Editor's Note
A thousand years of cultural veins are cultivated, and only then can we obtain the essence of a city. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that historical and cultural heritage not only vividly tells the past, but also profoundly affects the present and the future, and it is necessary to make the cultural relics collected in museums, the heritage displayed on the vast land, and the words written in ancient books come alive.
Xinhui has a long history and profound cultural heritage, known as "Qianqiu County" and "Coastal Zoulu", and is a famous historical and cultural city in Guangdong Province. This land is worth planting historical genes in their own blood for generations of Xinhui people, and natural treasures are the best bearers. This newspaper has set up a column of "Wuhua Historical Shadow" to take you close to the Xinhui Museum, "zero distance" to feel the treasures of Xinhui Wuhua, and to feel the old style and historical years of this ancient city.
In this issue, we approach the "Money Map" collected by the Xinhui Museum.
In recent years, a collection of paintings and cultural relics in the Xinhui Museum has participated in the year-long "Guangdong Provincial Integrity Cultural Relics Exhibition" because of the "Trinity" style of warning, criticism and education, and the third-level cultural relics in the province are "Money Map".
"Money Diagram" paints a heart length of 178 cm, a width of 93 cm, the middle of the picture is painted with a large copper coin, the large copper coin is painted with gold and copper color, for a circular square hole coin, 34 cm in diameter, there are two Manchus on the top and bottom, is a Qing Dynasty copper coin. This money is twice as high as the people around it, and it is estimated to be 3 meters high in terms of the proportion of people, which can be described as a large copper coin. In the painting, the large copper coin is surrounded by 18 various figures, including men and women, old and young, and according to the relationship between the characters and the copper coin, it can be divided into 4 groups.
The first group
There were 8 people clinging to and grabbing the copper coin, of which 1 was riding on the copper coin, 1 was in the middle of the square hole, 5 were coaxing around and below, and 1 was dragging the rope backwards with force.
The second group
Around the copper coin, there were 6 people looking at the copper coin, one of whom appeared to be blind with a stick, one rich man and the elderly kneeling, and one man holding a woman and a child with a rope.
The third group
There were two men fighting and fell to the ground.
Group IV
An old man on crutches held a book and pointed to a copper coin to preach to a man. The characters in the painting are simple and rough, and the shapes are exaggerated and freehand, which can be seen that the author Zheng Ji's pen and ink are skilled.
"Money Diagram" was composed by the Qing Dynasty painter Zheng Ji. Zheng Ji (郑吉), also spelled Ji Chang (字紀常), was a native of Nanxingli, Qiaomei Township, Shuangshui Town, Xinhui, who practiced medicine in his early years, and later made a living selling calligraphy and paintings, and in his later years lived in seclusion in Yuexiu Mountain Mengxiang Garden in Guangzhou. He was a famous calligrapher and painter in Guangdong during the Jiaqing and Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty, and was good at painting landscapes, and his "Concise Study of Dream Residence Painting" written by him has an important position in the history of Chinese painting theory. The Guangdong Provincial Museum has Zheng Ji's "Landscape Map", the Xinhui Museum has Zheng Ji's "Landscape vertical axis", and the stone carving "A Wash of Red Dust" under the Stone Rock of Du Nguyen Ling is his book. The "Money Map" collected in the Xinhui Museum is a representative work of his character picture.
In his lifetime, Zheng Ji created many works that expressed the world's conditions and people's livelihood, and he paid more attention to and expressed social reality than his predecessors and contemporaries, portraying the social beings with distinct characteristics of the times. He painted the "Money Diagram" in the form of a humorous painting to criticize the social phenomenon of "people dying for money" in feudal society. "Money Diagram" is also commendable for having poetry in the painting, painting in the poem, poetry and painting combined, and a poem in the upper part of the painting has a total of 31 columns and 224 words, which is divided into two paragraphs of the same genre. "Money money money, fate is connected, Huang Tong Bai mouth salivation." What books to read, what Zen to attend? Bend your knees and look down at the whole..." The two verses mock the ugly attitude of the characters in the painting chasing wealth and treating money as their destiny. In addition, on the left side of the painting there is an old man with a cane holding a book, there are 25 small characters on the book, the text is from Confucius's "Analects" Ten Rules, telling the truth that "a gentleman loves money and has a way", this small picture plays a warning role in the whole painting, which not only reflects the author's cynical purity, but also warns all sentient beings.
Fu Junjie, deputy director of the Xinhui Museum, introduced that the "Money Map" was originally collected in Qiaomei Village, Shuangshui Town, Xinhui District, Zheng Ji's hometown. In the 1990s, the Shuangshui Town Government transferred the paintings to the collection of the Xinhui Museum and framed them in a horizontal form. It has been identified as a third-class cultural relic by the Provincial Cultural Relics Appraisal Station and has been exhibited in the exhibition hall for a long time. In 2017, taking advantage of the opportunity to return to his hometown to participate in the activities, Zheng Peiyi, a descendant of Zheng Ji, came to the Xinhui Museum and saw the "Money Map" passed down by word of mouth from his father for the first time. "I was a little shocked to see this painting, the characters are very vivid and ironic. I will always remember the teachings of my ancestors, to use the character story of this painting to educate my children and grandchildren, to rely on my own ability to stand in the world, not to be mercenary, not to be money-oriented. ”
"Money Map" not only has a distinct style of the times, but also becomes a typical example of Cantonese harmonic paintings, and citizens who want to see the paintings can visit the Xinhui Museum to understand more stories behind the paintings.
The contents of this issue were published in Xinhui Overseas Chinese Daily on January 14
Operation | new media department of Rong Media Center in Xinhui District
January 28 Xinhui Overseas Chinese Daily