It is hard to imagine that there is such a study on the most prosperous commercial street of Nanjing Road in Shanghai.
The rooms are located in a historic building built in the 1930s and have south-facing windows with plenty of light. Pushing open the window and looking down, there is a bustling traffic and crowds, and people dressed in are walking quickly between office buildings and commercial buildings. From the north-facing door, you can see the residents' sundecks, the sheets and duvet covers that seize the time to dry in this early winter, interspersed in large and small bonsai, and another human fireworks.
Closing the doors and windows, the room immediately became quiet, and even the flow of time seemed to slow down. Since his retirement 20 years ago, the owner of the room, Zheng Boping, a descendant of the Wumen Painting School, has a thunderous schedule, every morning, the spirit is the best, Zheng Boping never sees guests, but to paint for three or four hours at the long table; every night, after dinner, Zheng Boping has to stand in front of the long table and write calligraphy for an hour and a half.
"Reading Bo Pingjun's paintings, you can always feel the quiet and pure artistic conception, which is the essence of traditional Chinese scholar culture, and in today's complicated cultural atmosphere, it is not easy to retain, it is the order." This is a passage written by Yang Di, former deputy secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, in the preface to Zheng Boping's "Zheng Boping Painting Collection".
In the downtown quiet, Zheng Boping is experienced. "Being able to endure loneliness is the quality that a painter should have, after all, painting is not karaoke." Zheng Boping winked at the reporter and taught his experience, "If you don't calm down, you will never mention your pen to paint." Zheng Boping, who is 80 years old this year, has almost all white hair, but the comb is clearly rooted, plus a pair of gold wire glasses, which is a look of an old-school literati in Jiangnan. A blink of an eye made him a little more vivid.
Zheng Boping is not an old master sitting on the edge of his house, which can be seen from the bird cage and turtle basin in front of his house. The turtle is his little grandson's favorite, and the bird is used by his son Zheng Mingxuan to observe and accumulate material. In Zheng Boping's study, you can also find novelties he has searched from all over the world, foreign board pipes, famous purple sand pots, chicken blood stones, mahogany small pieces, Hetian seed jade, Ming and Qing ancient stones... But the protagonist on the table is still a dry and wet landscape painting.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Zheng Boping went to the United States, Canada, Japan, Malaysia and other places to give lectures and hold art exhibitions, and exchanged extensively with Western artists. After a long circle, he still returned to the study. After returning from a lecture at the University of Portland in the United States, he once wrote an article and asked a question: Now that I am back in my hometown, whenever I pick up chopsticks, it is inevitable to ask why China's "food culture" is well-known all over the world, but what about other excellent traditional cultures? Do we all have to make a combination of East and West in order to go global?
On the 27th of this month, the Art Exhibition of Zheng Boping and Zheng Mingxuan will be jointly held at the Yuwatai Art Museum and the Ming Dynasty Mountain House. Perhaps, "drawing on the past and casting the present" is the best answer to that question.
I prefer Suzhou
If it were not for the epidemic, now would be the best time for Zheng Boping to go to Suzhou Dongting Dongshan to see the yellow leaves of ginkgo biloba. Regarding the yellow leaves by the Taihu Lake, Zheng Boping has long observed: "There are exquisite ornamental ginkgo biloba yellow leaves, there are only a few days a year, too early, the leaves are not fully yellow and green, too late, the leaf color will fade and will fall." The leaves are yellow and half trees are floating all over the ground, which is the best. ”
Before the epidemic, Zheng Boping always had to go to Suzhou once every two or three months. "This is a thought (Shanghainese: meaning addiction)."
He likes to travel and has traveled all over the world, but if he says which place is the best, he will go back to Suzhou, and if he says that Suzhou has the best scenery, he recommends Suzhou gardens. Because of her preference for Suzhou gardens, Zheng Boping took her son Zheng Mingxuan for the first time to travel, the destination is Suzhou, over the years, he often took his grandson to see suzhou gardens, and also enjoyed the live kunqu opera "Peony Pavilion" in the Lion Forest.
