and contributed many new works to the painting circle. His creation passion was very vigorous, thus leading to an increasingly mature printmaking language.
Mr. Song Yuanwen has been teaching at CAFA since he graduated from its Department of Printmaking. He has always been educating people with the spirit of modesty and gentleman, benefiting the future students, and is engaged in education and teaching by a rigorous and meticulous method. From 1986 to 1993, he served as the director of the Department of Printmaking. Based on the teaching of printmaking pioneered by a sequence of predecessors, he further expanded the teaching pattern, strengthened the discipline construction and the studio teaching mechanism, and enriched the teaching content. At the same time, he added photography, design and composition and other subjects as the supplement, and integrated the teaching of creation techniques of various print types, so that the teaching of the Department of Printmaking can embody more the law of art education. He attached great importance to the training of difficulty, accuracy, capability and quality in teaching, especially paid attention to reinforcing the teaching of creation, and encouraged young students to absorb and draw on advantages of foreign art, take an intensive study into cultural traditions, and insist on going into the thick of life, which enabled the talents of the Department of Printmaking to catch up with the development of the times, both showing the central theme of Chinese literature and art on the creation topics and encouraging the exploration and innovation of the ontology Language of art, thus quite a lot of outstanding artistic talents have been cultivated.
The Spring Brew in the Winter Snow, 2018
In the development process of Chinese art welcoming its new cultural context, Mr. Song Yuanwen has laid emphasis on the cultural value and ontological research of printmaking, and united teachers of the Department of Printmaking with many printmakers with a modest mind, sparing no effort for the construction of the Department of Printmaking of CAFA and the development of Chinese printmaking. In the late years when he left his post, he was still concerned about the construction and development of the university, the discipline building and academic activities of the Department of Printmaking. With his rich experience in artistic creation and printmaking education, he continues to play his role in the advancement of Chinese printmaking and present his art belief and life state with a beginner’s mind.
Mr. Song Yuanwen’s exhibition opens a colorful world for us, and his elevated feelings and broad realm demonstrated in his artistic world set up an artistic style of both professional excellence and moral integrity.
Fan Di’an, Director of CAFA
December 2018
