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On July 8, 2022, for the first time, I saw the whole picture of the mural behind the mosaic inlaid mural on the wall of “Zhenguan Grand Gathering”. Walking in front of the 10-meter painting seems to follow the mentor Mr. Sun Jingbo to draw the scene of “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” just yesterday. The imitation cinnabar red color in “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” inlaid with language is particularly eye-catching on the 100-meter painting wall, like a string of cinnabar Necklace inlaid with gemstones. There was a gap of five years between the original oil painting of “Zhenguan Grandeting” and the mosaic-translated mural, but these images are still vivid in my mind. The process of mosaic transformation is another in-depth interpretation and study of the original painting.

On May 2, 2016, Mr. Sun modulated the white of the brightest railing part in the picture. White is the highest note in a mural. The pre-set brightness should be adjusted, and enough pigments should be adjusted and reserved for drawing and modification.

On May 2, 2016, Mr. Sun modulated the white of the brightest railing part in the picture. White is the highest note in a mural. In the color relationship of the picture, white can be divided into many layers, but the brightest white must be based on the color draft of the mural. The pre-set brightness should be adjusted, and enough pigments should be adjusted and reserved for drawing and modification.

The reason for the two “Zhen Guan Grand Gathering”

The “Zhenguan Grand Meeting”, an art creation project with the theme of Chinese civilization and history, was hung on the wall of the highest hall in the National Museum of China for permanent display. This work is 5.17 meters high and 9.15 meters long. We can appreciate this work when we go to the National Expo. Mr. Sun Jingbo has painted two pieces of the historical theme painting “Zhenguan Grand Meeting”, and the larger and wider one is the second one. Why bother drawing two pictures? Knowing the cause and ins and outs of the matter, you can better understand Mr. Sun Jingbo’s persistent pursuit of historical theme paintings as a muralist and his pious artistic attitude towards historical theme paintings. When there is a small deviation between reality and ideal, respect reality and not give up ideal. When the historical theme art project was exhibited in the final exhibition, the chief painters received applause. But over the course of 5 years, too many people have put in the effort. This includes leaders, organizers, historiologists, historians and numerous technical staff and copywriters. In the organization, the initial size for “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” was 4.8 x 7 meters in the first draft. Mr. Sun Jingbo drew the composition draft after careful consideration according to the size ratio, and of course also drew the line draft and color draft corresponding to this ratio. However, in the process of sorting out and sorting out the materials, my husband believed more firmly that for “Zhenguan Grand Gathering”, the ideal composition should be a wider screen ratio. “Zhenguan Grand Gathering” depicts the scene of “nine heavens closing the palace, and all nations dressing and worshiping crowns”, because the open horizontal composition can better reflect this theme. But because the initial wall surface requirement can only be 4.8×7 meters, this recipe is a little more proportionate. Mr. Sun Jingbo also proposed changes, but the organizer at the time said: “Mr. Sun Jingbo is a muralist, and the size and ratio of the murals should be an easy difficulty for Mr. Sun.” Therefore, Mr. Sun started to draw the line draft and color draft, and made up his mind to draw a piece of “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” according to the size required by the National Museum. The “Zhenguan Grand Gathering” of the same size. Therefore, during the seven-month drafting process, Mr. Sun Jingbo installed wooden keels on the two walls of the studio, and stretched two giant canvases by himself. The dimensions of these two sheets are: 4.8×7 meters and 5.17× 9.15 meters, the firm idea began with the purchase of a whole roll of oil canvas with a length of nearly 20 meters. The canvas was divided into two, and the two “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” were painted before and after. In this drawing process, Mr. Sun’s ideas have been recognized by the leaders and experts of the National Expo. This helped to encourage the drawing of the 5.17×9.15 meter wide composition “Zhenguan Grand Meeting”. Therefore, the second “Zhenguan Grand Meeting”, which is the 5.17×9.15 meter “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” drawn by Mr. Sun Jingbo for the National Museum, is entering the permanent display of the National Museum. But I know that the first “Zhenguan Grand Gathering” drawn by Mr. Sun according to the size required by the original National Expo is equally wonderful and perfect from the whole to the details.

Mosaic language conversion

The two large-scale mosaic murals of Mr. Sun Jingbo, the works of my supervisor Mr. Sun Jingbo, have been completed and installed on the wall. After the completion of these two works, I have a deeper understanding of the characteristics of mosaic materials. understand and recognize. These two works by Mr. Sun Jingbo have the same characteristics: they mainly focus on figures, line drawing is used as modeling means, implicit light and shade shape the relationship between shapes, and the use of traditional Chinese mural language in character creation reflects the unique modeling characteristics of ancient Chinese figures in the picture and overall verve. In the online conversion process, small particles can be used to make lines from dots, and the small particles that are sheared can also achieve the characteristics of pen and ink lines through the skillful occlusal relationship in the hands of technicians.

The mosaic language conversion “Zhenguan Grand Meeting” changed the size of the original painting to 3.7×10 meters on the basis of 5.17×9.15 meters. The top of the corridor was deleted from the original composition of the picture, but after a simple screenshot, it was found that the 9.15 meters were expanded to 10 meters. The spears in the hands of the soldiers at the top of the picture are incomplete, so Mr. Sun added 14 people to the corridor of characters on the left side of the picture based on the original picture, making the mosaic version of “Zhenguan Grand Gathering” more full and harmonious in composition. balance. Mr. Sun Jingbo combined hand-drawing and computer hand-painting to complete the recomposition of the mosaic version of “Zhenguan Grand Meeting”. Therefore, the number of characters in the mosaic increased from the original 137 to 151.

In terms of color: Because of the difference in materials, the mosaic materials are basically selected from the existing materials in the factory for color card production, and further materials are prepared and entered into the production process. In the production of “Zhenguan Grand Gathering”, other colors will appear to be slightly brighter and brighter than the original, and most of the colors are basically consistent with the original color. The red materials of area carpets, red flags, etc. have some deviations. The solution is to try to find small pieces of yellow glass with similar lightness to medium yellow but slightly improved purity for yellow, and for large areas of red, because no small pieces close to cinnabar red have been found for the importance of red, so the manufacturer does this. Specially fired small pieces of cinnabar red that meet the requirements. This plays a vital role in the balance of the overall tone of “Zhenguan Grand Gathering”. In the mosaic language conversion of the Zhenguan Grand Festival, the biggest difficulty is that the original drawing method is a combination of lines and surfaces. Lines are used as a modeling method, and light and shadow are also implied in the surface. Therefore, we should not only pay attention to the division and transformation of light and shade on the block surface, but also use small pieces of mosaic materials to show the rich changes of ink lines.

In the transformation of the mosaic material language of Mr. Sun Jingbo’s painting “Zhenguan Grand Meeting”, I realized that the material transformation of the work should not just stay at the level of reproduction and transformation of media materials. Different material languages express the same picture according to the characteristics of the material. Different art languages will make corresponding trade-offs. In the continuous material development and language exploration, the ancient and modern art form of mosaic will be integrated into Chinese contemporary art and become an indispensable part. In the creation, we will respect the aesthetic characteristics of materials and emphasize Individuality and subjective initiative, using materials to think and create, deeply excavating and expanding materials, keeping mosaic art in sync with the times, and giving full play to the advantages of its own materials to help murals.