Xu Wei was one of the most outstanding artists of the late Ming Dynasty, and his painting talent was extremely high, and few painters in the painting world of the same period could match him. There was an auction of Xu Wei's sketch scroll hand scroll 127 million, size: 29× 268.7cm, it can be said that the auction price per square foot of the painting reached 18 million.
Ancient artists had a multi-talented character, and Xu Wei was no exception.
In addition to calligraphy and painting, he is also proficient in bard poetry and is also involved in opera. Xu Wei's artistic style is unique, and his works have been well-known both before and after his death. However, Xu Wei's fate is uncertain, and his life is bumpy and very bumpy. The most heart-wrenching thing is that when he was forty-six years old, xu Wei killed his wife by mistake because of a conflict with his wife, and was eventually punished by law, imprisoned, and imprisoned for seven or eight years.
Why did Xu Wei want to kill his wife?
Since this was a hidden pain in Xu Wei's heart, he never explained the reason to anyone else. Due to its age, modern people have been unable to examine why Xu Wei killed his wife, so it has led to a series of conjectures and legends about Xu Wei killing his wife.
Some scholars have combined the analysis of historical materials and believe that Xu Wei has mental problems such as hyperversion and will produce hallucinations when he is ill. One day, when Xu Wei fell ill, he had this picture in his mind: his wife was committing adultery with her lover. Xu Wei took the hallucination seriously, took out a knife and killed him in the bedroom. By the time he regained consciousness, his wife had collapsed in a pool of blood. Xu Wei hugged his wife's body and regretted it too late.
Some scholars also believe that after the "Hu Zongxian case" occurred, in order to avoid being linked by Zhu Lian, Xu Wei pretended to be crazy and stupid. Over time, Xu Wei's pretending to be crazy became really crazy, and during a dispute with his wife, Xu Wei, who was ill, killed her. The speculation in the historical circles that Xu Wei killed his wife revolved around Xu Wei's mental illness. After all, Xu Wei fell into insanity many times in his later years, hurting himself and others. This pathological performance shows that Xu Wei does suffer from serious mental illness.
Why does a good person suffer from mental illness?
Of course, the bumpy life and fate are an important factor in Xu Wei's extreme and pessimistic personality, and it is also one of the motives for his killing of his wife.
Xu Wei's father, Xu Wei, had been awarded the title of Meritorious Scholar, and after teaching in his hometown for many years, he filled the vacancy and became a local county order, and was later transferred to the Sichuan Prefecture Capital as a Tongzhi. While serving as a county official, Xu Hao's original wife died, and he married the widow Miao Shizhi. However, the Miao family had no fertility, so they did not give the Xu family children. In his later years, Xu Xian had an affair with Miao's maid, until the maid became pregnant, and the adulterous relationship between the two could not be hidden. In desperation, Xu Yan could only take a maid as a concubine. Later, the maid gave birth to a son, that is, Xu Wei.
Less than three months after Xu Wei was born, Xu Yan left his orphan and widowed mother and died. Because Xu Wei's birth mother came from a humble background, Miao took the initiative to serve as Xu Wei's enlightenment teacher to educate the young Xu Wei. Unfortunately, because miao and Xu Wei's birth mother did not have a good relationship, when Xu Wei was ten years old, Miao swept Xu Wei's birth mother out of the house. When Xu Wei was fourteen years old, Miao shi contracted and died, and Xu Wei and his brother Xu Huai lived together. When Xu Hao was reborn, the Xu family was still relatively solid, but after Xu Hao's death, the family lost their source of income and gradually fell into the middle of the family. When Xu Wei was twenty-one years old, he had to enter the Pan family and became a door-to-door son-in-law.
The unhappy childhood, as well as the three failed marriages and eight failed examinations in succession, all kinds of blows caused Xu Wei's spirit to have problems, and he committed suicide nine times in his life, which can be seen that Xu Wei's character has great defects.
Family factors have created Xu Wei's paranoia and pessimism, and the social environment has given Xu Wei more "negative energy". After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the people of the time gradually developed a rebellious psychology against the increasingly decaying feudal regime, and the products of the times such as southern capitalist commerce and Yangming Xinxue were intertwined into a deviation from the mainstream of ideas.
At that time, corrupt officials and corrupt officials were all over the place, the people's customs were corrupt, and the people's hearts were becoming more and more profit-oriented, and it was most appropriate to use the four words "materialistic desires" to describe the social environment at that time. Most of the writers and artists living in that era had mental problems. For example:
Tang Yin often ran away from home, disguised as a ragged flower, singing lotus flowers falling to beg for food, for pleasure;
Zhu Yunming owes a bunch of debts, and whenever he goes out in a palanquin, the palanquin will always be followed by a large group of noisy creditors;
Li Zhen spoke wildly, often saying strange remarks to criticize Confucius, and on weekdays, Li Zhen shaved his hair but grew a beard, and walked on the street like a madman.
Of course, the madness of these scholars is fundamentally different from Xu Wei. Although their madness is also mixed with the meaning of social resistance and venting, their original purpose is only to be different and show that they are not bound by the world. From the current point of view, Tang Yin, Zhu Yunming, and Li Yan are like "performance artists", and their behavior has a great performance component. In fact, they have no mental problems at all, and are even much healthier than anyone else's psychology. The reason why he makes all kinds of crazy performances is to disguise himself. Xu Wei is fundamentally different from these people, his madness is "real madness", not pretending.
