"pindu" uses the artist's brush to restore the glory of the old teahouse - postscript to "traffic teahouse"
2024-10-04
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i have heard of chen anjian’s name and seen his paintings very early on. it must have been in the 1990s. i saw his paintings for the first time in a store selling tourist products in yuzhong district. the store owner said that he was a professor at the sichuan academy of fine arts, so i was wary of him. but now i can’t remember whether it was his landscape paintings or figure paintings that i first saw. at that time, i was working for an overseas travel company.
one day i suddenly heard that chen anjian had paid for the traffic teahouse on huangjueping street for his series of teahouse paintings. frankly speaking, i firmly believe that i have passed by this traffic teahouse countless times, but i have no impression at all. the first is that i have never been in the habit of sitting in a teahouse, and the second is that later i discovered that this teahouse is really inconspicuous. if you don't go in and discover some of its advantages and features hidden in the depths, from the outside it looks like a small store you can see anywhere today.
as a university professor, chen anjian's behavior of contracting an ordinary small teahouse is not understood by many people, but everyone follows their own ideas and does what they think they should do, which is beyond reproach.
slowly, i heard more comments about chen anjian from many teachers and friends. he is said to be a simple, kind, unpretentious person, peaceful and persistent in his work. slowly, i saw chen anjian's traffic teahouse series painted in a very realistic artistic language in many places, and more importantly, in a photorealistic language. some of them, whether from the perspective of popular aesthetic standards or professional artistic standards, are indeed very popular. especially after seeing a lot of contemporary art works in those years, i feel a little bored. when i first saw chen anjian's teahouse series, the ordinary lives of ordinary people, scenes full of passion and joy of life that appeared in the pictures felt like a clear stream flowing out of the mountains, washing my eyes and soul. brings a new sense of coolness and comfort. i liked it so much that i came up with the idea of writing a more complete picture of him and his teahouse paintings for everyone to read. in this day filled with too much noise and impetuousness, this may not be a way to soothe our hearts.
the book was finally named "traffic teahouse". in fact, i originally wanted to use the name "new communications teahouse". there were several considerations: first, after the old communications teahouse was contracted by chen anjian, although the form is still the original it, but in fact it has been quietly reborn. second, the traffic teahouse that appears in chen anjian’s teahouse series is obviously not the kind of teahouse that people are used to just for people to drink tea, chat and play cards and chess. it has grown with the artist’s feelings and has new meanings. meaning - the sublimation of the "marriage" between elegant art and ordinary people's lives. third, chen anjian’s recent works are what i call “interactive graffiti paintings” in the book. from a stylistic perspective, they are actually on two completely different tracks from his previous series of realistic teahouse paintings. the running car can be called an authentic "teahouse painting of new transportation". and this is precisely the work that i hope will prove to be chen anjian's successful and pioneering personal artistic language in the future. but later when i communicated with several friends, they thought it would be better to just use "traffic tea house". the reason is that the addition of the word "new" makes it easy for people to think that it is a branch of "jiaotong tea house". if you want to explain why the word "new" is used later, you will have to spend a lot of time explaining it. as the old saying goes, "hearing advice is half the battle." in this case, i readily accepted it.
as time goes by, due to historical necessity and accident, the huangjueping traffic teahouse, which was unknown at the time and almost disappeared forever, has become one of the popular check-in places in chongqing today. from the perspective of chen anjian's artistic creation, the existence and brilliance of traffic teahouse must be of great benefit to him. from the perspective of the protection and development of traditional culture, chen anjian's teahouse series of paintings played a vital role in the preservation and fame of the jiaotong teahouse. according to what he said, his relationship with jiaotong tea house is mutually beneficial. this is a fact, from which we can also see the painter's humble and ordinary heart.
for the book "traffic tea house", i mainly considered it to provide readability for the public. while reading, i would like to let everyone know more about the traffic teahouse, chen anjian, who was born in the 1977 sichuan american academy of arts, and his artistic creation path. it can also let everyone know how to appreciate the ordinary stories performed by ordinary people that appear in his paintings, and also gain an understanding of china's artistic path in the past few decades. through the understanding of jiaotong teahouse, we can understand chen anjian’s works, and through chen anjian’s works, we can understand jiaotong teahouse, and know what attitude and method we should use today to face our traditional cultural relics.
how should we protect and develop these old objects of chongqing's history and humanity? how should we do a good job in urban development? they should not be easily abandoned. from this, i believe that in addition to his personal achievements and the protection of an old and small traffic teahouse, chen anjian's traffic teahouse series paintings have another important meaning, which lies in its protection and development of traditional culture. how to set an example for such protection is worthy of great praise. if, as he wishes, one day the traffic tea house really becomes a landmark building in chongqing and becomes famous far and wide, then it will be even more worthy of a high-five!
(the author is a retired professor of sichuan academy of fine arts. this article is selected from the postscript of "traffic teahouse" and has been deleted.)
