Feng Jicai recently took a photo
"Golden Marriage" Feng Jicai Gu Tongzhao painted
Feng Ji was only 80 years old. On his birthday on March 11, he and his 105-year-old mother had dinner with two simple bowls of longevity noodles in front of him, and the mother and son smiled at the camera and took a group photo. "I like to live a little 'deeper' at every important point in my life." Compared with becoming a birthday star after putting on a Tang costume, placing fruit baskets and flowers next to him, and accepting everyone's bowing and worshiping shou, Feng Ji is more willing to spend a comfortable time with his mother.
He is always so special, unlike some professional writers who have focused on writing all their lives, Feng Ji is a generalist - painting, literature, cultural heritage protection, education, in which he has devoted countless efforts for decades, claiming that these undertakings are his "four carriages". In recent years, he has returned to literature, and on the eve of his 80th birthday, the writers' publishing house published the short story collection "Danube Gorge" and the essay collection "A Hole in the Studio", which are both a birthday gift for himself and a gift for readers. Recently, a reporter from this newspaper interviewed Feng Jicai and asked him to talk about his views on literature, painting and life.
If you are in the middle of literature and painting
Feng Jicai liked to draw since childhood, and when he was fourteen or fifteen years old, he begged his father to find a teacher for himself. The first time he saw Mr. Yan Liufu's drawings, he thought to himself: "How good it is for me to be able to draw such a Chinese painting", and since then he has embarked on the road of learning painting. At that time, I went to the teacher's house for classes, once a week, in the afternoon or in the evening. His parents gave him a dime for the road fare, and it cost eight points to take the bus, and two points to cross the river and take the ferry back and forth, just right. But Feng Jicai was reluctant to spend money, always walking, saving the cost of getting off the car to buy various painting materials. Decades have passed, and his studio still treasures the books such as "History of Chinese Painting", "Painting Series", "Ink Painting", "Li Kejian Painting Collection" and other books purchased that year, and his hobby of painting has also accompanied him all his life.
"My earliest identity was as a painter and I painted for 15 years. I'm still painting, but not much. Feng Jicai said: "Literature and painting have been with me for half a century. These two things have become a part of my life. From my life, to the spirit, emotion and even the feeling, all of them carry the qualities of literature and painting. ”
At the age of 60, he painted a painting in which a mighty river swept through the water, and in the middle of the choppy river, a small boat sailed against the water. At that time, Feng Jicai was engaged in the work of cultural heritage protection, and this small and stubborn lonely boat was his own embodiment. The "Double Bird Diagram of Beishan Mountain" in the 1960s and the "Silver Wedding" in the 1990s were jointly created by Feng Jicai and his wife Gu Tongzhao, and there are a pair of small birds in the paintings. On the 2017 Golden Wedding Anniversary, the two of them invariably entered the studio, you painted a stroke, I added a stroke, and it was a pair of birds, and autumn leaves like flowers, a "Golden Wedding", everywhere is bright and flowing colors... These stories related to painting are recorded in "A Cave in the Studio". Taking the studio as the divergence point, Feng Jicai chronicled people, talked about the past and the present, and expounded the mysteries, leaving a trace of artistic career and spiritual life.
Feng Jicai said: "I call the study 'one world' and the studio 'one cave day', which is the reason why the two books "Study One World" and "Studio One Cave Day" got the name. I myself have two spaces: one is to do text work, which is the study; the other is to work with Danqing, which is the studio. The difference between the two spaces is not only the difference in the way of work, but also the difference in the division of labor in the mind. As I said, writing for me is more of a way of responsibility to society; painting for me is more of an expression and expression of my personal heart. ”
But the two were unified here in Feng Jicai. Ping Su used the brushwork of prose to paint, used the language of painting to write prose, and the moment he wrote the next pen, there would be ideas and imaginations like novels. His paintings pursue poetry, while literary creation focuses on creating visible spaces, scenes, and characters to evoke the reader's imagination. Feng Jicai once said that when he wrote a novel, he also had to see the details of the characters' faces.
"When I have the inspiration to write, I go to the study and write. Maybe at a certain time, I have the feeling of painting again, and I go to the studio again. The studio and study were at opposite ends of the hallway at my house, and it was a sweet round trip for me. Feng Jicai said.
Look at the world with an aesthetic eye
From "The Wrong Way to Lay Flowers", "Carved Pipe", "Ah! "The Tall Woman and Her Short Husband" to "Three Inch Golden Lotus", "Divine Whip", and "The Strange Man of the World", Feng Jicai has always walked with contemporary literature. Since the 1990s, he has turned to the protection of cultural heritage. As he grew older, it was difficult for Feng Ji to run around anymore, so he returned to literary creation and burst out with unprecedented enthusiasm for creation. "Telescope", "The Complete Book of The Strange Man of the World", "The World of the Study", "The Artists"... New works that continue to come out have brought surprises to the literary world.