"Especially when it rains lightly and the tourists are gone, you find a pavilion and sit in it in a daze, mi dao (Shanghainese: meaning taste) old tammick." When it comes to the rise, Zheng Boping's eyes are slightly closed, and she seems to be enjoying the apricot blossoms and the fragrance of dangui in the Suzhou garden.
Speaking of which, the Suzhou Garden is also the place where Zheng Boping and his teacher, Chen Congzhou, a famous shanghai ancient building and garden master and disciple of Zhang Daqian. In 1960, Zheng Boping was admitted to the Department of Mathematics of Tongji University, and at the exhibition of teachers and students held on National Day, he took out two of his own Chinese paintings to participate in the exhibition, most of which were watercolor paintings, drawings and design renderings, and only these two Chinese paintings were Zheng Boping's. After a while, an elder with several senior students pointed out in front of his drawing, looking interested. When the crowd dispersed, Zheng Boping stepped forward to inquire, only to learn that the elder was Chen Congzhou.
"Ahhh!" Speaking of this, Zheng Boping patted her thigh hard, still immersed in the excitement of more than 60 years ago, "Chen Congzhou I know, in 1956 he wrote a book "Suzhou Garden", I was deeply impressed. That night, Zheng Boping was invited to visit Chen Congzhou's home. The two suggestions given by Chen Congzhou have still made Zheng Boping remember -
"First, you have to throw away the color, the ink can be divided into five colors, and then add the color, isn't it more abundant?" Second, Chinese painting pays attention to the vivid rhyme, Mr. Zhang Daqian's paintings are vivid, but he is better than rhyme; Mr. Wu Hufan's paintings are also vivid, but he is more rhyme than qi. Look at your appearance, look at your paintings, you will rhyme better than qi in the future, so it is recommended that you read more song lyrics and yuan songs. ”
In the preface to the Catalogue of Ancient Paintings, the Southern Dynasty Sheikh mentioned that painting "Six Laws" and "Vivid Qi Rhyme" ranked first, and since then it has become one of the most important concepts of Chinese aesthetics. If you want to understand, but it is not easy, I am afraid that only people who are deeply immersed in traditional Chinese culture can understand this concept that can only be understood.
"I didn't fully understand it at first." Recalling the scene of that year, Zheng Boping only remembered that her reaction was to "stay on the spot". But after so many years, looking back, Zheng Boping had to admire Chen Congzhou's accuracy: "His guidance is very refreshing, and I later took this road that rhymes better than qi." ”
Zheng Boping saw that Chen Congzhou was often busy in his own yard, "Plant bamboo here, plant plantains over there", in order to let a few pots of flowers absorb the sun, and not to be too sunny, Chen Congzhou often moved the pots in and out, and was not happy. This kind of aesthetic taste is the same as what Chen Congzhou wrote in "Suzhou Garden" - at the beginning of my afternoon dream, I strolled through the garden, with a notebook, a camera, and a ruler paper, which can really be said: "Moving without sprinkling, sit on the berry moss at will." "Self-traveling, self-product, overlooking."
Chen Congzhou left the Jiangnan landscape in a three-dimensional garden, while Zheng Boping left it in a two-dimensional painting. Zheng Boping said that the background of his paintings is almost all related to Jiangnan gardens and Jiangnan landscapes. Only a few times, when he went to the Suzhou garden again, he found that there were several "foreign flowers and plants" planted in the garden, which damaged the ancient meaning. "You just can't paint it." Zheng Boping proposed a compromise plan, quite helpless.
Heaven and Earth Vientiane New Green Landscape Zheng Boping is a representative work of about 70 years old
Ye Shangsu Yu Zheng Boping's representative work of about 70 years old
Layer cliff flying waterfall Zheng Boping is about 70 years old masterpiece
Imitation SongXue Penmanship Zheng Boping's representative work of about 70 years old
Red dye a Lin Chun Zheng Boping is a representative work of about 40 years old
Ancient law and ancient meaning
The sun tilted westward, shining on the old-fashioned cabinet in Zheng Boping's study, leaving dappled light spots.
