Remembering Mr. Chen Dexiang

Audi

     A few days ago, I saw a photo of Mr. Chen Dexiang on his deathbed forwarded by a colleague, only to see him smiling and shaking hands with the visitors, and at that time, I still hoped that I would soon get the news of his discharge from the hospital, but the result was that I learned immediately afterwards that he had already died, which was a great sigh of relief!

     I met Chen Dexiang in 1978, and met him even earlier. When I first learned to paint, I heard that there was a teacher who taught printmaking at the Inner Mongolia Teachers' College who was very elegant, and once I saw him riding his bicycle on the street, medium-sized, wearing a woolen Cossack-style tall hat and a big beard, which was really a beautiful bearded man with an extraordinary appearance. Especially in those days, most people were dressed in monotone, even jokingly called "blue ants country", so his appearance is particularly prominent. After I got to know him, I felt that he was the same in appearance and demeanor, and he did have the style of an artist. Although he was a generation older than me, I could socialize with him on an equal footing. He lived in the department's silo at that time, and we often met in the corridors, with a smile on his face, and without the arrogance of an elder. After seeing my watercolor paintings, he especially appreciated a sketch he made in the rubber forest of Xishuangbanna. I used a knife to scrape out the branches of the trees on the undried base of that painting, and then used white powder to dot out the small cans hanging on the trunks of the trees to catch the rubber, which was probably different from the usual watercolors, and was fully affirmed by him; and because of his words, I kept the painting in my suitcase, and then turned it over again in the past few days because of his death. The next thing that impressed me deeply, was the 1979 college entrance examination of art, examining papers in a classroom in the building of literature and history, at that time I knew someone who was already twenty-five years old, immediately overage; one morning Chen Dexiang went to the classroom and said that he didn't have any special relationship with this student, but he was an old student, and we all knew the level of his painting, and hoped that he would be able to be magnanimous, and give him a chance. After that, he said, "I'm going to catch a plane," and gave a bow to those present. After the student was not admitted, but that year was admitted to the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, which also proved that his judgment of his professional ability is not false. At this time just resumed the college entrance examination not long ago, some practices to today's point of view is not rigorous enough, but his style of action let me miss a long time.

      He went to the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts to study copperplate painting, and his mentor was Chen Xiaonan, a veteran printmaker who studied in England during the Republic of China. I know that he graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in his early years, and his study was copperplate painting, and he initially worked in the Federation of Literature and Culture in Inner Mongolia, and was involved in the search and collection of Mongolian folk motifs, and was later transferred to the Inner Mongolia Teachers' College. As there was no copperplate machine in the department, he could only engage in woodcutting. After returning from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, he held a reportage exhibition, in addition to copperplate prints, but also displayed some watercolors, and now I can see a few representative paintings from that training. Before that, he also painted oil paintings, such as a dancer I know once asked him to paint a portrait, but interestingly he claimed to be color blind. His oil paintings are generalized and not obsessed with details, and I remember seeing several paintings at his home, including the one of the dancer, which was often painted with a cobalt blue-like color. It is said that once in the Yangtze River riverboat he was painting on the deck of the first class cabin, the oil painter Ren Mengzhang of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts happened to be on the same boat, and wanted to see what he was painting, but was blocked by people on board, saying that it should not affect the work of the painter. I also heard that in the summer of 1974, he returned to school from Ximeng, passing through Beijing, when he and his student Liu Jun went to the train station to eat in the restaurant on the second floor, at the counter ready to buy food, I came across a Soviet man standing there to drink beer, probably because of his clothes and long beard, and took the initiative to accost him in Russian and asked him if you are a Soviet man? He said no, the man said you look like a Ukrainian; Chen Dexiang in the past when he went to school to learn Russian, can understand some, in Russian and the man answered a few sentences. I thought this was over, but the special era of people's strong sense of prevention, after eating the stairs there are a few plainclothes waiting for them, and was quickly taken away for questioning, and finally the school intervened to protect him, the incident has become a fun anecdote for people to talk about.

