国际实力派华人艺术家谢天鸿工笔花鸟画欣赏

                                                                                                                  Xie Tianhong is a dazzling star out of the galaxyintheChinesepaintingworldand will be a super star in the near future.

In 1960 Xie Tianhong was born into a poor scholar’s family by River Ru at Xiangcheng county of Henan province，and in his neighboring towns  there is one town happens to be the hometown of Wu Daozi, an ancient saint in Chinese painting art, it might be for this reason, Tianhong was amazingly clever since his childhood and had strong passions for calligraphy and painting. During the dark times in which the goodness of Chinese people was overrun and Tianhong’s family also could not escape from the national disaster. At that turbulent time it was hard for him to find a narrow place to live and his tasting of meat could only be expected in dreams. In order to get paper and brush to practice painting Tianhong had to beg and collect trash. When he was eight years old he learnt painting landscape, figure, flower, bird, and tiger through fine brushwork from his tutors Sheng Beidou and Li Mingfu, both were locally well-known scholars. He then showed his extraordinary talent in painting. When he was sixteen he was forced to leave his hometown for making a living. Therein he began his struggle in the boundless sea of art, selling his paintings along the way he was wandering. Extreme poverty and hard times steeled him to be a high character. He traveled extensively in China and left his footprints in many famous mountains, rivers, and places of interest such as Moutain Tai，Moutain Taihang,Moutain Emei, Guilin, Yangtze River and etc. During his roaming around China for selling his paintings he passed the entrance examination and was admitted into a research class of Wuhan Painting Academy, that year he was seventeen. In this outstanding academy he was guided by his beloved tutors Cao Lian, Deng Shaofeng and Huang Liang who were all master painters in China, and it was at that time that he got to know the mystery of traditional Chinese painting. Tianhong is an avid reader too. While he traveled around China bags of books always accompanied him. However, his interest in Chinese painting had never faded and he kept seeking the beauty in art aggressively. He loves drawing tigers and often took a dried branch as his brush drawing tigers on the ground，expressing tigers’ rich feeling and character to the world, such as tigers’ emotion, love, sadness, kindness and so on. At Wuhan Zoo he frequently sat beside the mountain where the tigers played, observing them with full attention on every single activity in which the tigers stand up, lie down, walk, sit, drink, kiss, fight, and show their fresh prestige. We can say his addiction to drawing tiger equals to Xu Beihong’s intoxication in drawing horse and Pan Tianshou’s love in drawing hawk. In 1993 he was invited to have lectures in Canada. He traveled to the primitive forest where the tigers usually turned around and he set up his tent among the large trees, for quite a few months he disregarded the hurt from wild animals and the attack from insects, and even risked his life in concentrating on the tigers’ daily activities in every detail, even a skip, a rush, jump and leap. He took many precious photos and collected a lot of first hand information based on which today we can see his beautiful paintings of tiger: as vivid as live, subtle and neat, free and easy, forming his unique characteristic in art and leaving his distinctive mark in drawing tigers. Under his brushwork a tiger is bestowed with some natures of Buddha: sad, wise, kind and charitable.

Art is also a kind of religion demanding the spirit of martyr without which it is difficult to find the way to the holy world of arts. To understand the truth of calligraphy and painting a high intelligence is most valuable and an extensive learning is a must. There are many of ancient and contemporary schools when it comes to painting of tigers. In the transforming time for Chinese painting art Xie Tianhong benefits a great deal from his devotion in Buddhism through which he comprehended the true meaning of universe and life. Tremendous wisdom from Buddha brings endless artistic energy to his creation.

Art is the crystal of nature and life, and it is also the newborn baby by marriage between subject and object. He got poetic and artistic flavor from great poets and men of letters, and at the same time he obtained immeasurable creative power from the universe. The charity and wisdom in lives of the universe equipped Xie Tianhong with beauty, mercy and inspiration. Among his large-size paintings of tigers, such as Affluent Blessing and Fortune, Buddha’s eternal love to humans will be eulogized forever, True tenderness can melt down snow mountain of ten thousand years, and The human world is under the shelter of Buddha’s great blessing, we can see rich characteristics in tigers: august and kindhearted, fierce and composed, brave and gentle…，With his special art code in drawing tigers Xie Tianhong declares to the world that everything in the universe has the nature of Buddha in different degree. The tigers, like human beings, have emotions and sensory pleasures and they also have family happiness, not to mention they have the nature of Buddha such as mercy and charity. The calm observation, silent watching, and profound thinking are deeply rooted in his works, which are actually the fruits of wisdom from the happiness in his soul during the creative process.

Xie Tianhong’s paintings cover not only tigers but also peacock, landscape, figure, flower, bird, insect and fish. His painting of tiger enjoys the same fame as his painting of peacock abroad. Tiger, as the emperor of the beast, has something of deterrence as well as a sublime image, for this reason, tigers often stand for a dignified and invincible being. Some character seen in a tiger, such as a tiger’s dignity, invincible spirit, and the as head of the beast world, goes well together with his broad mind and artistic conception of a painting master. From the vivid images of tiger created under his pen we can feel the vastness of the universe which is widely open and immeasurable.

