In the early morning of the seventh morning of the Chinese New Year, Yongjiadu, the western suburbs of Chengdu, the shade of the trees is accompanied by drizzle, and the cold is permeated with a hazy spring feeling.
Passing through the second group of Qingbar Community in Xihua Street, Jinniu District, all the way to the fu river, in the old alley, a scarlet iron gate is hidden. The iron door is mottled, and it seems to be separated by countless years and endless stories. The plaque next to the door breaks the core of the story - Chengdu Zhucheng Stone Carving Art Museum.
Zhu Cheng Stone Carving Art Museum
Fu Riverside, green tree shadows, red lacquered doors; Zhu Cheng, museums, stone carvings... Several key words are put together, and the outline of the story has been outlined.
Most of the old Chengdu people have heard Zhu Cheng's name. In the circle of artists and literati, Zhu Cheng is known as a "master". In the city's squares, parks, streets and alleys, many of the landmark public art sculptures are by Zhu Cheng. But he said the most important public work of art of his life was the museum.
Exactly 30 years ago, Zhu Cheng came to the western suburbs of Chengdu and rented this 5-acre open space for carving. Gradually, the cherishing of folk stone carvings and the feelings of the history and culture of Bashu took over the lord, and Zhu Cheng's private space, most of which was used to carry the folk stone carvings of Bashu in the past dynasties that he had collected and displayed for decades, became a private museum.
Stone carvings collected by Zhu Cheng
Once, Zhu Cheng blindly did addition in a limited space. The collection, together with the works created by Zhu Faren, reached more than 10,000 pieces. But I can't think of where these priceless treasures will go in a few years.
Today, Master Zhu Cheng is 76 years old. In the inspiration of "Park City", he found a firm answer - let these arts that belong to Bashu enrich the connotation of Park City.
He had two wishes. The first is to open the museum to the public free of charge in his lifetime. The other is to hope that after a hundred years, I will dedicate this lifetime's painstaking efforts to the society and to this "park".
Here, there is a creative history of the ancestors of Bashu
Walking into the door of the museum, the old man in the top hat is slowly pacing in the courtyard.
On a rainy day, he checked a dozen "museums" one by one, afraid that where the water would get wet. Like an administrator, like a gatekeeper, more like a hermit, this person is Zhu Cheng, the curator of this museum. He collects here, creates here, and lives and lives here.
Zhu Cheng
Many people who have come to the Zhucheng Stone Carving Art Museum have commented that it is "the museum that is the least like a museum, and also the museum that is most like a museum."
I say no because there is no decent building in the whole courtyard. Simple shacks, simple houses, take up this 5 acres of space. In each room there are hundreds of collections on display, stone tablets, tiles, Chinese bricks, Buddha statues... There are no windows or showcases, they are tightly packed and dense with no gaps.
It is said that it is because it is difficult to find such an opportunity to "look at each other" with such a rich collection of cultural relics and works of art. You can see every inch of craftsmanship and the texture of time at a distance of millimeters.
"Simple, but heavy" is a very apt description.
The museum's collection is mainly stone carvings. Han, Tang, Song, Ming, Qing, and the Bashu folk stone carvings of the dynasties and dynasties totaled nearly 10,000 pieces. Usually, there are not many institutions that specialize in collecting folk stone carvings. Initially, Zhu Cheng felt that these works of art from the Bashu folk inspired his sculpture creation and began to collect them intentionally. Gradually, collecting became a more obsessive thing.
"Public museums have more collections of official kilns, and many folk stone carvings are scattered everywhere, and there is no centralized collection and research institution." Zhu Cheng said that the stone carvings unearthed by the Bashu people in particular are often ignored by collecting institutions. However, the folk culture of Bashu contained in it is rich and colorful.
Walking in one of the "exhibition halls" with Ming and Qing dynasty stone carvings, Zhu Cheng pointed to a group of stone carvings and told reporters: "This is a band."
