Panorama of the late Ming Dynasty painter Zhang Hong's "Stop Garden Map"
Wu Zuguang and Xin Fengxia
In 1949, Wu Ying's letter of appointment Gao Juhan's research on the "Stop Garden Map" made the Stop Garden a topic in the international cultural collection circle, and thus hooked up the cultural story of the Wu family that has lasted for hundreds of years. The Wu family's ancestral home is Yixing, Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, which can be traced back to the Northern Song Dynasty, and the family tree has been passed down from the Ming Dynasty for 500 years, which is a veritable cultural family.
When I met Mr. Wu Huan in a gallery at the China World Hotel, the 69-year-old rushed from his studio, sat down and spoke, speaking at a fast pace and with a face similar to that of his mother, Xin Fengxia. In Wu Huan's treasured "Genealogy of the Wu Clan of Beiqu", Wu Liang, the owner of the Garden, is the ninth generation of the Wu clan of Beiqu, and Wu Huan's grandfather Wu Ying is the nineteenth. Also appearing in the genealogy is the father of the famous painter Wu Guanzhong, Wu Bingze, who is the eighteenth. The Wu family is full of talents, the most famous of which is the art master Wu Zuguang, who is the second son.
Wu Huan said that his parents did not know about Zhiyuan, and when he was a child, he returned to Changzhou with his parents, but he did not know that he was a Yixing person. In 2018, Wu Huan, Liu Shanshan and Huang Xiao visited Changzhou to find the Garden. The old ruins still exist, and the topography of the Garden and the ruins of Chengguan can also be seen on the map.
The name of The Garden is taken from Tao Yuanming's poem "Stop Wine"
In the newly published book "The Atlas of the Stop Garden - The Peach Blossom Garden in Painting", the authors Liu Shanshan and Huang Xiao introduced that wu Liang, the owner of the stop garden, also known as Wu Zongliang, is also known as the resident of the stop garden. In the twenty-ninth year of the Ming Dynasty (1601), at the age of 40, he was admitted to the Jinshi, and finally became the shaoqing of DaliSi.
In the thirty-eighth year of the Wanli Calendar (1610), Wu Liang hired Zhou Tingce, a Suzhou gardener, to build a garden in his hometown of Changzhou. Zhou Tingce was the son of Zhou Bingzhong, one of the "Four Great Masters of The Ming Dynasty Gardeners". As a famous garden of the Ming Dynasty, Zhiyuan Garden is a new milestone in the history of Chinese gardening after Wang Shizhen Yishan Garden.
According to the research of scholars Liu Shanshan and Huang Xiao, the name of The Garden is taken from Tao Yuanming's poem "Stopping Wine", "The beginning of the consciousness is good, and the present dynasty is really stopped." Then, a selection of poems is used to connect the scenes with a clear main line.
As can be seen on the map of the Stop Garden, the Stop Garden starts from the willow tree at the entrance, echoes Tao Yuanming's "Biography of Mr. Five Willows", takes the Lone Pine of Huai gui Villa and Fei Yun Feng as the undertake, echoes the "Return to xi ci" and the "Fu Lone Pine and Pan Huan" in it; then takes the Li Yun Lou and Tao Wu as the turning point, the main hall of the whole garden, Li Yun Lou, is facing the Tao Wu, which symbolizes the source of peach blossoms; and finally, the True Stop Hall, the Za Zhi Hall and the Qing Zhi Hall from the poem "Stop Wine". These four scenes revolve around Tao Yuanming, advancing layer by layer, and supplemented by other allusions, so that the garden is not only clear in purpose, clear in context, but also swaying and colorful, rich in meaning, like a wonderful article with ingenuity, depicting a peach blossom source far away from the hustle and bustle.