Zheng Boping took out a good thing from the cabinet and showed it to the reporter. A fan of the Republic of China - "Most of the current fan surfaces are only 5 layers of paper, and there were 7 layers of material at that time." "He explained that the old fan surface is different, and it can be expressed richly with ink alone; a pen tube garcinia - the colloidal yellow liquid flowing from the Vietnamese sea vine tree, is undertaken by a bamboo tube, and when it dries thoroughly, it is an excellent plant pigment." Carmine should be boiled with rice amaranth, flower cyan should be boiled with indigo grass, painting Jiangnan landscape sometimes still needs to use stone green, stone green, cinnabar and other mineral pigments, and then with plant pigments, otherwise it will fade over time. He said.
On paper and paint, Zheng Boping attaches great importance to ancient production. When he visited a rice paper factory, he saw a young man pouring dirty water mixed with shampoo into the stream, and he also muttered two sentences: "Rice paper made of such water, how can it be good?" What a crisis! ”
In the use of pens, Zheng Boping pays attention to the traditional ink painting technique - "dry and wet, thick and light, a stroke out", such a technique is related to Yu Zicai, another teacher of Zheng Boping.
During the Cultural Revolution, Chen Congzhou was shocked, and Zheng Boping could no longer learn from him. One day, Zheng Boping found Chen Congzhou, who was sweeping the floor, on the playground and proposed to him that he still wanted to learn to paint. In a hurry, Chen Ran from Zhou to the toilet, casually unwrapped a pack of Pegasus brand cigarettes, wrote a few lines on the back of the box, and recommended Zheng Boping to find Yu Zicai, the eldest disciple of the painting master Mr. Wu Hufan.
That night, Zheng Boping went to Yu Zicai's home and sat for 20 minutes, no matter what Zheng Boping said, Yu Zicai did not say a word, and Zheng Boping could only leave sadly. A few days later, Chen Congzhou informed Zheng Boping that he had already come to "transfer" and could rest assured that he would study.
Compared with the first time to sit on the cold bench, the second time, Yu Zi took out a hand scroll of Shen Shitian's "Xishan Deep Show" that he copied himself, and asked Zheng Boping to take it back to copy. During that time, Zheng Boping's wife took her son back to her mother's house, just so that he had time to copy every night until one or two o'clock in the evening. When Zheng Boping brought the hand scroll of "Xishan Deep Show" that had been copied seven times to Yu Zicai's home, Yu Zicai praised it three times in a row and demonstrated it on the spot. After this, Yu Zi taught his skills.
"A stroke down, thick before and light after, or two ends thick, light in the middle, pull down and turn around, until the painting can not be drawn, to achieve the effect of dry brush, dry and wet thick and light, a stroke out, rice road is good." Zheng Boping said that he observed Yu Zicai's pen method, but also his own method of using the pen. He said that all the rules in his current creation are in accordance with Yu Zicai's rules. Yu Zicai's rules were inherited from his teacher Wu Hufan, and the Wumen School of Painting was passed down from generation to generation.
However, over the years, there have been many people who have studied painting with Zheng Boping, but almost no one can stick to it. "It's too difficult." Zheng Boping analyzed that most students of the Academy of Fine Arts learned Western painting methods, and few were willing to learn the traditional techniques of the Wumen School. Zheng Boping's son, Zheng Mingxuan, turned from Western painting to the Wumen School at the age of nearly 40, working Gongbi figure painting, and his father had to admit that his son had come to the top.
Now, Zheng Mingxuan is also using the ancient method to modulate pure natural pigments, and needs to complete a series of processes such as blending and degumming every day. In his eyes, even the annoying Huang Meiji has something cute.
"Huang Meitian is the most suitable for making paper, and the glue alum is brushed on rice paper and slowly boiled dry." Zheng Mingxuan believes that this is also a gift from the Jiangnan climate to the Wumen School.
Baby drama artwork by Zheng Mingxuan
Art collection of Works by Zheng Mingxuan
Tang Dynasty Quan Le Tu Zheng Mingxuan works
The spiritual world
Zheng Boping's grandson is attending the fourth grade of Waijing'an Wai Chinese Primary School, and every time she passes by this school, Zheng Boping always thinks of the Shanghai branch of Wuxi Guoxue Vocational School. According to his research, the former site of wuxi national college Shanghai branch is near Shangwai Jingxiao. Wuxi Guozhuan is known for its traditional culture research, and notable alumni include Fan Jingyi, former editor-in-chief of People's Daily.