This group of stone slabs is neatly arranged, the same size, and all are rectangular about one meter high. The musician in the middle, engraved in the costume of the Song Dynasty, holding an instrument and playing and singing. They come from the Song Dynasty.
The stone carvings next to each other are carved on a scene on the stage, and the characters are portrayed vividly, and the joy and anger in the performance of the characters can be seen.
"These folk excavations of stone carvings depict the unique and distinctive character of the Bashu people." Zhu Cheng said that the ancestors of Bashu were optimistic, enthusiastic and creative, and the inheritance is still the same. These cultural relics from the folk portray the characteristics of the Shu people in their bones to the fullest.
"Only creations from the folk can interpret the Bashu culture so diversely and vividly." Zhu Cheng has guarded these collections for decades, and he has now made it his mission to study bashu folk culture. He said that there is no template for folk creation, and many of them can only rely on imagination, whether for gods and Buddhas or totems. It is precisely for this reason that these stone carvings across time are carved into a creative history of bashu folk.
Ten thousand treasures reduced to zero, called "The Year of Life"
Some people are like this, and after falling in love with something, they stick to it for the rest of their lives.
In fact, the largest collector of stone carvings in China, better known as a national treasure sculptor. One of his most famous works, A Thousand Guns and One Arrow, is in the permanent collection of the International Olympic Museum of the International Olympic Committee; his city's public art work, the Deyang Stone Carved Art Wall, is called "The Wonders of Contemporary Art". More familiar to Chengdu people is the historical and cultural wall that tourists in the wide and narrow alleys will surely take pictures of. Old Chengdu, old photos, combined with relief three-dimensional art, ancient appearance and new traces, that is from Zhu Cheng's handwriting.
Zhu Cheng's carvings
But now this humble museum clearly holds Zhu Cheng's greater creative ideals.
After 30 years of coming to the western suburbs, Zhu Cheng said that the museum was not built, it was grown. And, it's still growing.
"The houses in front of you that display the collections have been built one by one over the decades." Zhu Cheng pointed to the simple 3-story house directly opposite the entrance and told reporters that at the beginning, there was only this small house here as his residence and studio. As the collections received from various places increased year by year, new shacks were erected and became new galleries. Until a few years ago, these five acres of land no longer had the space to build new houses.
For 30 years, Zhu Cheng's creation has also taken place here. His paintings, sculptures and even manuscripts are also in the collection. In each exhibition hall, Zhu Chengdu organically combines his works with his collections, and the seemingly simple and crowded exhibition actually has the exhibition order carefully planned by Zhu Cheng. None of the displays are placed haphazardly.
In 2001, the Sichuan Provincial Administration of Cultural Relics approved the establishment of the Zhu Cheng (private) Stone Carving Art Museum.
Zhu Cheng said that the highest realm of museums is the coexistence of history and art. He's moving closer to this.
Because of this, he prefers to reduce more than 10,000 collections and works into pieces and treat them as a whole work of art. The name is called "The Year of Life.".
"These gradually growing houses, the works that grow, and even the growth rings carved over the past 30 years are actually part of the works." Zhu Cheng felt that this was the most important work of his life. He and time were involved in the carving.
For this "work", he has invested no less than ten million yuan over the years.
The exhibition hall should be maintained, the collection should be properly kept, and the museum had zero income, Zhu Cheng used his income from sculpture to "raise" this work called "Lifetime". But he was clearly willing.
A wish to "live a lifetime"
Since the establishment of the museum, Zhu Cheng has welcomed and sent, and tens of thousands of people have visited here. They come from inside and outside the province, at home and abroad, and most of them are interested people.
Visitors were amazed by the richness of the museum's collection and the "humble aesthetics" of the museum. However, the museum has not yet been fully open to the public, because "the environment really cannot meet the conditions for opening up to society."
