In the history of Chinese painting, there are several pairs of "father and son" that are particularly eye-catching, such as Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao father and son of the Tang Dynasty, Huang Quan and Huang Juyu father and son of the five generations, Mi Fu and Mi Youren father and son of the Northern Song Dynasty, and Ma Yuan and Ma Lin father and son of the Southern Song Dynasty. In a traditional Chinese society where a son inherits his father's business, if the father has achieved special achievements in a certain field, it is often easier for the son to achieve a certain degree of influence in this field. Some fathers, in order to promote their sons, even inscribe their sons' notes on their own works. It is said that the most successful in this regard are Ma Yuan, Ma Lin's father and son.
"Candlelight Night Tour" Southern Song Dynasty Ma Lin
Ma Yuan's achievements needless to say, ma Yuan, one of the four schools of landscape and water in the Southern Song Dynasty, made a special contribution to the development of Chinese painting. Although his son Ma Lin was not as far as Ma Yuan in terms of overall achievements, he also created a unique southern Song Dynasty elegance. Ma Lin's painting style is beautiful and beautiful, and his works often give people a strong poetic feeling. This style of painting was deeply loved by the emperors and empresses of the dynasty.
"Dark Incense Shadow Map" Southern Song Dynasty Ma Lin
The reason why Ma Lin's paintings can have a power to touch people's hearts, in addition to the style of painting in line with the aesthetic taste of the court, there is also an important reason, that is, his paintings often trigger the viewer's contemplation of beauty. One of his masterpieces, "Candlelight Night Tour", is such a masterpiece that can make people read more deeply in the picture.
"Candlelight Night Tour", color on silk, 24.8 cm x 25.2 cm, now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This is a typical work representing the beauty and elegance of the Southern Song Dynasty. The picture depicts a nobleman admiring the flowers at nightfall.
The most striking thing in the picture is the hexagonal pavilion on the left. This building is called the "Illumination Pavilion". The pavilion is flanked by a long corridor, and the entire corridor is connected to each other. In the court, such an architectural design, a very important purpose is to provide the nobles in the palace with a place where they can stroll idly in the palace garden and enjoy the beautiful scenery regardless of the rain or shine. The lines at the upper end of the straight promenade appear round and powerful, dividing the picture into two spaces. The space above is dominated by the night sky, and the space below is dominated by the view of the palace garden.
The upper and lower spaces are virtual and real, scattered and tight, and although the picture is small, the inner rhythm has not diminished in the slightest. From top to bottom, the pavilion in the middle serves the purpose of taking up and down, and gradually descends from the tip of the pavilion to an incomparably concrete palace garden.
In order to set off the night weather, the mountains in the distant view are lightly dyed with color to lightly dye the basic outline of the mountain. In the Southern Song Dynasty, this kind of poetic dyeing pen was very popular with the court nobles. It naturally expresses a sense of beauty and poetry born of the virtual reality of space. In addition to the clear outline, the entire mountain is immersed in the night mist.
Inside the palace garden, the white-clad man sitting in the dressing booth is most likely Song Lizong. I saw him sitting on the chair slightly lazily, his left leg crossed on the chair, his hands on his knees. This posture is a very relaxed posture. When people face such a beautiful scenery, their mood is more or less happy and relaxed. There should be attendants on either side of him, but only two attendants on his right side can be seen in the picture.
"Cascading Ice Silk Map" Southern Song Dynasty Ma Lin
Come out of the dressing booth and go down the steps, which have a candlestick on each side. On the right side of the picture stands a waiter next to the candlestick. A total of eight such candlesticks appear in the courtyard, arranged on both sides. In an era without electric lights, under the cover of night, the courtyard is full of flowers, and the candlelight is particularly elegant. This kind of beauty is difficult for people to experience today. Candlelight provides a faint light, but it does not make everything around them look too bright and clear. In the midst of both truth and illusion, man is more able to perceive the reality of the external world.
In the moonlight and candlelight, the begonia flowers in the garden bloom brilliantly. The leaves and flowers dyed from the peak points in the round pen appear to be layered in the change of ink color. Pink begonia flowers shine like pink stars among the leaves of begonia trees of varying shades. The begonia tree on the right side of the painting is shrouded in a mist of incense. This incense mist seems to emanate from the picture and enter the nose of the viewer.
