"Inheritance and Innovation"
— — Interpretation of Teacher Han Meilin’s Art Design Thought
Professor and doctoral supervisor of Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts.
Executive Deputy Director of China Ancient Writing Art Research Center.
Nan Chen
As a famous master of art, Mr. Han Meilin’s achievements in painting, calligraphy, sculpture, ceramics and other artistic fields have attracted worldwide attention. Because of his wide cross-border, profound artistic attainments, distinctive personality and great social influence, he is called "Picasso of China". In 2005, I was lucky enough to be selected by BOCOG to join the Olympic mascot creation team designed by Mr. Han. During nearly eight months of hard work and revision, I was close to the master of art and was lucky enough to be a witness and participant in this important design event in China. In 2012, I was fortunate to be the first doctoral student of Mr. Han in Tsinghua University, so that I could study Mr. Han Meilin’s artistic design thoughts more systematically, sum up his creative experience and methods, and sort out his unique educational thoughts and teaching system. There are many research articles about Mr. Han’s artistic creation, and this paper focuses on the analysis and interpretation of Mr. Han’s design thought and creative practice.
▲ Beijing Tourism Logo Design
▲ Logo design of Peking Union Medical College Hospital
▲ Logo design of China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation
▲ Logo design of National Botanical Garden
▲ Logo design of Canal Business District
After repeated thinking and deliberation, the title of this article is "Inheritance and Innovation", because it is inseparable from these two closely related keywords to interpret Han Meilin’s artistic design thoughts. Teacher Han’s design achievements first come from "inheritance". For the inheritance of China’s splendid culture for thousands of years, he greedily immersed himself in this huge treasure house of art, including rock paintings, inscriptions on bronze, big seals, Han bamboo slips, bronze art, statues and ceramics … … And New Year pictures, paper-cuts, fabrics … … Those varied folk arts, just like the cross-border flexibility and diversity of his artistic creation, are embodied in "innovation", extracting and absorbing traditional culture in an open way, learning from others, and breaking through the professional barriers of various art categories. His research even includes the artistic symbols and forms of East Asia, South Asia and even Inca civilization, which are related to China’s traditional culture. It is this open way that makes "inheritance" not rigid and fragmented, but vivid and coherent with context. In the design, the rough and original brushwork of rock paintings, beautiful and smooth lines in auspicious patterns, free and easy flying white in wild grass, and bright colors in strong contrast in New Year pictures … …
For Han Meilin’s artistic design ideas and methods, there are the following key points:
one Han Meilin systematically inherited China’s thoughts and methods of traditional arts and crafts and artistic aesthetics, and at the same time made bold innovations on the basis of inheritance, which provided a solid foundation for him to add distinctive and high-level artistic symbol language into his design practice.
two Han Meilin’s active thinking and creative imagination are also a major feature of his teacher. In popular words, he has "many ideas". He almost raises his head with one idea and lowers his head with another, and ideas emerge one after another.
three Without refusing new technology and new expression language, Mr. Han never refused new computer software and all kinds of modern art tools in the process of creation. He was the first artist who used advertising markers to create ceramic hanging plates, a traditional arts and crafts form. He creatively used watercolor paper to create the effect of simulating rice paper, and cooperated with Mali Pigment to invent "China Ink Color" between traditional Chinese painting pigment and gouache. His method of using cameras and photocopiers as creation tools made me stunned. He even became interested in computer software.
four Maintain the artist’s distinctive personality and emphasize the artist’s social responsibility. Contemporary design seems to show a trend, that is, design is gradually distancing itself from art, as if design emphasizes function and "solving problems". However, this design tendency with more or less modernist thinking is always abandoned by more and more personalized and aesthetic audiences. Originally, it was intended to please the market and the audience, but it was counterproductive. Han Meilin’s artistic design insists on ingratiating oneself with others, and attaches great importance to the social responsibility that artists should have. In a classic line from the American film Spider-Man, "The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility". He always has a strong desire to add more beautiful things to contemporary design.
▲ Panda Stamp designed by Han Meilin (1985)
▲ Han Meilin’s "Year of the Gui Hai" Pig Zodiac Special Stamp (1983)
▲ "Ding Younian" Chicken Zodiac Special Stamp designed by Han Meilin (2017)
▲ Han Meilin’s "Year of the Sea" Pig Zodiac Special Stamp (2019)
▲ Han Meilin’s "Year of the Gengzi" Rat Zodiac Special Stamp (2020)
▲ Han Meilin’s design of the Liechtenstein Zodiac commemorative stamp (2018)
Teacher Han Meilin’s contribution in the field of art design is actually as brilliant as his other kinds of creations, but the breadth and depth of this artistic strongman’s professional involvement have a great influence, resulting in the important achievements in art design only accounting for a small category in his huge creative content, but it has reached an alarming level. Every design work is hit the floor, and even has the leading significance of design trends. From the well-known logo of Beijing’s bid for the Olympic Games, Collect and sort out the words and symbols that can’t be tested in rock paintings, painted pottery, Oracle bones and Zhong Ding to create a unique artistic font "Tianshu", the logo and fuselage interior design of China International Airlines, and the well-known mascot "Fuwa" of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Mention the influence of any one of them, which is very enlightening.