This is also a piece of Zhu Cheng's "heart disease". He is looking forward to the day when these literary and artistic treasures will be open to the society, "these Cultural relics of bashu folk, created by the ancestors of the children of Bashu." He very much hoped that chengdu people, Sichuan people, and visitors from all over the world would come to see it.
Zhu Cheng's collection of Bashu folk daily necessities
In fact, in recent years, Zhu Cheng has not collected any more collections. The museum is no longer able to fit, and it has no ability to expand the scale of the collection. Zhu Cheng is also 76 years old, and now these collections are his heavy responsibility.
He did research on Bashu culture around these collections, made his own contemporary creations around these collections, and he also began to plan the final destination for these painstaking efforts.
In fact, a few years ago, an institution in Shanghai found Zhu Cheng, allowing him a larger space, hoping to move Zhu Cheng's museum to Shanghai as a whole. There are also real estate developers in other places who have contacted Zhu Cheng, and want to "package" the Zhu Cheng Museum together with Zhu Cheng's people and let Zhu Cheng "ask for a price".
"Then how to do it", the old man with the top hat was decent, and the tone of voice was gentle but loud: "These are all Bashu cultural relics, the root is here, the soul is here, away from Bashu, no matter how good the venue, it is not right." As for the self who was asked to "pack" and take it away together, it was even more inseparable from here.
Zhu Cheng said that Zhu Cheng's "cheng" is not a successful "cheng", but a "cheng" in Chengdu. "My father was a geographer," the old man smiled, saying that he still had brothers, named "Chuan" in Sichuan and "Ping" in the "Chengdu Plain" respectively.
Zhu Cheng, the "old Chengdu", has contributed countless landmark scenery to Chengdu's large and small parks and streetscapes. There are his works in the wide and narrow alleys; the iconic red sculpture of Judu is his work; in the Chengdu Martyrs' Cemetery, there are also his sculptures... But he believes that his greatest contribution to Chengdu is this "museum".
In the studio in the courtyard attic, next to the messy manuscripts and workbench, there is a dusty treadmill. Zhu Cheng used to use it for exercise. But he doesn't use it much now, and he now insists on going to the gym every week and eating regularly. He had to take good care of his body, "Otherwise, how can I complete my 'life'!" ”
Zhu Cheng's workspace
For the "life year", Zhu Cheng's greatest wish is to be open and continue.
"Park City" inspired Zhu Cheng.
At present, Chengdu is accelerating the construction of a park city demonstration area that practices the new development concept. In Zhu Cheng's view, the unique culture and historical inheritance are the most important "souls" in the "park city". Compared with many public works of art created by himself, this museum is a more meaningful existence in the "park city". So, he calls it his most important public work of art. He hopes that this work, in the park city, completes the mission of open sharing and continuing cultural inheritance.
These days, Zhu Cheng has been thinking about this proposal.
The river is green and babbling, and if the landscape on both sides of the river is further improved, he believes that an open park can be created. The Zhucheng Museum of Stone Carvings is located in it and becomes part of the park. What he has learned in his life will be opened free of charge after comprehensive construction and collation. After a hundred years of their own, they will give their money to each other, only to continue the culture and pass it on from generation to generation.
He even hopes that if this place can become a gathering place for Bashu sculpture artists, providing a place for Bashu sculpture artists to display their excellent works, it would be very good.
"Sculpture is no better than painting, sculpture works need to be displayed." He sighed slightly, Chengdu sculpture art talent is full of talent, but where the artists' works are placed is a difficult problem. If the park can further enhance its function and become a "base camp" for sculptors, then more abundant and excellent artistic creations will undoubtedly be born in the park city.
"I will continue to create," Zhu Cheng patted his shoulder, "I can still create for 20 years, and now it is still the peak period!" ”
Park cities, to be built together, but also to share. Zhu Cheng thought that if one day, people strolled along the riverbank and stopped at the Zhu Cheng Museum in the open park, then they would realize their dreams.
Chief reporter of Red Star News Wang Yao Photo/Video Lu Guoying
Edited by Tan Wangyu
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