Miao Jiahui, also spelled Sujun, was born in 1841 in Kunming into a family of scholars. She has been learning calligraphy and painting since she was a child, and because of her talent and diligence, she is talented at a young age and has a small reputation in Yunnan and Sichuan. Jiahui married Chen Rui, a native of Kunming, at the age of 15, and accompanied Chen Rui to Sichuan as an official.
Chen Rui died when Miao Jiahui was pregnant, and Miao Jiahui returned to Kunming's mother's house to give birth to a child, and raised her young son by selling paintings, and she was widowed at a young age. Miao Jiahui is gentle and virtuous, knowledgeable and polite, can play the guqin, is good at calligraphy and painting, "her husband uses her as a secretary, often bringing some manuscripts home from his post for her to copy, and sometimes letting her draft articles and cases." After her husband's death, she returned to Kunming with her children, "first playing the piano and selling art, barely making ends meet, and then writing and selling paintings to make a living."
The most legendary story takes place in the middle of Guangxu (1875-1908), when she was summoned to the Fuchang Hall to worship! Empress Dowager Cixi was a very elegant person, in her spare time, she liked to practice calligraphy and painting, to enjoy Han Mo, to learn to paint flowers, to taste what she did, to give her a chancellor, to prepare to choose a ghostwriting woman, after selection, Miao Jiahui was selected, left and right, day and night, and exempted from kneeling, so Miao became a Pilgrim of Cixi, and was called Mrs. Miao in the outside world.
As the saying goes: a companion is like a companion tiger. Miao Jiahui knew that Lafayette was not an ordinary student, she could not think of herself as a teacher, and at the same time, she had to make progress in Lafayette's calligraphy and paintings, otherwise it would cause unexpected disasters. She saw that Empress Dowager Cixi liked to paint long-lived cranes, so she was inspired and made her not feel that there was a taste of "teaching". She found that Empress Dowager Cixi admired Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, so she painted "The Golden Wheel Emperor Gongguan LinchaoTu" as a gift, which made Lafayette extremely happy, "Immediately put down the scroll and gently touched it with her hand on Ms. Miao Jiahui's face." This public touch made Ms. Miao Jiahui's position in the palace rise by a hundred. From the empress concubine to the eunuch palace, everyone called her Mrs. Miao, Mr. Miao, and Master Miao."
In order to win over some close ministers, Empress Dowager Cixi often gave some calligraphy and painting works, such as flower fan shafts, which were regarded as special honors. In fact, most of these works are ghostwritten by Miao Jiahui. On the occasion of Empress Dowager Cixi's sixtieth birthday, she ordered Miao Jiahui to walk between the princes' dependents with a phoenix crown, and Manchu women rarely saw this kind of clothing, "all laughed and lost their voices, and Cixi was also very happy."
Miao Jiahui was in the palace, and Cixi loved him very much, so that he lived in the Chuxiu Palace, in addition to being named a female official of the imperial court, the annual salary of 2,800 taels of silver, and also exempted him from kneeling and worshipping, and later promoted to a three-pin female official, adding 10,000 taels of silver, and giving a red plume. In the palace, Miao Jiahui worked hard every day, in addition to teaching Cixi to paint, mainly painting on behalf of Cixi, mainly painting flowers and birds, but also painting landscapes, figures and fans. It is said that in the palace, Miao Jiahui also secretly painted some works and entrusted them to the Beijing Liuli Factory to sell, because she was a royal painter, her paintings could be sold at a very high price in the market. The reason why she wanted to sell paintings was because Miao Jiahui wanted to raise money for her son's future.
One of the great conveniences of the Riju Imperial Palace is that due to the abundance of paintings in the Imperial Palace, Miao Jiahui has the opportunity to see and learn from many ancient masterpieces. Empress Dowager Cixi also enjoyed working with Miao Jiahui to appreciate and study painting techniques. Miao Jiahui spoke highly of Cixi's artistic accomplishment. Unlike Miao Jiahui's paintings, when Cixi painted flowers, she was required to paint them with real flower juice. Cixi's reputation for luxury has a long history, and presumably Jiahui will be favored by him, and will naturally stain cixi's light. Her painting conditions were excellent and unattainable at the time.
