Zhao Zhiqian was a calligrapher, seal engraver, and a pioneer of the Maritime School of Painting. Zhao Zhiqian's common painting subjects are known for flowers, but he has a legendary work but instead of painting the flowers he is good at, he paints several kinds of "seafood" long scrolls - "Different Fish Figures", such a rare subject, let me once suspect that he is a seafood-loving foodie!
Zhao Zhiqian's "Different Fish Diagram" volume
Many marine creatures are quite rare for people who do not live by the sea, why does Zhao Zhiqian, who was born in Shaoxing, know so much? This is inseparable from Zhao Zhiqian's middle-aged experience.
In the eighth year of Xianfeng (1851), Zhao Zhiqian ended his staff life and left the army of his mentor Miao Zi, returned to Shaoxing to prepare for the exam, and the next year he did not live up to the expectations of the people in zhejiang township examination. Originally supposed to make a great achievement in his career, he experienced a lot with daqing in this year, at this time there was the Opium War outside and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement inside.
When the flames of war reached the vicinity of Hangzhou, Miao Zi, as the envoy of Zhejiang Salt Transport and the envoy of The Inspector, fought bravely and martyred the country, while Zhao Zhiqian was on his way to Beijing to participate in the Spring Festival. Due to the chaos of the war, the road north was blocked by the Taiping Army, and Zhao Zhiqian had to return to his hometown of Shaoxing.
After returning to Shaoxing, Zhao Zhiqian looked at the ten people at home, thinking that he would not be able to open the pot without income at home, he could not help but sigh, and his life fell into difficulty again. In order to change the status quo, at the warm invitation of friends, Zhao Zhiqian went all the way south to Wenzhou, and in order to feed himself, he had to work hard to become a qualified worker.
Portrait of Zhao Zhiqian
For this Shaoxing people who have always been inland, the coastal city of Wenzhou is too strange, the typhoons near the sea always come, and the rampant insects, snakes, rats and ants make Zhao Zhiqian headache. But he also had fun in his troubles, and found many amazing and wonderful things, such as these previously unheard of seafood, which opened his eyes and ignited his curiosity to examine the evidence.
Xenomorph Puzzle
During his time in Wenzhou, Zhao Zhiqian may have eaten all the seafood in his life, so he drew all the seafood he had eaten in a few months on the paper. What kind of seafood did Zhao Zhiqian eat? In the painting "Alien Fish Map", Zhao Zhiqian painted as many as 15 kinds of marine life. Including the more familiar Pippi shrimp (lyre shrimp), octopus (chapter refusal), bamboo collage fish, dolphin (sea pig), gooseneck barnacles (stone), and less common sword sharks, tiger crabs, sand fish, dice fish, whipfish, golden stingrays, ghost crabs, beards, swallow rays and so on.
The only painting of the same type that reminds me of this type is Zhao Zhiqian's and the "Ouzhong Three Maps" and the "Ouzhong Three Maps" are the "Sea Fault Map" hidden in the Forbidden City in Beijing! Although the "Alien Fish Map" is not as rich as the "Sea Fault Map" in terms of the type, quantity and novelty of marine life, the "Alien Fish Map" not only briefly introduces the appearance and habits of marine life, but also attaches some comments after tasting! The content of these comments is partly derived from the oral accounts of locals, and Zhao Zhiqian also refers to the "Chronicle of Ruian County", "Nanyue Zhi", "Guihai Yu Hengzhi", "Crab Genealogy" and other documents.
Zhao Zhiqian's "Ouzhong Property Map"
From an artistic point of view, "Sea Fault Map" is more like a popular reading of marine organisms, while "Different Fish Map" has compositions, and it is no longer very monotonous and lonely on paper.
The Sea Mistake Puzzle
"Sea Mistake Map"
What is more surprising is that the hell food gooseneck barnacles (stone stones) are so popular now, I didn't expect zhao Zhiqian to be the one who has tasted this kind of food!