Published in 2020, "Artists" is a long novel that pursues truth, goodness and beauty, shaping the image of artists such as Chu Yuntian, Luo Luo, and presenting their colorful inner world. Among them, there are artists who persistently pursue beauty, as well as the collision and conflict between different values and artistic views under the impact of the tide of the times, and the fate of different characters, but the core of the novel's observation is always beauty.
"In my eyes, the real painter can do everything for the sake of art and for the sake of ideals. I wrote such an artist into a novel, that is, Chu Yuntian. He was an ideal figure. Feng Jicai said. The prototype of "Chu Yuntian" is a painter named Li Bo'an. In the early 1990s, Feng Jicai became acquainted with Li Bo'an and decided that the unknown painter was a genius, and that the 100-meter blockbuster "Out of Bayankara", which he was working on at the time, would become an outstanding figure painting. Despite being snubbed, Li Bo'an still persistently pursued pure art, and this idealistic spirit deeply touched Feng Jicai.
"After writing Artists, I found myself unable to get out of that novel, even though I had other imaginations. "Artists" made me drill too deeply. The experience of our generation of artists has penetrated too deeply into our spiritual and spiritual experiences. Feng Jicai said.
What to do? How will the next work continue? Feng Jicai wanted to drill out and get rid of the shackles. He began to write "Wooden Buddha", changed the perspective, personified the object, became a person with spirit, thinking, and soul, and wrote "people" through "things". "It got me into a special world, and when I slowly entered the novel 'Wooden Buddha', I unconsciously withdrew from 'Artists', which was a very good feeling." The novel "Wooden Buddha" tells the story of an old antique adventure, the wooden Buddha coldly looked at the attitude of all kinds of people to themselves, and saw that most people invited and worshiped Buddha, all for selfishness and utilitarian interests, rather than really believing in Buddha and worshiping Buddha. Having a Buddha in the heart and having a Buddha in the home form an irony.
After writing "Wooden Buddha", Feng Ji felt that he was free, and he came up with many ideas, and wrote "Lame Cat", "Dry Well", "I Am Jason", and "Danube Canyon" in one breath, all of which were included in the new book "Danube Canyon".
Compared with several other works in the allegorical style, the novel "Danube Gorge" is more realistic, telling the bitter love of a young man and woman. The sudden cancellation of the trip makes the heroine Xiao Ying, who is a dancer, misunderstand her lover in a foreign country; an accident causes the two to have no chance to see each other again. Years later, what should Xiao Ying's family do when they learn the truth? At the end of the novel, he exclaims, "Why do you still have to ask about life" and "what kind of life can withstand the questioning".
"A writer writing fiction comes a lot of times from feelings about life. We get a sense of yin and yang, and I bring that feeling to life in Danube Gorge. All the protagonists in it are innocent, but one thing is precious – their love. And love, how beautiful! Feng Jicai said.
"Creation is my inner need"
At the end of the 1970s, Feng Jicai debuted in the literary world, and ushered in the explosive period of creation in the 1980s. He recalled: "Just after the reform and opening up, when my creation was full of passion, I wrote hundreds of thousands of words a year. Later, I couldn't bear it and fell seriously ill. Mr. Yan Wenjing, then president of the People's Literature Publishing House, wrote to me, saying that Feng Ji must live a long time, and only when you live long can you see and experience all aspects of life, and your understanding of life will be deeper and more thorough, your life will be richer and deeper, and your works will have more weight. ”
Now, decades later, Feng Ji has published more than 100 works and 20 or 30 foreign translations. His life was richer, and he felt more and more inseparable from literature no matter what.
"In those years when my main focus was on the preservation of cultural heritage, I often had the impulse and inspiration to create, but I didn't have time. From one city to another, for a few hours on the road, the literary imagination in my head came out. I will mentally take out a certain detail that I have thought about in the past, make associations in my brain, and generate more plots. Halfway through the imagination, the station is reached, and the literary imagination is also powered off. Feng Jicai said. At that time, when he saw his peers publishing new books, he would also have some bitterness in his heart. Now that he has time, the ideas and inspirations that he had suppressed and accumulated for 20 years suddenly gushed out.
"In the past, I used to create a way to understand life with readers, but now I think more of literature as a work of art. When people reach the age of seventy or eighty, they can feel all the joys and sorrows of the past, and finally become a kind of poetry, a unique aesthetic object. Feng Jicai said.
At the age of 80, although he feels that his physical strength is not as good as before, he is still very energetic in doing things. In Feng Jicai's view, the past life is like a big river stirring, people can swim in the water, turn in the waves, and sometimes make waves. At the age of 80, it began to sink, and it was the feeling of still water flowing deeply.
"For me, creation is not someone else asking me to write, but a spontaneous desire that arises from the heart, which is a need in my heart. This impetus comes mainly from love, love of literature, of words, of aesthetic creation. I like to use pen and ink Danqing to exude unexpected images and artistic conceptions, and I also like to enjoy the joy of writing in the 'study world'. Feng Jicai said: "I hope to have more time, I want to do too much." ”
(Reporter Zhang Pengyu)
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition