Shen Gu Huafeng

Art history has always favored perfect and regular models, habitually including the gentleness recognized by the world, but gently skipping the hot and sharp youth of each pioneer. Lin Ji is a master of oil painting who has been written into textbooks, and a master of realism who is regarded as a standard by academic circles. His painting style is gentle, elegant, formal and neat. But no one knows that this master who has lived a peaceful life also had a sharp and rebellious youth. Lin Ji, who is in his early twenties, has an avant-garde and wild style of painting, with sharp separation of light and shadow, wanton clash of colors, and techniques that are decades ahead of his time. This avant-garde spirit, which was not tolerated by the conservative aesthetics of the late Republic of China, was regarded as perverse, crude and reckless, and was repeatedly questioned and suppressed. In the end, he put away all his sharp edges, sealed up all his unconventional new works, curbed his wildness, returned to peace, and used his life to be righteous and perfect in exchange for fame and respect from later generations. Those paintings that best represent his true heart and talent, along with his untamed artistic beliefs, have sunk into the dust of time, been sealed away by the family for generations, and quietly forgotten by art history. A hundred years later, Lin Yan, a senior student at the Academy of Fine Arts, as the only direct descendant of Lin Ji, grew up in an art era characterized by solidified aesthetics, involution of creation, and loss of soul. In today's oil painting circle, everyone follows the template and caters to authority. Regular assembly-line works dominate the competition. Lively individual expressions are regarded as alien, and aesthetics has long been reduced to a rigid shackles. She is familiar with the manuscripts of her ancestors and is well versed in the essence of ancient methods. She has seen with her own eyes that sincere avant-garde art has been buried and routine mediocre creations have been pursued. She is finally determined to break this aesthetic dilemma that has lasted for hundreds of years. The wind is about to rise, and the day is about to split. It has been in the past for a long time, but it is finally waiting for the light.