Huang Yongyu at Eighty: Huang Yongyu's Eightieth Birthday Self-Reflection

Author: Chen Lusheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: For artists, eighty is a special age. It is common to hold an exhibition to commemorate and reflect on one's career. However, Mr. Huang opposed holding a retrospective exhibition. He believed that looking back would make one feel as if the life of art had ended. Therefore, the carefully prepared "Eightyth Art Exhibition" only featured works created in recent years. From the initial idea to the difficult part of confirming the time with the Hong Kong Art Museum, the first exhibition's date was confirmed after the Director Wang Xiaoming of the Shenzhen Art Museum agreed. The poster was then created, featuring a portrait of Mr. Huang taken by the renowned photographer Pang Xiaowei, designed by me. After that, nearly 10 different types of posters designed by various people also reflected Mr. Huang's characteristic of having many helpers with his exhibitions. I was fully responsible for coordinating and organizing the special exhibition in Shenzhen. In December 2003, the Shenzhen Art Museum called to ask about the exhibition preface. I consulted Mr. Huang, and he said, "I don't care. You write it." That was it—simple, just like him. Therefore, I wrote the following "Preface" and printed it in the exhibition's program.
There is a place called Frenze in Italian, now known as "Florence." It has a very poetic pen name, "Feilengchui," which is the translation of the poet Xu Zhimo. Although people in the first half of the last century called it this, it has not been forgotten or abandoned by modern people. This is because it carries the poetic spirit bestowed upon it by Xu Zhimo, and also because the painter Huang Yongyu has awakened people's longing for antiquity with his memories of life in Feilengchui and his brushwork. Whether in Latin or Italian, the name "Florence" means "City of Flowers." It is marked by a lily. In 1991, Mr. Huang Yongyu traveled and lived along the Seine River to Feilengchui. Wherever he went, he left records of himself standing with his easel, which was his sketching and art related to his life. One day, a young stranger, after asking for permission from Mr. Huang, who was painting on the street, took several photos of him. A few days later, photos of Mr. Huang painting were published in the local newspaper in Feilengchui, accompanied by a caption: "Hmm, sitting at the busy intersection of the Ponte Vecchio and Via de' Tornabuoni for several hours requires courage. This painter, with the unique patience of an Easterner, ignores the cars passing by. Day after day, the view of Fiesole Hill from the Ponte Vecchio appears on his canvas."
Mr. Huang's trip to Feilengchui was filled with creative desire, with a plan before he left and arrangements for each day. He said, "I can't think of anything more interesting than painting. Without painting, wouldn't it be a waste of time?" Therefore, he returned with a rich harvest and experienced the interesting life worth reading. The poet Xu Zhimo wrote in "Talks at a Villa in Florence": "Can't the roots of great, profound, inspiring, clear, and beautiful thoughts be found in the whispers of the wind, the clouds, the undulations of mountains and terrain, the colors and scents of flowers and grass?" Thus, he believed that "nature is the greatest book," and "as long as you understand this book, you will not feel lonely in the world when you are alone."