Before becoming famous, the two great painters of the Yuan Dynasty, Wu Zhen and Sheng Mao, were neighbors and "lived by the door".
They are both from Jiaxing, Zhejiang, but the painting styles of the two are very different:
Wu Zhen was a rural painter who mainly painted landscapes and plum bamboos in wet ink, while Sheng Mao was a "professional painter", known as a "painter" at the time, with exquisite brushwork and bright colors.
Interesting things have been staged.
In front of the ShengMao Mansion, the city was in full swing all year round, and people from all over the world paid out heavy gold, just for a painting of Sheng Zi Zhao (Sheng Mao).
And the Wuzhen mansion next door, the doorway is cold, no one cares.
Every day when she saw such a scene, Wu Zhen's wife was angry, almost laughing at her husband: People's old Sheng paintings are "absolutely absolute", you, missing a "absolute" word, the son will be starved to death by you.
At this time, Wu Zhen only said one sentence: "Twenty years later, there will be no more." ”
Sure enough, after only 20 years, the world's winds were reversed: Wuzhen salted fish was reborn and highly sought after; shengmao next door was like a once-in-a-lifetime star, and the goods could not be moved.
This story was told by Dong Qichang, a great calligrapher and painter and collector of the late Ming Dynasty.
Now some scholars have verified that Sheng Mao and Wu Zhen are not neighbors, and this matter is purely fictional. But this does not matter, the key is that Dong Qichang stated a truth with the sensitivity of a calligrapher and painter: the transformation of the public's aesthetics only takes 20 years.
As long as you are good enough and persistent enough, sooner or later you will amaze the world.
Tall plane trees naturally attract phoenixes, and blooming flowers naturally have butterflies landing. Cultivate yourself well, and then wait quietly, and you can do it.
▲Portrait of Wu Zhen, a plum blossom Taoist
Wu Zhenchao loves to draw a kind of person: the fisherman.
There are many paintings in his life, but there are limited works passed down. Among them, paintings containing the image of the fisherman father account for a large proportion.
The fisherman in the painting may be Wu Zhen's ideal self:
The blue waves are full of wind in the evening, and the boats are moored in the lake with a horizontal leaf. The heart is stable, the grass is light, and only the sea bass is fished and not the name.
—— Wu Zhen's "Hidden Map of Dongting Fishing"
▲ "Hidden Map of Dongting Fishing" (partial)
The fisherman's father, since the pre-Qin Dynasty, has been given a reclusive image of being indifferent and self-sufficient. Before that, Fan Li helped the Yue King to destroy Wu and then rafted in the Five Lakes, and later There was Yan Guang who was not greedy and Lu lu fished all his life in Tonglu, Zhejiang. And Wuzhen, like the famous fisherman in history, boats on Taihu Lake from time to time.
Why did he want to be a fisherman?
This is both a passive and an active choice.
Wu Zhen was born in 1280, when the babies who fell to the ground were still ignorant of the disasters they had experienced not long ago in the land where they grew up--in 1279, with Zhao Fu and Lu Xiufu and more than 800 members of the Zhao and Song imperial families jumping into the sea to commit suicide, the Southern Song Dynasty was declared dead, and the Yuan Dynasty was unified.
This catastrophe for the Han people of the Southern Song Dynasty unsurprisingly affected the baby's life.
After the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, in order to consolidate the political power, the different ethnic groups were divided according to ranks, from high to low, namely Mongols, Semu, Han Chinese and Nan (the ethnic groups in the former Southern Song Dynasty). This discriminatory policy made the Han Chinese the lowest social class.
If you happen to be a Han Chinese man of letters, it is even more depressing.
In the past few hundred years, the imperial examination system, which had made countless low-level readers stand out, was hidden under the rule of the Yuan government, and it was not restored until the second year of Yanyou (1315). The Han literati were not valued by the imperial court, and it was a luxury for them to get ahead.
