Write about the south and north branches: a past of Qin Guan, Huang Tingjian and the ancestors of Mo Mei

This article is the second episode of the series of audio programs co-produced by Afternoon Taste and Captain Reading: Mozhu's "Road to Independence", welcome to listen

You may also have such an experience, in a clear afternoon, at dusk or under the street lamp at night, you often see some plant shadows projected on the greenway and wall, and then think of the plums, orchids, bamboos and chrysanthemums painted by the ancients with ink.

The Qing Dynasty painter Zheng Banqiao, who we are familiar with, once said: "Wherever I paint bamboo, I have nothing to teach, but more than paper windows, powder walls, daylight, and moon shadows." ”

The meaning of Zheng Banqiao's words is the same as the feeling I just mentioned - he has no teacher in painting bamboo, but he sees the sun or moonlight, and projects bamboo on white window paper or the shadow on the wall, and gets inspiration.

Is the technique of drawing bamboo with ink really invented in this way, as Zheng Banqiao said?

Illustration: Xia Chang Wind bamboo scroll Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

As far as the "Momei", another traditional painting subject that is relatively close to the independent large painting department of Mozhu, the process of its technical invention is similar to what Zheng Banqiao said, and its inventor is almost undisputed, and the ancestor of "Momei" is a contemporary of Su Shi, and has had several contacts with Huang Tingjian and Qin Guan.

Before exploring the road to independence of Mozhu, let's first review this past and use Mozhu's close relative, Momei, to warm up for our artistic journey.

Similar to Mozhu, it is also from the Northern Song Dynasty that various opinion leaders have given plum blossoms a lonely and proud quality, pushing plum blossoms into the temple of humanistic spirit.

The people who loved plum blossoms in the Song Dynasty could include a long list: Ouyang Xiu, Mei Yaochen, Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Zeng Ji, Qin Guan, Huang Tingjian, Zhang Qi, Mi Fu, Chen Youyi, Fan Chengda, Yang Wanli, Li Gang, Chen Liang, Zhu Xi, Li Qingzhao, Liu Kezhuang, Zhang Daoqia, Wen Tianxiang, and so on.

Among the god-level fans of Plum Blossom, there is also an iron fan with a special identity, he is the artist emperor - Zhao Tuo.

In the first month of 1100, after the death of Song Zhezong at the age of 25, the 18-year-old Zhao Tuo was elected as empress dowager as his successor.

He is like a football player sitting on the bench, playing with his mobile phone, although he has entered the big list, he has no psychological preparation for whether to play, and without sufficient warm-up, he is suddenly replaced by the coach.

Zhao Yao, who ascended to the center of the political stage of the Great Song Dynasty, had to do the job he was not good at—to be an emperor.

When Emperor Huizong of Song ascended the throne, in order to reconcile the dispute between the old and the new parties, he recalled some exiled officials. Qin Guan, who had been demoted to Lei Prefecture, was reinstated to Xuandelang and released to Hengzhou, present-day Heng County, Guangxi, and Qin Guan died of illness in Guanghuating on his way to Ren Hengzhou while traveling to present-day Teng County, Guangxi.

After Su Shi heard the news of Qin Guan's death, he wrote the last two sentences of Qin Guan's "TaSha Xing" on a fan surface - "Chen Jiang fortunately went around Chenshan Mountain, for whom did he shed Xiaoxiang", and sighed: "Less travel is over, although ten thousand people are redeemed!" ”

At this time, Su Shi was also about to come to the end of his life.

Emperor Huizong of Song ordered the long-degraded Su Shi to resume his post as Emperor Fenglang of the Dynasty, and died in Changzhou in August 1101 on his way back to the north.

The deaths of Su Shi, Qin Guan, and others did not clear themselves of their crimes.

After the death of the regent Empress Xiang and the personal control of Emperor Huizong of Song, cai jing and others began to be reused. In the first year of Chongning, the year after Su Shi's death, Emperor Huizong of Song gave up reconciling the contradictions between the old and new parties and implemented the new law. The 120 people were listed as "Yuanyou Traitor Party" and their names were engraved on stone tablets, called "Yuanyou Party People's Monument".