The research of Liu Shanshan and Huang Xiao made Wu Huan yearn. In 2018, when Wu Huan first entered the underground warehouse of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art accompanied by American experts and saw the "Stop Garden Map" laid out by the staff on the long case, he was surprised beyond words: "Looking at the relics left by the ancestors of the Ming Dynasty and looking at the old appearance of the old mansions in the hometown of the Ming Dynasty, the feeling was too special and too touching." ”
The late Ming Dynasty where the Garden is located is the heyday of the literati garden, and the Wu family is represented by Wu Liang's construction of the Garden, and has built more than 30 gardens, becoming one of the largest garden-making families in the Ming Dynasty of China. In the mountains, water features, architecture, flowers and trees, etc., the garden is a grand view, the name is also very exquisite, peony bar, Liyun Lou, Huazi Hall, Zhenzhi Hall, Shui Zhou Hall, behind its name have thousands of years of cultural heritage.
For example, the name of Shui Zhou Tang, Wu Liang said in the "Records of the Garden": Before seeing the South Mountain, there are ponds and ponds under the mountains, and all four are water rings, so the language of "Chu Sao" is taken. Huang Xiao found that the name of Shui Zhou Tang was taken from Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs and Xiang Jun": Jun can't do it... Bird times on the house, under the water around the hall. This name reflects Wu Liang's intentions. "Xiangjun" is a poem written by Lady Xiang of Qu Yuan, with the theme of his wife's home missing her husband Jun, who cannot return home. Understanding such a plot, and then looking at the picture of The Water Week Hall, you will find interesting details in it, in the Garden Map, the Water Week Hall is surrounded by water outside the four directions, and there are two women in the pool swinging boats. Huang Xiao said: "Seeing this picture, we can imagine that the painter and the owner of the garden have a sharp mind, and Zhang Hong understands the intention of the master Wu Liang to name this place Shuizhou Hall. ”
Gardening is like writing poetry, and there are many dictionaries. Each garden is not an independent landscape, but has its own story. This is also the reason why professionals can see a hundred gardens in Suzhou, each garden is not a word, but a novel. So, how did Wu Liang write his garden story?
The Wu family's ancestors have not been smooth sailing from generation to generation
In the "Collection of Stopping Gardens", Wu Liang wrote: The avenue has no stop, and Xuanni is not Shi. When it is time to go, it can stop and stop. Tao Gong is full of people, and he also feels that it is beautiful. Occasionally abandoning the official and throwing himself into the field. The wish to save the province is not broken, and the idleness is not over. There is also a heart, a water of Chirin. But I have to stop being interesting, and my name is like a. Huang Xiao explained that Wu Liang mentioned two people in this poem, Xuanni is Confucius, and Tao Gong is Tao Yuanming.
In this regard, Wu Huan said that Wu Liang eventually became the shaoqing of Dali Temple, equivalent to the vice president of the Supreme Court. As an official, Wu Liang has seen the official field thoroughly. He resigned and returned home, concentrating on the study of gardens and the establishment of private schools. Wu Liang named the ziyuan "Stop Garden", which means that people's lives cannot always move forward with one heart, and at the right time, they must know how to stop, understand things, know how to advance and retreat, and stop when they stop. Wu Huan sighed that our family is based on the spirit of the Sui Dynasty's Great Confucian Wang Tong's "Stop Learning", and the Meditation Garden is also integrated into this tradition.
Wu Liang's father, Wu Zhongxing, a contemporary of Zhang Juzheng, was a student of Zhang, and the official hanlin of the Hanlin Academy, and his life realized the ideal of life of "a subject who dies and will fight to the death". Wu Zhongxing's father, Wu Sexguan Bai Shang Bao Si Cheng, that is, the emperor's palm seal official, good things and bad things were stamped by him, and he was of course afraid. Both father and son eventually chose to return to their hometown. The Wu family is a gardening family, and they are happy to build gardens after returning to their hometown.