This is the objective reason why wu zhen, a Han scholar, chose to live in seclusion for a lifetime.
But the most important thing is that in his bones, there is the blood of Zhongsong Bushiyuan.
Wu Yuan, the high ancestor of Wu Zhen, was a jinshi of the Southern Song Dynasty, who served as an official to participate in the government affairs and assisted the prime minister, during which time, he also served as a transfer envoy and a shipping envoy. His grandfather, Wu Ze, was a fierce general of the Southern Song Dynasty who participated in the battle of Zhenshou Xiangyang.
It was also from the grandfather's generation that the Wu clan of Jiaxing established the family political concept of zhongsong bushiyuan.
In the generation of his father Wu He, due to the increasing penetration of the Yuan Empire's rule, The center of gravity of the Wu clan gradually moved away from the court and turned to the development of navigation. Riding on the East Wind of the Yuan Empire conquering the world and building southeast coastal ports, the Wu family's navigation career reached its peak and accumulated a lot of wealth, and the Jianghu people called "Big Ship Wu".
After the Yuan dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, it was once interested in recruiting some famous Southern Song scholars who had served in office to be loyal to the new imperial court, and by the 23rd year of the Yuan Dynasty (1286), they had searched for suitable candidates in the Jiangnan area. But Wu Zhen's fathers had no interest in this, and no one answered.
Wu Zhen was born in such a family that has been loyal to the Southern Song Dynasty for generations and has been rich for generations.
Nowadays, when people talk about Wu Zhen's life of seclusion, they think that he lives in poverty, mainly relies on teaching and selling cloth to survive, and painting and poetry is actually an interest, not a profit. But it should be noted that Wu Zhen's poverty was a choice he made, not a forced move.
The reason why he is poor is probably only because he has a very light view of money and a simple life, so that the world ignores the rich foundation of the family business behind him.
His painting "Kisuke does not ask for anything, but gives it to the poor", which is both a personal cultivation and the result of self-cultivation, and has no feeling for money.
Regarding Wu Zhen's youth, the historical records are not detailed, only that he liked to make friends with heroic figures, learn martial arts and fencing, and later studied with his brother Wu Yao under Liu Tianji in Biling (present-day Changzhou, Jiangsu) to study physiognomy. Since then, he has begun to play between the mountains, rivers and seas, viewing beautiful scenery, painting ink, and writing poems.
As a Jiangnan scribe, Wu Zhen never had the same persistence in pursuing the shi like Huang Gongwang or Wang Meng, but made his own choice early on and never wavered.
It was in this extremely calm state of mind that he painted a fisherman in the landscape and water.
In the "Reed Flower Cold Goose Diagram", between the heavens and the earth, the distant mountains are ethereal, the water is wide, and the reeds in the vicinity sway with the wind, and the reeds spread their wings and fly low. A fisherman, sitting at the bow of the boat, looks up at the sky, as if establishing a unique connection with heaven and earth, and enters an extremely private spiritual space.
The otherworldly feeling comes over you.
▲"Luhua Hanyan Diagram"
Unprovoked fishing hollows. The fish boat is light and does not do it. Sorrow pours down, tie up and down. Everything should be light, not deep.
—— Wu Zhen, "Fisher Father"
Wu Zhen likes to live in seclusion and has no intention of mixing with the affairs of the government, but this does not mean that he has no feelings for the rule of the Yuan people.
If choosing to live in seclusion is his first attitude to the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, then the preference for painting bamboo is his second attitude - poverty cannot be moved, and mighty cannot be bent.
Pitching yuan has no heart, and the curve knows the knot. When the empty mountain wood falls, do not change the frost and snow leaves.
—— Wu Zhen, "Cliff Bamboo"
▲"Cliff Bamboo" of "Ink Bamboo Spectrum"
On painting bamboo, Wu Zhen was one of the best painters in the Yuan Dynasty. According to his own words, painting bamboo for 50 years has reached the point where he can "write playfully", do whatever he wants, and be handy.