Yan Song collapsed, and Hu Zongxian committed suicide, making Xu Wei's life completely hopeless. In Xu Wei's heart, Hu Zongxian is a sage worthy of respect. Even such a good person has no good end, what is wrong with this world?
In the process of questioning the whole society, Xu Wei fell into the panic and disgust of jealousy, and these two thoughts gradually destroyed his mind. Over time, Xu Wei suffered from a very serious "brain disease". The author speculates that Xu Wei's "brain disease" is most likely a brain nerve disease such as head wind. Every time the illness attacked, Xu Wei would be tortured to death. If not, Xu Wei would not have committed suicide again and again, and he wanted to gain liberation in this way.
At the age of thirty-seven, Xu Wei became Hu Zongxian's aide, responsible for the clerical work of the Governor's Office. It can be said that this is the most successful time in Xu Wei's life.
According to the "Long Biography of Xu Wen", one day Xu Wei was drinking with people, and the Governor's Palace had urgent official duties that Needed Xu Wei to deal with, and the official mission could not find Xu Wei, so he could only stand at the door of the Governor's Mansion all night waiting for Xu Wei to return. Someone told Hu Zongxian about this, saying that Xu Gongzi was so drunk that he even delayed his official duties. Hu Zongxian did not think so, but praised Xu Wei's straightforward personality. With a local "number one" like Hu Zongxian, other officials did not even dare to raise their heads when they met with him, but Xu Wei was different. Every time Xu Wei looked for Hu Zongxian, he didn't even knock on the door, but went straight in and talked with Hu Zongxian.
At that time, Hu Zongxian had a close personal relationship with the powerful minister Yan Song, and Xu Wei hated this traitor very much. However, in order to help Hu Zongxian, he wrote a lot of words against his heart. From this, it can be seen that Hu Zongxian's position in Xu Wei's heart is very lofty. However, Xu Wei's "golden years" did not last long. With the fall of Yan Song, Hu Zongxian was also imprisoned and committed suicide in prison. For Xu Wei, Hu Zongxian had the grace of knowing him, and Hu Zongxian's death made Xu Wei difficult to accept.
Some people say that Xu Wei is crazy because he is afraid that he will be implicated. It is true that the imperial court convicted Hu Zongxian of "adultery" and "collusion with the Strict Party." Xu Wei did paperwork under Hu Zongxian, and many of the letters were written by him. Obviously, if the imperial court pursues it, Xu Wei will definitely not be able to escape the disaster. A scholar who hated Yan Song the most was now suspected of colluding with the Yan Party, which made Xu Wei feel embarrassed? In order to relieve his hardships, Xu Wei drank all day long and dreamed of death.
With the passage of time, Xu Wei became more and more annoyed with those who were officials, especially those petty officials who were good at swearing. At that time, Xu Wei was still very famous, and many officials went to Xu Wei's house and invited Xu Wei out of the mountain, but they were all turned away by Xu Wei. It is said that every time someone came to the door, Xu Wei would lock the door and shout in the room: "Xu Wei is not here, don't bother me again." Later, the troubled Xu Wei would sigh at home every night in the middle of the night, and his neighbors thought Xu Wei was crazy.
At this time, Xu Wei had lost the hope of life, and he only wanted to find a suitable time to bid farewell to the world. One day, Xu Wei, who could not bear the mental torture, finally made up his mind, wrote a "self-made epitaph", and then took the iron nails on the pillar and stuck them into his ears, and the blood flowed like a flood. Xu Wei, who fainted, was rescued and lay in a hospital bed for several months. Xu Wei had already made up his mind, and after recovering, he stabbed himself in the waist with an iron cone, but he survived again.
The following winter, the insane Xu Wei and his wife Zhang Shi had a conflict, and the two quarreled. Xu Wei slammed the door and walked away, hanging out for a day before returning home. That night, Xu Wei pushed the door home and saw his wife Zhang Shi lying naked with a strange man lying naked. Xu Wei's spirit was already on the verge of collapse, how could he endure such a great shame and humiliation? Enraged, Xu Wei took out a knife and stabbed his wife to death. By the time Xu Wei woke up, his wife had lost her life.
At this time, Xu Wei suddenly found out where was the strange man who was "lying" with his wife Zhang Shi? It is clearly a cotton coat. Xu Wei knelt on the ground and wept bitterly, but people could not be resurrected from the dead, and everything was too late. Because Xu Wei accidentally killed his wife, he was thrown into prison by the local government. Seven years later, when the Wanli Emperor ascended the throne and granted amnesty to the world, several of Xu Wei's best friends helped him win the opportunity, and Xu Wei regained his freedom.
After his release from prison, Xu Wei made a living by selling calligraphy and paintings. At the age of seventy-three, Xu Wei passed away in the sloppy environment of "several crooked houses in the east and west, and a person who transferred from the south to the north". Before Xu Wei died, he was accompanied by only a dog. In his home, there was only a broken bed, and there was not even a mat on the bed, which could be described as extremely sleepy.