▌[Qing] Miao Jiahui's "Peony Xiushi Chart Axis" Old Collection of Yunnan Provincial Museum
▌[Qing] Miao Jiahui's "Magpie Peony Chart Axis" Old Collection of Yunnan Provincial Museum
▌[Qing] Miao Jiahui silk "Rich and Noble Roots" 105.5×48 cm Collection of Dali City Museum
▌[Qing] Miao Jiahui silk "Four Screens of Flowers and Birds in Four Seasons" 153×41 cm Collection of Dali City Museum
Miao Jiahui's works have fresh brush and ink, elegant color, and shaped Bixiao, especially the brush strokes of flowers and birds. She uses a delicate pen, all kinds of animals are vivid and realistic, and the plants she paints are written in a smooth ink pen. At the same time, she also absorbed the chiaroscuro method of Western painting (court painters in the late Qing Dynasty had been able to master the Western chiaroscuro method), making the trees look more realistic, with rugged torsos, like folding iron, quite ancient. Her own signed paintings, with a loose and flowing wind to win, break through the Yun school of "pointing out the delicate and feminine beauty of the painter Yun Shouping", good at boneless flowers, its "every painting of a flower, vigorously depicted, will get its fresh and vivid color and then have it". If it is a ghostwriting for Cixi, she seems to be careful and restrained. Therefore, the true appearance of Miao Jiahui's works is a beautiful brushwork, a clear color, and a clean style.
Miao Jiahui's flower and bird paintings are similar to those of previous dynasties, continuing the "Huang family rich and noble" road, slightly more unrestrained and vivid. The so-called "Huang family is rich, Xu Xiyeyi." "The paintings of the "Yellow School" are mostly written about rare birds and birds, strange flowers and strange stones, with neat brushes and grandeur. This school of painting, with a thin ink line hook out the outline, and then fill in the color, that is, the so-called "hook filling method", posterity rated as "hook and color, the purpose is rich". Miao Shi had the opportunity to study ancient paintings, and if he wanted to ghostwrite for the empress, he had to show his royal style.
Miao Jiahui also works in Xiaokai, the brush strokes are neat and beautiful, and the brush characters are also written in a very beautiful way.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the political figure of the Republic of China, Wang Wenren (Dali, Yunnan, Bai) was an official to the prefect of Guangxi, the envoy of Guangdong Tixue, and the envoy of Shaanxi Province, and praised his painting inscription: "Zhumen is meaty, the position is hard to run, those who bite the roots of vegetables, and the flavor of vegetables around the knowledge" is praised. "The aroma of vegetable roots" reflects her grounded, plain, simple and sincere style. His "Cabbage Cicada Diagram" is delicate in penmanship, light in color, full of ink line, rich in changes, flexible and suitable, deep into life, and subtle.
Miao Jiahui has the reputation of "female red art master", known as "Miao Aunt". Careful speculation shows that Cixi and Jiahui have some pity for each other, the two women are widows, Cixi's vassals are elegant and powerful, Miao Jiahui has the ability to rely on himself, the two have compassion for each other, and they are also masters and servants and teachers and friends.
Miao Jiahui entered the palace at the age of 48 and spent 19 years in the palace. She left the palace in 1908, shortly after Cixi's death, ended her court life at the age of 67, and bought a house next to the Shichahai Alcohol Palace to spend her old age. After leaving the palace, Miao Jiahui traveled to the Three Gorges and Mount Taishan, and it is said that he also received three female disciples. At that time, her reputation was already prominent, and the people who asked to buy calligraphy and paintings were endless, and they could live a very noble life. She "donated a cabinet secretary to her son with the silver from the sale of paintings." In 1918, when Miao Jiahui was 77 years old, she died in her bedroom full of paintings and calligraphy, and was buried behind the Zhao Zhongxuan Ancestral Hall.