one
Fuwa was born
As a consultant of Beijing Olympic bid committee and Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, Mr. Han Meilin presided over the design of a large number of important Olympic-related works during Beijing’s Olympic bid and preparations for the Olympic Games. In 2004, he was entrusted by Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee to revise the mascot design of Beijing Olympic Games. I was lucky enough to participate in some auxiliary and post-development design work, so I personally experienced and witnessed the master’s creative style. At first, there were some limitations in modifying the design. In view of the design directions selected in the solicitation activities (namely, six works of panda, tiger, dragon, the Monkey King, rattle and Ah Fu), the creation encountered bottlenecks. After several days of no breakthrough in modifying the design, Teacher Han Meilin decisively decided to jump out of the previous design concept and proposed to completely overthrow the limitations. After a heated discussion, Mr. Han Meilin stayed up almost all night, and drew a new design sketch that night — — Five cute little dolls, these images are very close to the Fuwa when they were finally released. They wear five kinds of headdresses symbolizing Jin Mu’s fire, water and soil, which are very similar to the big-headed dolls and cute tiger hats in traditional festivals. The design of these headdresses absorbs the different regional characteristics and artistic expression language of China. The major breakthrough of the scheme is that the mascot is designed as a combination of animals and characters for the first time, emphasizing that the People’s Olympics is people-oriented. If the design of the Olympic emblem represents a steady official aesthetic,Then Fuwa represents an auspicious, smooth and auspicious folk culture and art form.
▲ "Fuwa" manuscript
▲ "Fuwa"
▲ "Fuwa" Olympic Stamp (2008)
▲ Han Meilin and "Fuwa"
Of course, the design process is quite long and arduous. After several rounds of revision and design work, the role setting of the five dolls started with "Flame, Panda, Fish, Tibetan Antelope and Dragon", and gradually replaced the Monkey King with Tibetan Antelope, and replaced the virtual animal "Dragon" with the traditional Beijing kite "Shayan". The name of "Fuwa" was determined, and the personal name "Welcome to Beijing" and special fonts in Chinese and English were also designed in homophonic form. On June 9, 2005, the 54th Executive Committee of BOCOG deliberated and adopted the revised mascot scheme. On August 18th, Mr. Verbruggen, Chairman of the Coordination Committee of the International Olympic Committee, sent a confirmation letter of the mascot to BOCOG. So far, the mascot design scheme has passed the examination of the International Olympic Committee. Industrial and commercial registration and legal protection were successfully completed by the end of October. At 20: 15 on November 11th, during the 1000-day countdown to the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, the mascot was officially released to the world.
▲ Han Meilin designed the logo for Beijing’s Olympic bid.
▲ Han Meilin, Mrs. Han Meilin, Zhou Jianping and the logo of Beijing’s Olympic bid.
▲ Beijing Olympic bid sign
▲ Sports icons evolved from the Olympic bid logo.
The launch of Fuwa has had a far-reaching impact on the design field of China logo and mascot, and achieved great success. In the subsequent large-scale events and international activities, the design method of serial mascots and changing colors and headdresses has become a popular trend, which has been more or less cited and used for reference in mascot design such as Taiwan Flower Expo, Guangzhou Asian Games, Singapore Youth Olympic Games and Canadian Winter Olympics. Many internationally famous cartoon characters also learn from Fuwa’s appearance and change their headdresses to cope with different festivals and activities.
two
Unscramble gobbledygook
Teacher Han Meilin’s writing theme "The Book of Heaven" is unique. He focuses on the unread characters and symbols in rock paintings, pottery pieces, Oracle bones, Zhong Ding and ancient books. He collects these homeless beautiful and mysterious characters together and becomes the basis of font creation. Although many artists and designers were fascinated by the artistic creation of ancient Chinese characters in the past, the focus of Tianshu was the most original. He systematically integrated the above-mentioned unread words and symbols into a research system with theoretical depth. Culture needs to be spread and passed on through symbol carriers, and symbols will evolve continuously in the long history. If we ignore the intermediate links in this evolution, we will find that the source and structure may be very different. On the basis of paying attention to the cultural inheritance of Chinese characters, he did not simply collect and sort out records and descriptions, but added a special and unique language as his calligraphy and painting at the same time. In Mr. Han’s gobbledygook works, his artistic expression ability is fully reflected, that is, a concept has many forms. The training and cultivation of this ability has a good reference significance for the majors of logo design, creative font design and graphic design that pay attention to formal scrutiny.