Su Xun, Su Shi, su rui father and son, as well as Huang Tingjian, Chao Shuzhi, Qin Guan, and Zhang Qian, who were known as the "Four Scholars of Sumen", were all included in the "Yuanyou Party", and their relatives were expelled from Beijing, and their anthologies and writings were also ordered to be burned. It was not until the time of Emperor Gaozong of Song that this group of people was rehabilitated.

Although Huang Tingjian lived a few years longer than his two mentors, in the last days of his life, he was always in this harsh political storm. After Emperor Huizong ascended the throne, he wanted to use Huang Tingjian, and he resigned several times, and finally he was appointed to Taiping Prefecture, which is now the Zhizhou of Tu in Anhui, but he was deposed just nine days after he took office and was sent to be in charge of the Jade Dragon Temple.

Later, he was framed for writing the Records of the Jingnan Chengtianyuan, and in the second year of Chongning, that is, in 1103 AD, he was demoted to Yizhou, and now Yishan County, Guangxi is in charge. Two years later, Huang Tingjian was transferred to Yongzhou, but before he could hear the announcement of this order, he died at the Yizhou Drop House at the age of sixty.

Despite his foreign rule, Emperor Huizong of Song was quite skilled in art. In the third year of Chongning, in 1104 AD, Emperor Huizong of Song established a department of painting and officially incorporated painting into the examination system of the imperial examination.

It was also in the first month of that year that Huang Tingjian passed through Hengzhou when he was degraded to Yizhou, Guangxi, and now in Hengyang, Hunan, he visited a man named Zeng Lun.

Later, the Southern Song Dynasty poet Wang Zao left a "Fuxi Collection" that included his "Epitaph" for Zeng Lun (yū), from which it can be seen that this Zeng Lun was the nephew of the literary hero Zeng Gong.

Together with Zeng, Huang Tingjian went to Huaguang Temple in Hengzhou to meet a famous painter, the monk Zhongren.

It is said that as soon as Zhongren saw Huang Tingjian, he took out the poems written by Qin Guan and Su Shi for him, asked Huang Tingjian to watch, and painted a picture of plum blossoms and distant mountains in the clouds of smoke for Huang Tingjian.

The flower-light monk Zhongren whom Huang Tingjian visited in the last period of his life is the "ancestor of momei", who is famous in the history of Chinese painting.

Zhongren's greatest achievement in art is to create the original ink plum, a new type of painting in flower and bird painting, breaking through the program outlined by the predecessors, but directly writing various gestures of plum blossoms in ink.

It is said that Zhongren planted many plum blossoms around the temple, and when the plums were in full bloom, he moved the bed under the flowers to admire them carefully. He observed the dry curvature of plum branches and the oblique shadow in the moonlight, so he tried to use ink pens to depict, and gradually formed the technique of ink plum.

Eight years before Huang Tingjian visited Zhongren, Qin Guan was stripped of his official position and exiled to Chenzhou, passing through Hengyang, he also made a special trip to Huaguang Temple to visit this senior monk, unfortunately, when Zhongren was out, Qin Guan could only leave a piece of paper, "Asking for Ink and Plum Books with Huaguang Temple":

"The servant has no way to entertain himself in this trouble, and may the master send me two branches for me, so that I can play and wash away my troubles." Fortunately. ”

After Zhongren returned and saw this book, he made two paintings of Momei, and the trustee took them to Chenzhou to give to Qin Guan, who also wrote poems to give to him.

Eight years later, when Huang Tingjian saw Su Shi and Qin Guan's poems and briefs at Zhongren again, he was already human.

Huang Tingjian left a poem with a title of 43 words, in which it was written: "Yawen Huaguang can paint plums, and even more beggars a branch to wash away troubles" - refers to the story of Qin Guan who left a book to beg For Mei to Zhongren.

Compared with "Momei", another type of painting with greater influence - "Mozhu", it is difficult to determine who and when was invented?

In the previous episode, we have learned that Wen Tong and Su Shi founded the "Huzhou Bamboo School" during this period, and under their strong advocacy, ink bamboo gradually became the favorite painting subject of Chinese literati and doctors.