According to Wu Huan, the ancestors of the Wu family have not been smooth from generation to generation, and when they encounter ups and downs, the situation of falling in the family road has also been common in genealogical records for hundreds of years, often the first generations are prominent, and the later generations have declined. Among the Wu ancestors, there are even clear written records of being poor and destitute, burying people in the corners of the wall without money after death. But the Wu family has always been united, and the general community has a wide range of contacts, no matter how sloppy they advocate reading, and there are people who help them at every step.
The Wu family has the family style of educating their children to be humble gentlemen, and to bless their descendants from generation to generation. At the same time, almost everyone in the ancestors of the Wu family has a strong and abundant circle of friends, and they are also helpful and make friends.
Since the Ming Dynasty, the Wu family has collected many treasures and is closely related to many cultural figures and skilled craftsmen. For example, the famous painting "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" made by Huang Gongwang in the Yuan Dynasty has been collected for more than 50 years in the Wu family's ancestral residence "Wu Shi Nanmu Hall", and the collection of paintings is named "Yunqi Lou", and the plaque is inscribed by Dong Qichang.
Mr. Wu Huan's grandfather Wu Ying joined the Xinhai Revolution at the age of 20 and took in his daughter Li Xinhua after the revolutionary pioneer Comrade Li Dazhao was killed. As early as the beginning of the Republic of China, the Forbidden City was changed to the Palace Museum, the Republic of China government counted and received the cultural relics of the Forbidden City, and Wu Ying, who was then in charge of the Municipal Office, served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Management Committee of the Palace Museum, and was fully responsible for the reception work, when he was not yet 30 years old.
Wu Ying was also the last generation of family members recorded in the Wu Genealogy to the end of the Qing Dynasty. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wu Ying was responsible for escorting the cultural relics of the Forbidden City to the south, which also made him the guardian of a large number of national treasures such as the "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" collected by his ancestors.
Two generations up, Wu Ying's father, Wu Zhiying, served in the shogunate of Jang Zhidong. Wu Zhiying's father, Wu Dianying, was in charge of military affairs during Zhang Zhidong's tenure as governor of Huguang, helping Zhang Zhidong create and train the Hubei New Army, which later fired the first shot of the Xinhai Revolution.
Wu Ying's mother, Zhuang Yuxia, was also from a famous family. Zhuang Jiazu served as an imperial teacher, and the professor was the Qianlong Emperor. Zhuang Yuxia's younger brother Zhuang Yunkuan was a prefect-level official who supported Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing in launching the revolution, and after the victory of the Xinhai Revolution, he became the governor of Jiangsu in the Republic of China government.
Wu Huan's father, Wu Zuguang, was born in the Zhuang family. Zhuang Yunkuan especially liked this nephew, and specially wrote a poem for him: "Shao Song is clear and round, this is the newborn young phoenix." Send the first three days to the moon, a bent eyebrow like I participate in Zen. Wu Huan introduced that his father Wu Zuguang was nicknamed Shao Shao, so the poem wrote "Shao Song Is Clear".
In Wu Zuguang's recollection, his father, Mr. Jingzhou (Wu Ying), was not a suitable official. In the book, he recalled that his father was very diligent in writing or painting every day, and was keen on reading, writing, writing, painting, engraving, and achieving, in addition to buying antique calligraphy and painting tablets, and most of his salary went to antique shops. Therefore, in Wu Ying's life, he himself was most interested in the 10 years from 1924 to 1934. The rare masterpieces collected in the Forbidden City have an unparalleled charm for Wu Ying.
Wu Ying's life has gone through three generations of government, like a long night road, through ups and downs. He gave Wu Zuguang a written material of Miao Kexiu, a martyr of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army, which also prompted Wu Zuguang to complete the first multi-act drama "Phoenix" in his life, and made his son begin to write as a lifelong career.
The father's law of education is to rule by doing nothing
Wu Huan's father, Wu Zuguang, was a famous scholar and dramatist, and his mother, Xin Fengxia, was a famous opera performance artist. As we all know, the mate selection criterion of "Drama Queen" Xin Fengxia is not to marry a rich person, but to marry a cultural person. Therefore, the combination of the two has become a good story in the literary and art world.