At this art exhibition, a letter written by Fan Jingyi to Zheng Boping will also be exhibited at the same time. Fan Jingyi and Zheng Boping are not related, do not live in the same city, do not practice the same profession, the age difference is 11 years, but they are related by letters from Wen Wei Po, which discusses the Wumen school.
In early March 2010, Zheng Boping took her son and students to Beijing to visit Fan Jingyi. "Just got off the plane, opened the phone to see, Mr. Fan has sent 14 text messages." Zheng Boping said that when the two met the next morning, Fan Jingyi's first words were: "You are exactly the same as I imagined." ”
On that day, the two saw each other as usual and talked happily, Zheng Boping counted, and Fan Jingyi "smoked 6 cigarettes in the morning". Fan Jingyi smoked while talking about his childhood education experience and his acquaintance with Wu Hufan. After that, Fan Jingyi wrote a long letter to Zheng Boping, in which he mentioned: "We can have such a tacit understanding, mainly because of the admiration and pursuit of Chinese painting and calligraphy, especially for Wu Hufan's predecessors. The difference is that I met Master Wu for too short a time, and then embarked on a completely different path of life, and you are fortunate to have the affection of Mr. Yu Zicai, a disciple of WuMen, coupled with decades of unremitting diligence and deep understanding, and entered the realm that many artists are not easy to enter. This cannot but be attributed to your rich education. And the prominent manifestation of this kind of learning in Danqing's pen and ink is 'Ya' and 'Jing'. This is the aesthetic realm that Chinese painters have been diligently pursuing for thousands of years. However, there are very few who have actually entered this realm. Ni Yunlin was the leader among them, but it was too Xiao Suo, and too few people could get its charm. The 'Four Kings' also revere Ni imitation Ni, but either lose their 'stuffiness' or lose their 'ripeness'. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, those who can truly achieve the realm of 'elegance' and beauty are the first to push the lake sail. In the past hundred years, there have been many people who have studied Wu and imitated Wu, and those who can obtain their essence are really widowed. If you don't catch it, it's difficult to miss the 'study background', and it is customary to shoot. The charm of the honorable work lies in the fact that shu scrolls have the atmosphere of books, such as drinking daigo, and the root cause is in the word 'culture'. The biggest problem in the calligraphy and painting industry now is the lack of culture. 'If a scholar does not read for three days, his face is abominable and his speech is tasteless', and the same is true of the art of calligraphy and painting. ”
Fan Jingyi wrote to Zheng Boping in ink
Fan Jingyi's letter can almost be read as a literary theory. The Ni Yunlin, the "Four Kings" (Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Yi, Wang Yuanqi) mentioned in the letter, and Wu Hufan are all representatives of the Wumen School. His words also pointed out the crux of the problems faced by the Wumen School of painting to this day.
11 years later, the problems fan Jingyi talked about still exist, at the same time, the "strange phenomena" in the painting world are emerging in an endless stream, some painters have their own packaging companies; some paintings have speculated at sky-high prices, which have completely deviated from the value, and then changed hands to mortgage for profit... "There are many determinants of price, not according to the standards of art to measure the price." Speaking of these disturbances, Zheng Boping could only shake her head.
"Will all these disturbances affect you?" The reporter asked curiously, Zheng Boping kept waving his hand, and Zheng Mingxuan giggled out loud, "It doesn't affect at all."
Thinking back on her artistic path, Zheng Boping lamented that she really began to calm down and create after retirement. "I just regret now that when I was young, I shouldn't waste too much time on socializing, but I should have been thinking about painting."
Near the end of the interview, it was late, and the neon lights on Nanjing Road shone through the window into the house, red, green and green. Zheng Boping closed the door, closed the curtains, and slowly sat down on a semi-circular sofa chair, ready to enter her small world again.
Zheng Boping talked about painting
Zheng Boping and son Zheng Mingxuan
Column Editor-in-Chief: Kong Lingjun Text Editor: Chen Shuyi
Source: Author: Chen Shuyi