Li Bai, known as the "Poetry Immortal" by later generations, was a great and famous poet of the Tang Dynasty and a representative of romanticism. Our descendants have passed down many works about Li Bai, but these are recorded, very few real handwriting is left by Li Bai, fortunately, there is just a copy of Li Bai's only handwriting "On the Balcony", so how has this handwriting been preserved to this day? Through what kind of channels to enter the Forbidden City, in fact, this has to start from a person's body.
This person is Zhang Boju, Zhang Boju is the owner of this precious cultural relics, without him, we would not be able to see the handwriting left by the once famous poet Li Bai in the Forbidden City. This handwriting was collected by Zhang Boju, who then gave it to a generation of great people, so the "Upper Balcony Post" was transferred to the Palace Museum by the Office of the Chairman of the Central People's Government in 1958.
In fact, the transfer of "Upper Balcony Post" to the Palace Museum is not only to commemorate Li Bai's handwriting, but also to thank Zhang Boju for his collection of cultural relics over the years. When interviewed by the Jilin Provincial Museum that year, it was pointed out that Zhang Boju laid the foundation for the collection of calligraphy and paintings in the Jilin Provincial Museum.
It can be seen that Zhang Boju's contribution to Chinese cultural relics is so great that when he left Jilin, he also donated the last batch of cultural relics around him, and the most important cultural relics were stationed in the Forbidden City, which is a gratitude to Zhang Boju, hoping that future generations can always remember his contribution, which is a legendary figure who has made extraordinary contributions.
For Zhang Boju, we learned that he is known to the world as the prince of the Republic of China, and his favorite is to collect poetry and calligraphy, which can be regarded as the first person in the world's folk collection.
By the age of 60, he had 118 famous calligraphy and paintings in his collection, including one of the earliest famous handwritings in Chinese cultural relics, lu ji's "PingFu Ti" of the Jin Dynasty, and the earliest independent landscape painting handed down in the Sui Dynasty, "You Chun Tu". There are other collections, such as The Tang Dynasty Du Mu's "Zhang Haohao Poem", tang Dynasty Li Bai's "Shangtai Post", etc., these are important intellectual wealth in Chinese history, if there is no Zhang Boju, I don't know if it will be lost here?
In order to collect these precious cultural relics, Zhang Boju preferred to ruin his family, but he never regretted it. He said, "It is not necessary to give to the body and the body in the end, but to keep the land forever and to pass it on to the future." If there were no people in China's history who sold cultural relics for selfish purposes and won money, but could have more figures like Zhang Boju, There would not be so many literary flows in China that fell into the hands of others.
It is a good thing that a person is obsessed with one thing, but after the founding of New China, Zhang Boju was able to donate his precious cultural relics to the country, so we can now see these collections in various museums to appreciate and learn from our descendants, which is the truly noble quality of a person, which is worthy of our admiration and learning.
Although Li Bai's only handwriting on the balcony post is only cursive five elements for a total of 25 days, the preciousness of it is not replaced by money. Maxima still needs to be excavated by Bole, the only handwriting of Li Bai is like Maxima, and this Bole is Zhang Boju, who excavated and preserved it to this day, fortunately, he gives our descendants the opportunity to see the handwriting of famous poets generation by generation, and his spirit should be worth learning.
Resources:
ZHANG JIAQUAN. Li Bai's Calligraphy Art and His Appreciation of "On the Balcony"[J].Calligraphy Art,1995,(No.5).