Memory of the Old Street in Grisaille Painting

Pan Deng

Originally named Pan Yinglun, comes from Chongqing. Vice-president of Taiwan Cross-Strait Cultural Exchange Association, vice-president of Singapore Arts Association, member of World Chinese Artists Association, member of Chinese Painter Calligrapher Association, member of Chongqing Artists Association. In 2006, his work "Majestic Monument" won the gold medal at the National Famous Scholars Exhibition, and the next year, his work "Spring Tide" was selected into the Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Competition for the Middle-aged and Elderly, and won the gold medal. His works are included in the Collection of Masterpieces by Famous Contemporary Chinese Painters and the Most Collective Value Masterpieces of China.

Pan Deng devoted himself to the study and creation of ancient town trails and Chinese landscape paintings at a young age.

By inheriting Chinese traditional painting, his paintings focus on momentum and always pursue innovation and individuality, blending strokes into modern art forms and colors. In this way, he forms his own unique painting language and artistic style.

Xiahao Old Street on the Drawings

When I met Pan Deng one afternoon in September, he was bending over a table in his study.

On the table is an unfinished painting: a slate path winds its way into the depths, along which stands the well-arranged stilted building with bamboo and mud walls on both sides, and the mountain peaks in the distance.

The picture shows the Xiahao Old Street.

Pan Deng was born in Huangjueya on the south bank and grew up in Xiahao Old Street. He grew up drinking the mountain springs here, where the mountains, springs, bamboo hedges, Chinese and foreign buildings, farmhouses and courtyards, thriving business scenery, firmly engraved in his heart.

It is his precious childhood memory to go up the hill to pick up mushroom, swim down the river, watch the river raft, fishermen, skate fish, the rocks, and slim men pulling boats. He could never forget the smell of tea and noodles in the old street, the yellow iron cake, the patches of foreign embassies and consulates, the pits which had been treaded on by mules and horsemen in the long bluestone street.

Speaking of the time he lived in Xiahao, Pan Deng took out a stack of pictures and began to talk about them. "Yongxing Hong", "Three Streets Convergence", "Viewin the Street on the Bridge", "Xiong Family Compound", "Skyline Stilted Building" … He told us his memory of Xiahao Street by each painting--

This is the Dafo section of Danzishi Old Street, from which people used to sail to Jiefangbei in the center of the city. Old street was built behind the Xiahao Mountain, up along the trail step by step. There is a mountain spring called "A Bowl of Water", which does not dry all the year round；

At that time, there were thousands of people living in Xiahao, with only one telephone in the post office. When there is a telephone call that needs to be answered by someone, the shouts will be passed down from the upper street to the lower street；

This painting shows MonkeyBro Rice Noodles, its rice noodles is a special in Xiahao. Going inside of the alley, there is a teahouse, where the storyteller is well-known；

……

In this picture is a free market, there are rice store, rice candy shop, Longmen Photo Studio, fish shop … every day seems to be a lively market day；

The deed feelings for the old street affected Pan Deng's creation later. For decades, the old street and the ancient roads have always been the theme of his creation.

Every spring and autumn, he would head out to set down some of the natural splendors. Besides the famous mountains and rivers, he also draws many his favorite ancient town trails. He liked the border town, the low ancient buildings, unique Miao Villages, meandering slate roads and simple houses in Shen Congwen's books, as well as the simple and joyful farm life. In his "Harmonious Home", he showed the paths in the small miscellaneous courtyards, the walls full of green vines, the vigorous livestock, and the quiet and hospitable farmers.

Integration of Chinese and Western Painting - Grisaille Painting

Pan Deng's father is an art teacher, and he just got interested in painting through him and began to learn Chinese painting. Later, because of his painting expertise, he was hired as a professional art designer by a cinema to draw large-scale film advertising posters. So he began to study Western painting, and slowly integrated oil painting, gouache, acrylic, and ink wash painting skills, and linked Western painting techniques with new painting materials and traditional Chinese painting language, bringing a unique flavor to his works of mountains and rocks. Chuandoufang, stilted building, bamboo hedge jacketed wall, wooden pillar, door head, stone staircase, ancient tree around the houses, roads, crevices, grass and moss.... The scenery configuration is natural and harmony, integrating ink wash painting with Western painting techniques, combining organically the ink line, staining, etching, and freehand brushwork, light and shade, perspective.

In his series of acrylic paintings such as "Old Town of Phoenix" and "Old Street near Water", Pan Deng introduced the techniques of ink accumulation, chapped scratch, water collision and freehand brushwork of traditional Chinese painting, and combined them organically with the points, lines, and planes in western painting. The color block matching, light and shadow processing showed the unique charm of the folk houses and border towns in eastern Sichuan, and the original rural landscape and rich customs. The work is thus beaming with both the unique characteristics of Western painting and the ink wash painting of China.