"Quietly Listening to the Pine Wind Map" Southern Song Dynasty Ma Lin
There is a very special subject in the landscape paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty, that is, the beautiful scenery in the palace garden. Since the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty, due to its beautiful location in Hangzhou, the quiet and elegant hills and rivers have become the love of the nobles for a time. Painters often show the scenery inside the walls of the courtyard, and I think this may have something to do with the psychology of society as a whole. The Southern Song Dynasty regime in a quiet corner, from a certain point of view, is a regime within the courtyard wall. The emperor and the nobles in the palace were happy to travel in the palace garden. Gongyuan Yanyou also seemed to have a dark and avoidant mentality.
"Orange Green Map" Southern Song Dynasty Ma Lin
However, the scenery of the palace garden has never been able to compare with the eternal universe. Even if the begonia flower scene under the night is so brilliant and moving at this moment, it is still short-lived and fleeting. This kind of painting may be able to read a little clue from a poem by Su Shi "Begonia" represented in this work.
"Loutai Night Moon Map" Southern Song Dynasty Ma Lin
This painting by Ma Lin is closely related to a poem by Su Shi. In 1084, Su Shi had lived in Huangzhou for five years. This year, he faced the begonia flowers at night and wrote a poem "Begonia":
The east wind is full of sogo, and the incense mist is empty of the moon corridor.
I was afraid of going to sleep late at night, so I burned a high candle to illuminate the red makeup.
The spring breeze is warm and enchanting, and it lingers in the courtyard like visible smoke. The aroma of begonia flowers in the courtyard blends with the night fog in the night, enveloping the promenade under the night light. As the moonlight gradually turned across the corridor, the night was obviously already very deep. At this moment, people are immersed in the dream of spring. But Su Shi did not want to go to sleep, he was afraid of going to sleep in the middle of the night. At this time, the moonlight can no longer illuminate the begonia flowers, in order to be able to see these moving begonia flowers, Su Shi lit a candlestick and strolled in the sea of begonia flowers, in the candlelight, it is full of red makeup.
According to Su Shi's artistic conception, Ma Lin painted this "Candlelight Night Tour". The term "candle night tour" first came from a sentence in the "Nineteen Ancient Poems": "The day is short and the night is long, why not swim with candles". The bitter night is long, and the bitter night here is both the night of the heavens and the bitter night of life. Candlelight travel is to find a little light in the long bitter night, so that the bitter night of life is more than desolate and cold.
Su Shi, who lived in Huangzhou for five years, probably had a deep understanding of the "bitter night". What he can do is to accompany the begonias in the bitter night, use the faint candlelight in his hand to illuminate the bitter night, and find beauty in the bitter night. Since the begonias are still at this moment, and there are burning candles in their hands, why not take advantage of this candle to swim in the night, experience the rare happiness in the short life, and enjoy the short beauty in the long life and the bitter night.
Time passes easily, like the moonlight, and it does not always shine on the begonias in the garden. Inadvertently, the moonlight will turn across the corridor and leave the darkness of the garden. The night tour with candles is to transcend the passing of time, replace the moonlight with the candlelight of the heart, and retain the empty incense mist and the red makeup of the courtyard in the night. What a pleasure, how elegant, how poetic. As a court painter, Ma Lin probably also retained a kind of eternity through this work. For the viewer, or for the person in the painting, what is obtained is a kind of satisfaction of life.
"Ta Ge Tu" axis Southern Song Dynasty Ma Yuan
If we look at the Southern Song Dynasty from this perspective, it is also not interesting. For the emperor, day and night may be two life experiences. During the day, we were faced with troubles inside and outside the hall, but at night, all the troubles seemed to be hidden in the incense mist. As an imperial monarch in a quiet corner, he did not long for the beauty of this moment that belonged to him alone. He was tense during the day, and only now could he relax so much.
In the face of this fleeting beauty, Ma Lin's work may also be telling the world that life is short, but there are still beautiful things in the short life, and when these beautiful things appear in our lives, even if it is a moment, please do not live up to this beautiful time. To swim in the middle of a bitter night with a candle is to be kind to life.