A famous Chinese painting more than a thousand years ago, known as "Reading Stele Stone Map", was painted by Li Cheng, a master of painting in the Five Dynasties period, and although its popularity is not as good as that of "Qingming on the River", it is indeed a fine product and a top product in the ancient Chinese painting industry. There are both majestic and magnificent landscapes, simple and thick stone tablets, and characters with long-term looks, which fully reflect the highest peak of the art level at that time. However, the painting also leaves a suspense case, showing an old man riding a donkey and leisurely observing the stone monument, who is this old man? The jury is still out.
Li Cheng Wang Xiao Character in "Reading the Stone Diagram of the Stele"
The identity of the characters in famous paintings throughout the ages has been controversial
Li Cheng is one of the most accomplished painters in the five generations, a native of Chang'an, and after the Tang Dynasty royal family, he moved to Yingqiu, Shandong Because of the chaos of war, so he was also known as "Li Yingqiu". Li Cheng is good at painting landscapes, a pen can take tens of millions of scenes within easy reach, mountains and forests, stone peaks, clouds and gullies, all appear vigorous and mysterious, simple and deep. "Reading the Stele Stone Diagram" is one of his masterpieces, of course, the surviving ones, some experts say that it is a facsimile. It should also be noted that this painting was not completed by Li Cheng alone, but with a partner, the partner's name is Wang Xiao, Li Cheng paints trees and stone tablets, and Wang Xiao paints characters.
Li Cheng, Wang Xiao, "Reading the Stone Diagram of the Stele"
In the empty and cold plains, there are several tall ancient trees, and the leaves of the ancient trees are completely illuminated, a depression; the sky seems to be very gloomy, and the atmosphere is a bit bleak; and with the old style of the ancient trees, a huge stone stele is uprooted flat, towering, and under the stone stele is a huge stone turtle, which also looks desolate and isolated.
Outside the ancient monument of dead trees, the sky is empty, there are no clouds, no birds, no horizon, and there is a sense of desolation in eternity. In this poignant and arrogant atmosphere, two characters appear on the screen. A man in the form of a book boy or waiter, standing on the left side of the stone monument, holding a staff in his hand, combing the hairstyle of a boy, is estimated to be not very old. The waiter faces a man and a donkey on the right, and riding a donkey is an old man, dressed in white with black edges and long hair fluttering, quite old. He looked up at the stone stele towering in front of him, and fell into contemplation, either identifying the words on the stele or remembering something at the stele, wandering and sighing.
Li Cheng, Wang Xiao, "Reading the Stele Stone Diagram" Stele Stone
What is engraved on the stone tablet? There is no display on the screen, only an inscription on the side of the stele, which reads: "Wang Xiao character, Li Chengshushi". In fact, from the perspective of visibility, this is a wordless stele, but from the perspective of the gaze of the characters, from the effect of the picture, this is a stone stele with words, which is the cleverness of the painter, and no words can also draw the effect of words.
It is precisely because the text on the stone stele is not clearly displayed, then, the identity of the person who appreciated the stele is a mystery, who is it? Is it a painter fictional passerby? Later generations said no, this person has an identity, his big name is Cao Cao! But someone provided another answer, the person who appreciated the monument was not Cao ChengXiang, but Meng Haoran, who wrote "Spring Sleep Is Not Aware".
As a result, the identity of the character has become a suspense case. Well, let's first set the person in the painting as Cao Cao.
Cao Fu
Cao'e Monument? The size of Cao Cao's entourage seemed too shabby
Is there any record in history of Cao Cao reading stone tablets? Of course, without the answer of historians, people who are generally familiar with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms can blurt out: Cao Cao once studied the Cao E Monument with Yang Xiu.
Eastern Jin Dynasty Wang Xizhi "Cao E Monument" part
First of all, let's talk about the Cao'e Monument, which is a famous monument in the history of Chinese calligraphy, in order to honor the filial daughter Cao'e, in 151 AD, the local government of Huijian erected a monument for it. Later, Cai Wenji's father Cai Yong came to the stone stele, Mozi admired, wandering, really can't help but be excited, just in the stele carved "yellow silk young woman, grandson", in fact, set a code for this stele.
How to solve the password? Not long after Cai Yong, two wise people also came to the Cao'e Monument, also admired, and then were very interested in the code of "Yellow Silk Young Woman, Grandson And Mortar" and began to crack it. One of them cracked first, saying that the code meant "brilliant words." The first person to unlock the code was Yang Xiu, and the other one who was slightly slower was Cao Cao.
Yang Xiu explained it this way: Yellow silk is silk with color, that is, the word "absolute"; "young woman" is a young girl, that is, the word "wonderful"; the grandson is the son of a woman, that is the word "good"; "齑" is a mashed ginger garlic, and "齑 mortar" is a container for mashing ginger and garlic, which is, in the words of the time, it is "the instrument of receiving the xin", and the addition of "xin" next to "subject" is a different word for "word".