▲ Rock Painting (Image from Ningxia Rock Painting)
▲ Rock paintings (pictures from the Internet)
▲ From the manuscript of Han Meilin gobbledygook.
▲ Tianshu blue printed cloth
The development of Chinese character art and design has a vital impact on modern design in China. Today, with the serious tendency of internationalization, modern designers in China have begun to strive to establish a more influential position in the international and domestic design fields through innovation. Naturally, national vocabulary and local cultural symbols have become the objects of their efforts to explore and explore, and visual elements, cultural concepts and information symbols are numerous. Teacher Han Meilin’s "heavenly book" is a great contribution to this vocabulary excavation, and this exploration and excavation of local cultural vocabulary will definitely have an important impact on the modern design of China.
three
Air China Aviation Emblem and Interior Design
The Phoenix logo of China International Airlines designed by Han Meilin occupies a landmark position in the history of contemporary graphic design in China. Today, when major international and domestic airlines have reshaped their visual images, this beautiful logo is still deeply rooted in people’s hearts because of its clear traditional aesthetics and fashion simplicity. It has stood for nearly 30 years and has become one of Chinese’s brand images with accurate conceptual positioning, the highest visibility and discrimination. The whole figure is concise and lively, with only four strokes, which are clearly distinguishable regardless of scaling.
▲ Han Meilin Air China logo design manuscript
▲ Logo design of China International Airlines
▲ Han Meilin and Air China
Since 2012, Mr. Han Meilin has been entrusted by Air China to preside over the creation and design of its brand-new aircraft interior. During the one-year design process, Mr. Han Meilin extracted the cultural heritage of China and combined traditional decorative arts with modern textile technology, which won the admiration and praise of Air China and British craft design companies. The number of data sketches collected by investigation is huge beyond imagination, and each square continuous design draft is the original large hand-painted draft with full open paper type. The connection between design drawings and making objects is one of the key points of the whole design. Textile samples are sent to Mr. Han’s studio from Britain by a famous British design company for his selection and further revision. The final interior design system shows the perfect combination of oriental aesthetic implication and craft creation.
▲ Han Meilin was entrusted by Air China to preside over the creation and design of its brand-new model interior.
▲ Design does not know national boundaries, and communication creativity is infinite.
▲ Han Meilin was interviewed by foreign media.
▲ Han Meilin’s cabin interior design manuscript
▲ Air China simulation cabin located at Han Meilin Art Museum in Beijing.
Mr. Han graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, which is the predecessor of Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts, where I now teach. He used to be the leader of art design in China. He established a complete art design education and practical creation system at that time through utilitarianism and independent innovation, and established the concept that art design serves the people’s needs, food, clothing, housing and transportation, and learned from nature, tradition and folk learning extensively. This is different from the evaluation and appreciation standard of so-called "pure art", which is a more open system pattern. Knowing this, you will understand the value of his sculpture, his purple sand, his logo and mascot design. On this road, "inheritance" is the cornerstone, and "innovation" is the driving force. Teacher Han Meilin is the vanguard of this charming art road.
Appreciation of some designs in Han Meilin
▲ Logo design of Han Meilin Art Foundation.
▲ Volunteer logo design of Han Meilin Art Foundation
▲ Logo design of China literary volunteers.
▲ Logo design of Zhejiang Art Museum
▲ Logo design of National Science and Technology Communication Center
▲ Rong Baozhai 350th anniversary logo design.
▲ Logo Design of "Merrill Cup" Youth West Lake Painting Competition
▲ Logo design of China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival
▲ The Third China International Cartoon & Animation Festival Logo Design
▲ Logo design of the first World Buddhist Forum
▲ Logo design of China-Russia Youth Friendly Exchange Year
▲ Logo design of the first leaders’ meeting of Lancang-Mekong cooperation.
▲ Urban Logo Design of Langfang, Hebei
▲ Shanxi Yuncheng City Logo Design
▲ Yuhang Tourism Logo Design
▲ Logo design of China Overseas Friendship Association
▲ Logo design of 2016 Tangshan World Horticultural Exposition
▲ Logo design of China Gymnastics Association
▲ Logo Design of ▲2014APEC Disabled Side Event
▲ Logo design of China Film Association
▲ Logo design of Chinese Quyi Artists Association
▲ Logo design of China Arts and Crafts Association
▲ World Water Congress logo design
▲ Hangzhou International Day logo design