Among them, wild bamboo is his favorite.
How did Wu Zhen draw bamboo? In addition to Li Yan, Su Shi and Wen Tong, who have profound skills in painting bamboo, they specialize in their theory and imitate their paintings. More importantly, he attaches great importance to the face-to-face "communication" between people and bamboo.
He often had to carefully observe the growth state of wild bamboo, remember them in his heart, and then show the unusual posture of each bamboo on the drawing paper:
Relatively two forgetful words, can only be self-pleasing. Pity me for being stingy and humble.
——Wu Zhen, "Three Songs of Inscription Paintings, One of Them"
Compared with others, the brilliance of Wu Zhen's ink bamboo painting is that in a few strokes, the personality of bamboo is very prominent.
His ink bamboo, sparse branches and leaves, thin and proud.
The bamboo of some painters of the same era is very leisurely and elegant at first glance, and then look closely, it is the leisurely atmosphere raised in the homes of Fugui. But Wu Zhen shows the nature of bamboo - the spirit of mountain monks and taoists, the atmosphere of wildness.
He admired bamboo's vigorous posture, high wind and bright knots, and unconsciously, he would also reveal his dissatisfaction with the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty in his heart:
Dong Xuan's fierceness, Yan Yan's festival. Chopped head unyielding, strong wind and snow.
—— Wu Zhen,"Snow Bamboo"
▲ "Snow Bamboo Map" of "Ink Bamboo Spectrum"
When he saw the wild bamboo outside, no matter the wind and snow, he never looked down, and he couldn't help but think of what people looked like when facing the difficulties of reality.
For those literati who are obsessed with making progress, he has some disdain in his heart. The literati he saw in that era were just like the Tang Dynasty poet monk Lingche said: "It is good to meet and retire from the government, and Lin Xia He once met a person." ”
When Wu Zhen was 71 years old, he composed "Ink Bamboo Notation" and "Bamboo Spectrum Diagram" for others, and painted a lot of bamboo. This is probably a summary of decades of understanding of bamboo.
The indomitability of the heart is always with the bamboo. Therefore, posterity evaluated him, "for people to resist Jane and loneliness, high self-standard table."
▲"Dead Wood Bamboo Stone Chart Axis"
Wu Zhen, who calls himself a plum blossom Taoist, planted hundreds of plum blossoms in his own residence.
For plums, I love bamboo as much.
He loves Mei's high purity and loneliness, and it is this belief in loneliness that makes him peaceful and peaceful throughout his life.
▲ "MemeTu Scroll" (partial)
In the Yuan Dynasty, there were many literati who were not reused and could not be discharged, and some people chose to use feasts and drinks to socialize, and to numb themselves with the joy of hearing and hearing, and to forget their worries and eliminate their anger. Therefore, at that time, the comings and goings of literati were normal.
However, Wu Zhen was not enthusiastic about various literati collections.
Compared with other literati of his generation, his circle of friends is simple and clean.
Judging from the inscriptions of Wu Zhen's calligraphy and paintings, the friends he made the most were Taoist monks and monks, such as Songyan monks, Bamboo Zen masters, and Guquan teachers. Of course, there are also literati friends such as Wei Su, Huang Gongwang, Ni Zhan and others.
In addition to maintaining a minimum of family and friends, his most comfortable state is to be alone.
In his life, in addition to devoting his energy to poetry, books, and paintings, the rest is to understand the three thoughts of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Confucianism.
He often meditated alone under the moon.
In the moonlight, he sat alone in the forest to meditate until the sun rose and the moon set, and did not leave.
▲Wu Zhen cursive "Heart Sutra Scroll" (partial)
In 1354, he built a tomb in the plum blossom temple where he lived, and wrote his own tombstone:
"Born on the sixteenth day of the seventh month of Gengchen in the seventeenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1280), died on the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the fourteenth year of the Zhizheng Dynasty (1354)."