Peacocks under Xie Tianhong’s brush are charming, brilliant, pure and noble, like fairy maidens dancing in the heaven. The tigers weigh the same as the peacocks in Xie Tianhong’s paintings, and we may attribute this to the general opinion of the public: the tiger is the emperor of the beasts and the peacock is the king of the birds. At the same time we see some kind of dialectics in the art world: tough things will break when they reach their limit, so the tough things need to be aided by something soft and they go side by side. If we say Xie Tianhong displays the masculine beauty through his paintings of tiger, then he describes the feminine charm in his paintings of peacock.

Xie Tianhong’s paintings of flower, no matter by fine brushwork or freehand brushwork,  appear to be transparent and full of life and always make you feel a kind of fresh idea which distinguishes him from the common painters. Under his pen lotus flower, peony, plum blossom, and bamboo are all so lifelike that seem giving off delicate fragrance from the heaven. The former French president Chirac appraised him as “A talented artist” and paid very high price for collecting his tens of excellent paintings. When Xie Tianhong held his painting in Thailand several ago it happened that the former USA president Bill Clinton and the first lady Hillary paid a visit and the couple could not help loving his paintings at the first sight and offered a lot for collecting Ink bamboo, Delicate fragrance spread ten thousand kilometers, Pigeon of peace and other six choicest paintings. The former prime minister of Thailand Chuan Leekpai spoke highly of Xie Tianhong’s art works and took Thousands of Mountains thoroughly in Red as one of his treasured collections.

When Professor Xie was forty he sojourned in Thailand and was completely converted to Buddhism. Since then he has engaged himself in exploring the essence of life, universe, philosophy, ethics, literature and arts，well digesting it and completely soaking into his head. His artworks reach a point which displays elegance，primitive simplicity like a jade in the rough, vigor and splendor，transcendence and purity，grace and calm，in a word, his works bring us into a supernatural realm created in a quite natural way. Master Xie lives a secluded live. He neither has any interest in social climbing nor follows the fashion to curry favor with the secular world. He is frank to everyone he meets and very easy going. He has been received as a masterful painter internationally and praised and respected worldwide. In the beginning of 2008 quite a few excellent works were presented at the Art Exhibition of Contemporary Thai and Chinese Artists and received very high comments from Liu Dawei, vice chairman of Artists Association of China, and Feng Jicai, vice chairman of Federation of Chinese literature and Arts, also spoke highly of Xie Tianhong’s works and appraised with tremendous enthusiasm. This art exhibition was jointly organized by Artists Association of China, Federation of Chinese Literature and Arts, Thailand National Art Gallery, League of Thai and Chinese Artists, and Thailand Cultural Department.

To promote the Chinese national spirit in arts Xie Tianhong expresses his feelings not only through painting landscape, flower and bird, lion, tiger and panther but also often through painting heroes and great men of the current time and saints in the history to depict their charming image and eulogize their noble spirit . In spring of 2008 at the invitation of Dr.Zhang Jiuhuan the Chinese ambassador in the Kingdom of Thailand Xie Tianhong created for the Chinese embassy a large–size painting of multiple s including landscape, figure and ink bamboo. This painting was titled Seven Virtuous Gentlemen gathering in the Bamboo Forest. Dr.Zhang Jiuhuan was attracted by this painting so much that he improvised a poem on the painting and appraised Xie Tianhong as a masterful and versatile artist. This has become a much-told story in the contemporary art circles.   

This time Xie Tianhong held his painting exhibition during the birthday of Her Highness Princess Sirindhorn and Xie Tianhong dedicated to Her Highness a elaborate painting called A pleasant and auspicious future will embrace Thailand and China, a picture of peacocks and peonies in which the blue green peacocks are drawn with gold and platinum powder, the peacocks display their elegance and grace in a carefree way and their brilliance is overwhelming. The peacocks stand proudly on rock and look straightly forward; the peonies, national flower of China, are in full bloom to usher in a beautiful spring, resembling Thailand and China are in prosperous times and will have a bright future. The two peacocks, one is female and the other is male, stand side by side showing their beauty in a competitive way. The peacocks spread their tails implying that Thailand and China will enjoy a prosperous time and people live in peace and fortune.

  As a masterful artist of international culture Xie Tianhong is gifted in many ways and is regarded as a paragon of contemporary artists who bring forth new ideas in water color painting. When it comes to the quality of art works we always hold that life is the source of artistic creation and the feeling is the standpoint and opinion. Xie Tianhong will decisively keep up closely with the time and will make an ambitious plan to create excellent art works for the peace and harmony of the world. May his pine of art remain green forever!

(By Lu Yongjiang CRI online Chief reporter in Thailand)