"Guo Ziyi Bai Shou Tu"
"Eight Immortals"
"Male Cultivator"
Jin Fenghua Text/Photo
Shuixilin is located in Nanyu Town, Minhou County. When it comes to Shui Xilin, it is necessary to know the famous Lin Chunze Gucuo Group. "Beiyu Water Xilin, the world is nowhere to be found", highlighting the status of the Shuixilin Lin Chunze Ancient Cuo Group, so the Gucuo Group is also known as the "Small Pavilion" in Fuzhou.
As a representative of the existing Ming and Qing dynasty ancient buildings, in addition to its magnificent and atmospheric architectural layout (one-style structure, unified orientation, three-in-one permeability), unique architectural style (swallowtail ridge, saddle wall, carved beam painting building), it is also deeply impressed by its exquisite painted mural decoration.
Its painted decoration is mainly attached to the walls of various buildings, which is a unique architectural cultural feature of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The building complex is mainly composed of ming and qing dynasty officials and eunuchs, ancestral halls and ancestral halls, indoor painted murals are mainly painted on the beams, foreheads, corridors, halls and indoor panels of the mansion and ancestral halls, and outdoor painted murals are mainly painted on the side wall of the gate, the eaves of the external wall of the building, the horse head wall and other places. At present, these painted murals are relatively well preserved, and some of them are more seriously peeled off and faded, and some are seriously damaged in the "movement" of the times.
Most of the themes of the murals are mainly character stories, and the ones that have survived are relatively complete at present, such as "Guo Ziyi Baishou Tu" and "Male Cultivator and Female Weaving Map". "Guo Ziyi Baishou Tu" is painted on the front of the gate wall of Lin Chunze's son Lin Yingliang's homestead, "Male Cultivation Map" and "Female Weaving Map" are located on the tall parapets on both sides of the hall, "Male Cultivation Map" presents the process of farmers picking burdens, raking fields and planting seedlings, and the "Female Weaving Map" located on the left side of the hall depicts the vivid scene of women picking mulberries, spinning yarns and rolling yarn.
There are also two well-known "Eight Immortals", the length is not large, but the composition is reasonable and full, the character image is vivid, and the picture gives people a very simple feeling, but it does not lose its fun. In particular, although one of them does not paint many specific images of the characters, by painting the immortal artifacts they use, that is, the "Dark Eight Immortals", people will think of the corresponding immortals when they watch the murals.
The Shui XiLin painted murals inherit the scattered perspective technique of traditional Chinese painting. "Guo Ziyi Baishou Tu" depicts a festive and auspicious life worship scene, through the scattered perspective method, the original complex picture plot is arranged in an orderly manner, the lines and color composition of the picture echo each other, and the visual effect is rhythmic.
There are various character painting techniques: the characters of Guo Ziyi BaishouTu and the Eight Immortals Diagram use neat brush character techniques to sketch; "Male Cultivator and Female Weaving Diagram" uses the freehand character technique of small freehand.
Overall color: "Guo Ziyi Baishou Tu" is similar to the artistic conception of Chinese ink painting, the background color is mainly black and gray, light ochre and dark blue as an auxiliary, with dark blue pattern as a border, setting off a rich and colorful painting style. The style presented in "Male Cultivator and Female Weaving Map" is elegant and simple, without too many brilliant colors, which is in line with the characteristics of "South Yasu, North Gorgeous".
The shuixilin painted murals mainly use "lines" as modeling elements. In "Female Weaving Diagram", the painter skillfully depicts the form of the weaver's weaving cloth through the twisting and virtual reality of the line; in "Male Cultivation Diagram", the painter outlines the long-range and close-up scenes through the virtual reality of the line. The lines of the trees and house structures in the distant view are simple and clear, and the lines are clear and layered, while the scene of the shepherd boy riding a bull in the close-up scene is strong and powerful, and the lines are relatively rough, vividly depicting the liveliness of the shepherd boy and the robustness of the cow. In the treatment of the farmer, through the twists and turns of the line, the expressions and actions of smoking dry tobacco and planting seedlings are vividly expressed.
After research, before the Song Dynasty, there were a small number of works of art on the subject of farming, such as the "Farming Map" of the Dunhuang murals. In the late Ming and Qing dynasties, murals and works of art with farming themes emerged in large quantities, such as the painted decorations on the blue and white porcelain of the ming and qing dynasties that showed the themes of cattle herding, farming, and picking firewood.
According to research, in the Palace Museum, there is a "Royal Cultivation and Weaving Map" drawn by Lou Xuan of the Song Dynasty, with a total of 46 maps, depicting the situation of the production of nongsang in the Song Dynasty. In the twenty-eighth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1689), when the Kangxi Emperor toured the south, he received the "Cultivation and Weaving Map" of "Song Gong Zhongjia Examination, Zhu Zi Yi Chuan", Long Yan Dayue, that is, ordered Jiao Bingzhen to draw 23 other cultivation maps and weaving maps according to the original intention, with the emperor's own seven sentences and prefaces, and changed the dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. The "Cultivation and Weaving Map" was first printed in the thirty-fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1696), and many different versions have appeared since then, such as woodcuts, picture books, stone carvings, ink books, and lithographs.
The theme of farming has been passed down from generation to generation as a cultural and ideological inheritance and praised, which to a certain extent reflects the prosperous economic prosperity and the people's happiness and prosperity during the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. Since then, craftsmen and artists in many art forms of architectural decorative arts and porcelain art have become popular in drawing agricultural themes.
Lin Chunze was born in Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty, was the elder of the Six Dynasties, died at the age of 103, and was known as "Ren Rui weng". His son Lin Yingliang was promoted to Hubu Shilang, his grandson Lin Ruchu was made Gongbu Shilang, and His grandson Lin Shen was also a jinshi. The prominent background of the "Father, Son, Grandson, and Grandson Shijinshi" family allowed Lin Chunze's descendants to stay away from the mountains and fields when they were young, and they were strictly tutored since childhood, and they accepted the ethics of the Three Principles and Five Constants and the Confucian ideas of poetry and books, and cultivating and reading heirlooms. Decades of involuntary experience in the official field also make them full of contradictions in their hearts, that is, they are satisfied with food and clothing, just like the "Water Tune Song Head : Sunset Saiyuan Road" depicted in "The Hall has a virtuous face, there are vertical and horizontal plots, and there is no reduction in the shame of the green moth", but in the depths of their hearts, they envy the idyllic quiet life of men and women weaving and ignoring the government.
There is also a story about the source of the "Cultivation and Weaving Map": at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when the Qing soldiers entered the customs, the twenty-third Zulin Xiwei of the Lin clan did not want to be an official in the Qing court, returned to his hometown to devote himself to writing books, and wrote eleven volumes of the "Cultivation and Weaving Collection", educating his descendants to take cultivation and weaving as the basis and not enter the career path, and drew two "Cultivation and Weaving Maps", and asked the painter to copy them on the walls on both sides of the hall.
Not only does the ancient house have a practical function, used to shelter from the wind and rain, but its decorative frescoes are more endowed with spiritual, ideological, and cultural meaning and value.
(The author is an associate professor at the School of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fujian Institute of Technology)