Presumably, everyone is already familiar with this good story, and there is no need to explain it. However, the combination of this story and the "Reading stele stone map" is still problematic. It is not that there is a problem with the story, but that there is a problem with the identity of the person in the painting. Although Cao Cao and Yang Xiu may have interpreted the Cao E Monument, or this legend was recognized by society, why did a Cao Cheng Xiang and Yang Xiu go to the Cao E Temple, why didn't they see a mighty procession? Although it is not a big ceremony, but you are the Eastern Han Dynasty Minister, there are still dozens of retinues. In the painting, there are two sparse people, a lonely old man, no king or minister pomp, feeling just a folk idle cloud wild crane, how can it be Cao Mengde who shocks the world? Moreover, where did Yang Xiu go? Besides, how could such an important figure as Cao Cao let him ride a donkey?
This is a big doubt. However, it is not to say that it cannot be explained. Because the style of Li Cheng's paintings is Xiao Ser's arrogance, cold and cold, even a hero of a generation like Cao Cao must follow his painting style and appear on the screen coldly, in fact, it can also show the high cold fan of Cao Cao's character. Whether Cao Cao rides a donkey or a horse is not up to the painter to decide.
From this point of view, it seems that cao cao is also true.
Monument to Fallen Tears? It seems to be more in line with Meng Haoran's language style
Monument to Fallen Tears
The idea that the donkey rider in the picture is Cao Cao was once popular; however, some art historians believe that the person riding the donkey is not Cao Cao, a historical and political figure, but a quiet otaku poet Meng Haoran of the Tang Dynasty.
Meng Haoran's reading of the stone tablets was also recorded, and he recorded it himself. Meng Haoran has a poetry cloud: "Personnel affairs have metabolism, and exchanges have become ancient and modern." The country and mountains have left a trace of victory, and my generation has returned to the landing. The water is shallow, and the cold dream is deep. The sheep monument is still there, and the reading is stained with tears. It is said that Meng Haoran climbed the Da Nang Mountain in Xiangyang one year, and in the middle of the Da Shan Mountains, there was a Yanghu Mountain, and there was a stone stele on the mountain, called the Yang Gong Monument, also known as the Fallen Tears Monument. When Meng Haoran went to play, it was exactly the autumn when the water level dropped and the weather began to turn cold, remembering how many heroes haojie had become the past in the past, and now when he saw the sheep monument standing on the mountain, he couldn't help but cry. What is a sheep monument and why do you shed tears when you see a stele? This inevitably mentions an important historical figure: Yang Hu.
Sheep
Yang Hu was a famous general in the Western Jin Dynasty, and by the way, Cai Wenji was his aunt. He lived at the end of the Three Kingdoms period, when the Shu state had already perished, leaving the Western Jin Dynasty and Eastern Wu in opposition, and Yang Hu led his troops on the Xiangyang front to confront the Eastern Wu land resistance. General Yang not only led the troops well, but also the level of governance was also leveraged, and Xiangyang was well managed, and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment. After the death of Yang Hu, the people erected a monument on the mountain to commemorate Yang Hu, known as the Yang Gong Monument, every time the people saw this monument, remembering the merits of Yang Hu's life, they could not help but shed tears, so it was also called the Fallen Tears Monument.
In fact, people in ancient China, especially cultural people, had a kind of mentality of erecting monuments, and Yang Hu himself also had this expectation. Once, when he was climbing a mountain, he suddenly said sadly, "Since there is a universe, there is this mountain, and there are wise and victorious people, and when he climbs here, he looks like me and the secretary of state, and all of them are annihilated and obscured, making people sad!" If you know a hundred years later, the soul should still climb this mountain", and others also erected this stone stele because of this wish of the sheep. It is not only the common people and Meng Haoran who come to see this stone stele and fall into tears, Chen Ziang also fell into tears, Li Bai also fell into tears, and falling tears is the correct opening mode of this stele.
Judging from the atmosphere and composition of the picture, it seems reasonable to interpret Meng Haoran, the sparse ancient trees, the scattered trees, the desolate ancient monuments, and the poignant atmosphere, which are more in line with the posture of falling tears. The two men viewed the monument, leng QingXiaosuo, and it was more in line with meng Haoran's identity as a landscape and pastoral poet.
In fact, if we jump out of the debate between Cao Cao and Meng Haoran, we may as well interpret this stone stele, this character, as all the stone steles and all the characters in the history of Chinese culture; ancient China has stone inscriptions everywhere, and there are characters everywhere who stop to watch this pattern of inscriptions.
Li Cheng, Wang Xiao, "Reading the Stone Diagram of the Stele" Forest Tree