Although Mi Fu once said: "With the ink depth as the face and the light ink as the back, it begins with Ke (wen tongzi and ke)." This means that Wen Tong has made technological innovations in painting ink bamboo, but neither Wen Tong nor Su Shi should be the inventor of ink bamboo.

The Xuanhe Pictorial Notation compiled during the Song Huizong period listed Mozhu as a separate painting discipline, which shows the importance attached to it, but the inventor of Mozhu is not mentioned.

I think there may be two reasons for this: First, the compilers of the Northern Song Dynasty paintings cannot determine who invented the ink bamboo.

Second, the compilers do not value who owns the patent right to invent the ink bamboo, but imply that we, this stems from the collective wisdom, the invention of the ink bamboo patent rights to the vast number of creators.

Su Shi once said, "The wise man creates things, and the capable one narrates, and he who is not alone can also do it." Gentlemen are in learning, and hundreds of workers are in skills, since the three generations of Han and Tang Beiyi. Therefore, as for Du Zimei in poetry, as for Han Huizhi in literature, as for Yan Lugong in books, as for Wu Daozi in painting, and the changes in ancient and modern times, the power of the world is complete. ”

The general meaning of this passage is that after the four great gods of the Tang Dynasty, Du Fu, Han Yu, Yan Zhenqing, and Wu Daozi, poetry, literature, books, and paintings all came alive, and future generations did not need to invent anything new.

This text comes from Su Shi's "After the Painting of Wu Daozi", which was originally a passage of inscription, and Su Shi should have viewed a figure painting of Wu Daozi at that time.

After the above discussion, he praised Wu Daozi's creative attitude of being faithful to the objective object when painting figures, and then commented: "Daozi paints characters, such as taking pictures with lamps, going backwards and forwards, side-seeing side out, horizontal and straight, multiplying and dividing each other, and obtaining the number of nature, not worse than the end." ”

The four words "taking pictures with lamps" are reminiscent of the process of Huaguang monk inventing "Momei", is mozhu also invented in this way?

In fact, as soon as this episode opens, it is mentioned that Zheng Banqiao prides himself on "getting in the shadow of the sun and moon in the powder wall of the paper window", which is not the original creation of Zheng Banqiao. Guo Xi, who dominated the court painting academy during the Song Dynasty, mentioned in the "Shanshui Training": "Those who learn to paint bamboo, take a branch of bamboo, because the moon and night shine on its shadow on the plain wall, then the true shape of the bamboo is revealed." ”

In the era of Guo Xi, Wen Tong and Su Shi, ink bamboo has been prevalent for a long time, and people's aesthetic habits have accepted the painting style of writing bamboo with ink, so we have to ask, who is the "ancestor of ink bamboo" in the history of Chinese painting?

appendix:

In the singing and harmony between Huang Tingjian and Zhongren, he left a poem of seven absolutes and five words, namely:

Painting of the Monk of the Mountain of Flowers

Huaguang Temple under the yunsha, want to take the light boat small fishing cart.

More to see the Taoist smoke and rain pen, the depths of the chaotic peak is my home.

"Inscribed Flower Light Painting"

Hubei mountain has no land, Hunan water through the sky.

Yunsha is really rich, hanmo little immortal.

The 43-word inscription poem mentioned in the text of Huang Tingjian's title is:

"Huaguang Zhongren out of the Qin Su poetry volume, Thinking of the two kingdoms can not be seen again, open the volume sighs, because Huaguang for me to make plum branches and paint smoke outside the distant mountains, chase less travel rhymes at the end of the volume"

The dream butterfly looks like a yellow mallet, and the hedge falls when the flowers are drunk.

Yawen huaguang can paint plums, and even more beggars a branch to wash troubles.

SupportIng Ai Mei is reasonable, it is early to promise the bull's head ginseng.

Long sleep orange island wind and rain cold, today plum open to who is good.

Moreover, the eastern slope becomes an ancient hill, and the dragon snake no longer looks at the sweep.

I moved closer to Hunan, and the boat came to spend the old.

Sigh Si people are invisible, hi I did not learn frost before the grass.

Write all the south branches and north branches, and make a thousand peaks leaning on Qinghao.