"Plum Blossom Monk's Tower".
He then died peacefully.
Wu Zhen is a lonely and detached person, with a calm and detached heart, thus creating paintings with innovative techniques and deep and lush, which is the reason why he was able to stand on the painting world of the Yuan Dynasty. But in fact, he himself is pessimistic about the times.
He once said that his paintings would not meet Zhiyin until 500 years later.
In fact, it does not take 500 years, as Dong Qichang said, it only takes 20 years for the value of Wuzhen to be "discovered" by the world.
This is still a matter of Wu Zhen's life.
After his death, his mysterious low profile made him more and more popular.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were many people who studied Wuzhen's painting style.
About 100 years after Wu Zhen's death, Shen Zhou, the head of the "Ming Four Families", declared himself an iron fan of Wu Zhen:
I love plum blossoms, giant old passing on the heart seal.
Cultivate this ink edge, all kinds of moist.
Trees and stones fall sharply, and creation cannot be stingy.
And now under the oak forest, I would like to sweep the news.
About 200 years after Wu Zhen's death, Wang Shizhen, a tycoon in the literary circles of the Ming Dynasty, ranked the yuan dynasty painters, and Zhao Mengfu, Wu Zhen, Huang Gongwang, and Wang Meng were called "Yuan Sijia" by him.
About 250 years after Wu Zhen's death, the late Ming dynasty calligrapher and painter Dong Qichang redefined the "Four Families of the Yuan" and replaced Zhao Mengfu with Ni Zhen, and Wu Zhen still made the list.
When the world enthusiastically discussed the works of the Yuan Sijia, people found that Wu Zhen's life seemed to have some ups and downs that were enshrined as "legends" compared to the other three:
Huang Gongwang looked forward to entering the army as an official, chasing half his life to end in failure, and after the age of 80, he became a generation of masters with the "Fuchun Mountain Jutu";
Wang Meng became an official after entering the Ming Dynasty, but died in prison because of the "Hu Weiyong Case";
The son of Ni Zhan's rich family, he had a fierce personality, participated in Zen and learned the Tao, and finally abandoned his family and fled to the rivers and lakes;
And Wu Zhen, who lived in seclusion all his life, was not good at interacting, studied Buddhism well, and finally died peacefully, and that was it.
However, it is precisely this seemingly ordinary life that is difficult for countless people to reach.
He saw too thoroughly, the world rose and fell, the world was cold and warm, and for him, he did not blow a single wave.
How much wind and currents in ancient and modern times. I want to fly a snail name a few times to the end. Look at yesterday's he is not, this morning I am, three times to worship, twice crowned marquis. Picking chrysanthemums at the edge of the hedge, planting melons, only to the soil of the mountain. The man with the skin torn apart is the skeleton.
——Wu Zhen, "Qinyuan Chun, Inscribed Skull"
Great works must not only have superb techniques, but also be full of transparent hearts. In this way, we can amaze the world and pass it on as immortal.
As a Polish poet wrote more than 600 years after Wu Zhen's death:
There is nothing in this world that I want to possess.
I know there is no one who deserves my envy.
Any misfortune I have suffered, I have forgotten.
It is not embarrassing to think that I am the same person now.
There is no pain in me.
Straightening up, I saw the blue sea and the shadow of the sails.
- Milosz, "The Gift" (Nishikawa/Translation)
References: Jiashan County Literature and History Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, ed., Jiashan County Literature and History Materials Vol. 15: Selected Research Papers of Wuzhen, 2001 Shou Qinze: "Danqing Sacred Hand: Huang Gongwang, Wang Meng, Wu Zhen Biography", Zhejiang People's Publishing House, 2007 Li Jierong: "Research on The Poetry and Painting of the Four Families of the Yuan Dynasty", PhD Thesis of Jinan University, 2011 Li Qi: "Research on the Fisher Father Complex of Wuzhen Landscape Painting", Master's Thesis of Henan Normal University, 2014