      "During the Cultural Revolution, he taught a class on the development of Chinese printmaking, drawing upward arrows on the blackboard, and when he came to the present situation, he drew a downward motion with the chalk in his hand and threw it out, which was applauded by the students present. After the reform and opening up people's spirit of liberation, the art department often held dances, he and his wife led the trend, is a regular guest in the dance, and known for their beautiful dance, that is really a nostalgic era. There was a time when he attended a colleague's wedding, when the wedding was held in an empty classroom in the Building of Literature and History due to the simplicity of the wedding, a few bottles of wine were placed on the introductory table, and when he came in to pour him wine, he was also quick to put down the cup, unlike some people who do not make a show of putting down the cup, but drank it all in one drink, his face still hangs with the usual smile; only afterward, he said to the young colleague that the vinegar you poured to me the other day was, as it turned out, the vinegar bottle used for mixing cold dishes, the vinegar bottle used for mixing cold dishes. It turned out that the bottle of vinegar used for mixing gazpacho was also mixed in it, and it was taken upside down by mistake in the middle of a busy day.

   He left the teacher's college on the eve of the department organized us to go to the mountains picnic, after the meal, people in the mountains of a piece of flatland dancing, not long after a few do not know the handsome men and women to get up around him to dance, Pi Shi Chen Dexiang nearly fifty years old, along with the dance of the swaying head of a few white whiskers, the few young men and women dancing side praised: the old man is really handsome! In order to his transfer out of the department held a rare farewell party, some teachers recalled and his interaction. A few days later, when he was leaving we gave him a send-off at the entrance to the department, his colleague Hai Mou sent him a top-mounted Lohan in red robes, he expressed his gratitude and made a return gift; to walk to me in front of me also once again mentioned my small painting of the Rubber Forest. For his transfer, people with some kind of farewell feelings, but he is, after all, the leaves return to their hometown, and went to the newly formed Shenzhen University, is always a career worthy of praise enviable things.

     Mentioned in the foregoing are mostly some weekday impressions, in fact, he has always cared about his professional copperplate, in 1980, according to the actual teaching conditions of the teacher's college, he created a unique plastic prints, in fact, is the use of certain techniques of copperplate, such as dry engraving, in the beginning of the easy-to-find students with the plastic matting plate engraving prints, for which he personally designed and assembled a copperplate printing press (the first time for the country). I have seen several of his human body, are carved with this method. Looking back on the conditions at that time was really limited, but he did not change his pleasure, once and his students said you can use the press to print. In that material conditions are scarce, and less interaction with the outside world, he did a lot of things are pioneering, as the department's main professional teachers, with his talent for the autonomous region to train a lot of printmaking talent, he advocated the plastic prints are also popular for a while.

He is the son-in-law of Zhang Rugang, the leader of the autonomous region, and has many friends and relatives in Hohhot. After leaving Inner Mongolia, he sometimes came back, and we talked about the development zone in the south, we will also be together in a small gathering, but not many things worth remembering. Just once during the meeting I asked him to collect folk patterns in the early years of the past, he smiled and chatted a few sentences, and finally because of that occasion is not easy to do further conversation and leave, and then there is no opportunity to ask him to teach again. He was frank and funny, loved to joke with people, they also enjoy it, to be able to take care of their days, and finally lived to be eighty-eight years old. For his dealings with him, can recall most of the usual around a Lin half claw thing, but from this will remember his person, his artist temperament, as he did not have a deep friendship with me, I can only take this to miss him.

                            September 2, 2023

Audi Resume

Born in 1954, Mongolian

Professor, College of Fine Arts, Inner Mongolia Normal University

Member of China Artists Association

Member of the Watercolor Painting Art Committee of the China Artists Association

Vice Chairman of Inner Mongolia Artists Association