Feng deliang
There is a small courtyard at the foot of Yifeng Mountain in Dean County, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, where the Dean County Art Museum is located. Its predecessor was Dean County Painting and Calligraphy Institute, which was established in 2007. Feng Deliang, director of the Dean County Art Museum, the person in charge of this space, gave a thumbs up. In 2008, Feng Deliang, who was in Beijing, was introduced as a special talent to Dean County Painting and Calligraphy Institute. Over the years, with his unremitting efforts, the Dean County Painting and Calligraphy Institute has expanded into the Dean County Art Museum, and has adhered to public welfare calligraphy classes for many years, which has driven many ordinary residents to become members of provincial calligraphy associations.
For more than 10 years, he used his expertise, persistence and innovation to realize the gorgeous transformation of Dean County Art Museum.
Cultivating Art Museum Audience by Public Welfare
Autumn is getting stronger, and the ginkgo trees in Yifeng Mountain are golden. In the evening, the calligraphy public welfare training in the exhibition room of Dean County Art Museum was crowded, and the air was filled with faint ink.
As a member of China Calligraphers’ Association, Feng Deliang started with his familiar fields and started a free public calligraphy class by using residents’ spare time after work, which provided a learning platform for all calligraphy lovers in the county.
At present, Feng Deliang is the only teacher who is engaged in daily training. There are two public welfare classes every week, which not only improves the overall level of painting and calligraphy in the county, but also enriches the spiritual and cultural life of the people.
Participants in the training came from all walks of life in the county, and even scavengers. In the process of running calligraphy training classes, Feng Deliang often engages in activities out of his own pocket. For those students who love calligraphy and have poor economic conditions, he provides pen, ink, paper and inkstone for free. Feng Deliang answered all the questions raised by the students without any impatience. Students also see his love for art, persistence in aesthetics and feelings from his meticulous and meticulous class. "If I don’t love myself, how can I infect students and enhance their interest in culture?" Feng Deliang said. He is well aware that the main task of a county-level art museum is to promote the art of painting and calligraphy in China and cultivate talents for painting and calligraphy under the guidance of promoting socialist core values. The calligraphy public welfare training class he runs insists on being open to the public for more than 45 hours every week. Some students have been in his class for several years, and there have been many stories among the students.
When preparing the contents of calligraphy training, Feng Deliang asked the students to learn the corresponding contents according to their occupations, for example, let the doctors copy the Compendium of Materia Medica and the entrepreneurs copy the Complete Biography of Hu Xueyan, so as to enhance their interest. According to statistics, the number of members of De ‘an Book Association has grown from the initial five provincial associations to more than 50 now, and three of them have become members of China Book Association, gradually moving from a small population county to a large calligraphy county.
"De ‘an Model" of Promoting Aesthetic Education with Calligraphy and Painting
Since its establishment in 2007, Dean County Art Museum (Painting and Calligraphy Institute) has been committed to the inheritance and promotion of painting and calligraphy art, and has taken public welfare training as one of its important work contents, and held a series of activities-hosted the first seal cutting training class of Jiangxi Book Association in 2011, and hosted the seal cutting public lecture hall of Dean Station of Jiangxi Book Association in 2020. In 2019, 2020 and 2021, two one-week lettering public welfare training courses and one seal cutting public welfare training course were held every year, which continuously improved the overall level of the county’s painting and calligraphy art, enriched the people’s spiritual and cultural life and accelerated the pace of building a culturally strong county.
Libraries, cultural centers and museums are the "standard" in domestic counties at present, and there is no mandatory requirement for art galleries, which depends entirely on the economic development level of each place. Zhang Xin, director of the Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film, Television, Press, Publication and Tourism of De ‘an County, said: "It is not easy to introduce an excellent talent. How to return talents to the grassroots level and retain talents is a difficult problem faced by grassroots cultural management departments. Our approach is to retain people with feelings and try our best to solve the worries of work and life. Second, we will continue to increase the construction of public cultural infrastructure, promote the construction of public cultural service system, and try our best to create a larger space for talent development. "
"Art lovers are completely different from art museum managers. Simple art lovers have relatively simple work content, but the curator is different. They have to worry about all aspects of the art museum." Feng Deliang looked around when he first chose the site of the art museum, and found that Yifengshan Park was lush and convenient, which was suitable for both sketching and work. Therefore, he put forward his own opinions to his superiors and chose the site of the art museum to Yifengshan, realizing the "hardware" upgrade. In addition, with the strong support of the county cultural authorities, the venue of calligraphy public welfare training courses was expanded, not only in the museum, but also in the activity rooms of various schools in the county without affecting the teaching tasks of the school.
"Let calligraphy enter thousands of families"
During the winter and summer vacations of the past two years, the Dean County Art Museum cooperated with the County Education Bureau to hold a public welfare training class for primary and secondary school teachers, systematically explaining the history of calligraphy development in China, the basic knowledge of brush calligraphy, and the introductory training of brush calligraphy techniques, and giving demonstration teaching at the training site.
At the second summer teacher calligraphy public welfare training class held in July, not only the teachers in the county heard the news, but also the teachers and students from Nanjing, Jiangsu, Nanchang, Jiujiang and Gongqingcheng, Jiangxi. They all said: "It is very important for every Chinese to write Chinese characters well. One horizontal, one vertical, one hook and one mention reflects China culture and China heritage. As teachers, we should teach our students well and write Chinese characters well.
Feng Deliang said that the teacher group affects students’ writing level, and it is particularly meaningful to carry out summer teacher calligraphy training. The exam also has some questions related to calligraphy, which has a positive impact on students.
In the third year of Daguan in the Northern Song Dynasty, Ru Tie, which was carved by Wang Caihui, the sage of De ‘an, who was then the ruler of Ruzhou, has been circulated to this day. The publication of Ru Tie plays an important role in the history of calligraphy in China and even in the history of China culture. In 2018, by excavating the history and culture of De ‘an, Feng Deliang prepared and planned the invitation exhibition of 100 calligraphy schools commemorating Wang Cai and Ru Tie in De ‘an County. "For people who have important influence in the history of De ‘an culture, we actively spread the calligraphy culture of Ru Tie, so that the masses can not only understand the achievements of their ancestors, but also publicize the culture of De ‘an." Feng Deliang said.
In addition to the promotion of calligraphy, Feng Deliang will also take it as his important mission to make good use of the space of the art museum and promote the traditional ink painting art in China more widely. Every year, the De ‘an County Art Museum holds four to five large-scale exhibitions of calligraphy and painting, which are open to the public free of charge, bringing together people who love calligraphy and painting, and enhancing people’s aesthetics and cognition of traditional calligraphy and painting through training.
"Hold more exhibitions and activities, let De ‘an calligraphy and painting go out of Jiangxi and go to the whole country, and promote De ‘an culture with calligraphy and painting. Grasp academic activities better, carry out community cultural activities better, and enrich the cultural life of the masses. " Feng Deliang said, "Since we have chosen the art of calligraphy and painting, we must work hard and use calligraphy and painting to promote the prosperity and development of cultural undertakings in De ‘an."
(The picture in the text is byRespondents provide)