Guo Ying, who used to be Premier Zhou Enlai's secretary, told Wu Huan: "Your parents' marriage invitations were handed over to me and forwarded to Premier Zhou. The premier was busy that day and could not go, so he offered to hold a small wedding banquet for your parents at his home in Zhongnanhai, and also invited Lao She and Cao Yu to accompany him. ”
Wu Zuguang's new wedding gift to Xin Fengxia was a study. In Wu Huan's memory, her mother went to bed every day to write and paint, which became the sustenance of her life. "Acting is a thing of the past for her, she's proud to be a writer, she's loved her desk all her life, and the feeling of sitting there is just joy. So in the second half of her life, although she was disabled, she was very happy. My father's friends all praised her when they came: 'Fengxia has become a writer!' She was very proud, so she was particularly happy and psychologically strong. ”
Wu Huan's mother had two closest friends in her life, one was her father Wu Zuguang, and the other was a Xinhua dictionary that could not be separated. "My mother's self-esteem is particularly strong, and she is always afraid of adding chaos to my father, so she can not ask without asking, and turn to the dictionary when she encounters words she does not recognize."
Wu Zuguang and Xin Fengxia were good friends, and the "circle of friends" almost included celebrities and giants in the cultural and artistic circles from the Republic of China to the early days of New China. In the 1950s, the Wu family was in the courtyard of Shuaifuyuan Hutong in Wangfujing, facing the Central Academy of Fine Arts. This small courtyard became the most famous cultural salon in Beijing, known as the "Second-Rate Hall". The name "Second-Rate Hall" was given by Guo Moruo.
Growing up in the crowd of cultural people, the guests who came to the home were all big artists. Wu Huan said: "In fact, many people engaged in art at that time were poor, but our family had money, especially my mother, who could rank first in the country at the box office at that time. "In the 1950s, the modern drama "Liu Qiao'er" starring Xin Fengxia was made into a movie and swept the country." In the early days of the founding of New China, Mr. Mei Lanfang did not act much because he was old, so the Mei Opera Troupe encountered difficulties in operation, and sometimes could not pay wages, so the Ministry of Culture asked my mother to help and allocate funds from her troupe to pay the Mei Opera Troupe. ”
In Wu Huan's memory, her mother had a good temper and never played awkward. "She listens to my father in everything, my father is hospitable, she is hospitable, and everyone likes her." She is happy in this regard, but culturally she is both inferior and strong. ”
The same is true of Wu Zuguang and Wu Shuang, the daughter of Xin Fengxia, of their parents' feelings. In the preface to her father's book "Remembering the Death of the Nation at the Right Time", she wrote: Perhaps in terms of cultural grade, my father is higher than my mother. My mother knew this best, she thought she would never be able to compare with her husband, so she admired, revered, and followed her father. But my dad didn't think that way, he admired my mom from the bottom of his heart, admired my mom. He thinks that my mother is the most beautiful woman, not only on the outside but also on the inside, she is the first in the world.
There is a widely circulated story about the friendship between Lao She and Wu Zuguang. After Wu Zuguang was criticized in 1957, his salary was suspended. When her life at home encountered difficulties, Xin Fengxia once sold a batch of Wu Zuguang's Tibetan paintings to a painting shop, and one of the painted ink magnolia flowers of the old man of Baishi was accidentally encountered by Lao She, so she bought it back and returned it to Wu Zuguang. Wu Zuguang wrote about this incident in the book while remembering Lao She, but also fondly reviewed his wife's performance: Three years later, I went home to learn about this matter, and my kind wife apologized to me, thinking that she had done something wrong and did not keep these words and paintings that I loved. Instead, I went to comfort her, saying that it was something outside of her body and not to mention it again.