Stone stone
Gooseneck barnacles
In contrast, the octopus and Phi Phi shrimp in the picture are so ordinary! There is also a mammal dolphin in the ocean, probably at that time people did not have the concept of marine mammals, they felt that this animal and the structure of pigs on land are so similar, then call it sea pigs! I reckon that Zhao Zhiqian didn't eat the whole dolphin, but only ate parts, so he painted the dolphin as a pig's nose and pig's ears to highlight its characteristics! As for the taste of the dolphin, Zhao Zhiqian feels that the fat is too much, and it is not very tasty, but these fats are not useless, at least take the lamp, you can drive away the flies.
Sea pigs
dolphin
There are also fish that look like dice in the painting, out of curiosity, I looked for information, in fact, it is a granular box pufferfish, the square body is yellow, because there are black dots on the body, shaped like dice, so it is called dice fish.
Dice fish
Granulous box pufferfish
Due to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, Zhao Zhiqian had already missed the Spring Festival of the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1854), and after spending a few months in Wenzhou, he decided to go to Beijing to take the next exam. Since the Taiping Army was still in zhejiang, after Zhao Zhiqian left home, he did not receive a family letter for a while, and while he was worried about his wife and children, he took a detour from Fuzhou to Beijing to catch the examination. Before leaving, he packed the "Strange Fish Diagram" with him into his bag.
Along the way, he did not care at all, and paid attention to the movements at home. However, he only waited until the Zhao mansion in Shaoxing was burned in the war, and his wife and children died one after another. Zhao Zhiqian's sorrow came from it, remembering that when he first went to Wenzhou just to live a better life for his family, he did not expect that this walk would become a farewell forever. The collection and manuscripts in the family house for many years have not been left behind, and Zhao Zhiqian feels that he has become the loneliest person in the world.
Zhao Zhiqian's wife and children gave himself the name "Sorrowful Cup" after the death of his wife and children
Zhao Zhiqian remembered to mention in his family letter with his wife what he had seen and heard in Wenzhou, mentioned his attempts at seafood and paintings, and wanted to show his paintings to his wife and children and take them to taste the seafood in the paintings, but now there was no chance. Therefore, this "Different Fish Map" and his wife's last family letter became Zhao Zhiqian's only comfort. Therefore, "Different Fish Diagram" has become an extremely important work in Zhao Zhiqian's life.
It can be seen from the inscription of "Different Fish Diagram" that Zhao Zhiqian successively showed this work to his friends Jiang Soshu, Chen Baoshan, Liu Chun and Hu Peng to watch, and invited them to observe the aftermath of the inscription. Therefore, this work is also a testimony of friendship.
Zhao Zhiqian's self-titled "Different Fish Diagram"
Zhao Zhiqian's entanglement on the road to Beijing was insufficient, and there was no money to spend on the halfway road, and after his friend Chen Baoshan learned about it, he wrote a letter asking Zhao Zhiqian to return to Wenzhou to assist the military, and the silver two sent with the letter made Zhao Zhiqian return to Wenzhou.
It was not until the first year of Tongzhi (1862) that Zhao Zhiqian set off again from Wenzhou to the capital to participate in the Examination of the Decay Haike in March of the following year, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom once again attacked Hangzhou in this year, and his friend Hu Peng lost contact in the war, unexpectedly in Beijing, Zhao Zhiqian and Hu Peng were reunited, so Zhao Zhiqian showed Hu Peng the "Different Fish Map" and asked him to write a preface for the inscription. Hu Peng wrote the introduction with a seal inscription and attached a paragraph of the text.
Hu Peng's inscription is the first and the text
Many people have great respect for Zhao Zhiqian's seal book, but in Zhao Zhiqian's own view, he thinks that Hu Shu's seal book is better than his own, and he even said that as long as Hu Shu is still there, Zhao Zhiqian would never dare to write a seal book.
Zhao Zhiqian and Jiang Soshu were both Miao Zi's staff, and when they met in Wenzhou during the war, they naturally had a deeper resonance. Therefore, he asked Uncle Jiang To leave an inscription in "Different Fish Diagram", which seemed to have a deep meaning.
Zhao Zhiqian's "Different Fish Diagram" is a new attempt to pursue "strange fun", because this kind of subject matter is extremely rare in the history of ancient Chinese painting, and the textual evidence and inscriptions on the scrolls are equally fascinating. At the same time, due to a special experience, this work has more historical value in addition to artistic value.