Fifty Years of a Sideways Life (Selected Essays of Wu Guanzhong)

Author: Wu Guanzhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: In my youth, I loved literature. I was forced into a breakup, which then transformed into a love for art, and I eventually married it. My life and everything I have belong to the world of art. From then on, I have lived in a world of aesthetics, every day and every moment, my eyes never idle, discerning beauty and ugliness everywhere. Like a bee collecting nectar, I collect beauty. In the world's vast garden of flowers, exotic blooms catch the eye. Every unique flower must have its own unique soil and roots. Following the vines, you can eventually trace them back to their homeland and national elements. However, if there is a fundamental lack of genuine love for art, and instead, one merely boasts about national characteristics, imposes them on others, and uses self-esteem to mask inferiority, it can only create a fake flower market. The transmission of emotion is the essence of art. A single word—love—is enough. The loss of art is with the loss of emotion. I do not believe in the complete extinction of emotion. Mr. Lu Xun once said that because he was attacked from all sides, he had to stand sideways, which was particularly exhausting. I myself have always stood sideways between China and the West, between the past and the present, but I have managed to stand sideways for fifty years, existing for fifty years. The selected prose works in this book include: the aesthetic beauty of painting; "Tutu Yangyang, Yangyang Tutu"; the study of human body beauty is essential for plastic arts; on abstract beauty, etc.