The name Wu Huan was given by Qi Baishi, which means that it is taken from the Taoist philosophy of "doing nothing, doing nothing and rejoicing without joy". Mr. Qi Baishi's family was not rich at that time, and Wu Huan said that his father was a big buyer of Qi Baishi and his mother was his dry daughter, so the relationship between the two families was very good. Wu Zuguang was also the first person to publish a book to publicize Mr. Qi after the founding of New China, which was a pamphlet called "Painter Qi Baishi".
Wu Huan has been mischievous and playful since childhood, full of energy, and at the age of ten, he won the junior championship of table tennis in Dongcheng District, but the big grin in personality and the disregard of Gu Qian also brought a lot of troubles to his father. However, the parents' educational law is still to do nothing, and what admonishes children is not to enter the official field, read well, learn a craft, and preferably learn science and technology. "I later studied art, which didn't meet my parents' expectations." Wu Huan said with a smile.
The people of Changzhou use their own art form to recreate the garden
Wu Zuguang treats people sincerely and kindly, and such a character is revealed from his youth. When he was in junior high school, on a snowy winter morning, Wu Zuguang was full of joy and eager to go to school to build snowmen and have snowball fights with his classmates, but he did not expect the difficulty of the coachman braved the wind and snow to send him to school. When he sat in the car and saw it through the gap in the cotton shed, he was immediately embarrassed and hurriedly took off his hat and scarf and forced the coachman to put them on.
In order to let his parents, wife and three children get a good living environment, Wu Zuguang used the money he earned from overseas to buy his first private house in his life, located in Dongdan Beishuaifu Hutong, where the Wu family and many residents in the hutong are good friends and have many guests. In Wu Huan's memory, when he was a child, there would be two banquets every day at home, and everyone would come and go at will at home. He remembered that his father had said that one of his great wishes in life was to take his friends to eat all over the world.
Wu Zuguang is open-minded and generous to his friends, always has attachment, and in the words he writes, there are many appearances. For example, he recalled Lao She and thought that the person who loved to make people laugh was the kindest person; recalling Nie Cyan crossbow, "always in the shape of a bodhisattva with a low eyebrow, never saw him have an angry look of King Kong"; remembering Cao Yu, often with one hand twisting a pimple under his right ear in a daze, that is, he was pondering the script, touching the inspiration came.
Parents travel widely, so that the resources for their children to be taught from an early age are also extremely superior. Mr. Ye Qianyu, who was the director of the Chinese Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts at that time, Dong Xiwen, the master oil painting master who painted the "Founding Ceremony", and many professors of the Academy of Fine Arts often went to Wu's house to drink tea and chat, and taught Wu Huan to paint by the way.
Wu Huan now has many identities: a member of the Third National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a famous calligrapher and painter, a playwright, a collector... At the age of 25, he wrote the Zhiqing novel "Big Black" and won the "Contemporary Literature Award", at the age of 27, he wrote "Painting Saint Wu Daozi" and won the "Outstanding Drama Composition Award of Chinese and Foreign Television" on CCTV, and the oil painting "Heavenly Eye" series won the gold medal at the 2015 World Expo in Milan, Italy, and he is also a calligrapher and painter.
The Wu family's courtyard was forcibly occupied by rebels during the Cultural Revolution. After the end of the ten years of catastrophe, Wu Zuguang could have returned the courtyard, but he did not want it, saying that he was old and afraid of trouble, so he donated it. Later, the yard was demolished, and a new building was built on the ground, which is now the emergency building of the Union Hospital.
Liu Shanshan said that after the locals in Changzhou learned the story of the Stop Garden, they touched many people, and some local artists recreated the Stop Garden through their own art forms, some embroidered the Stop Garden with random needlework, and some used soldering irons to paint the Stop Garden. The Garden Album itself seems to have a kind of power, and you will be attracted to it when you see it. This also stimulates everyone's creativity, and this kind of creation will be passed on.
Zhiyuan and the Wu family, humanities and bloodlines, And China's traditional culture are passed down from generation to generation in this way.
Reporter/Wang Mian
Photo courtesy of Wu Huan