Editor's note:
Fu Yiyao is the third daughter of Mr. Fu Baoshi, a famous Chinese painter in mainland China and the main founder of the "New Jinling School", and she spent her teenage years by her father's side, Mr. Fu Baoshi, and heard and witnessed or experienced Mr. Fu Baoshi's painting creation, family life and social activities in his later years. Recently, Zhuang Tianming, director of the Institute of Ancient Art of Nanjing Museum, and Zhao Qibin, art historian of Nanjing Museum, conducted a special interview with Fu Yiyao, asking her to recall Mr. Fu Baoshi's family life, Chinese painting creation, social travel, hobbies and other related issues, so as to show the unique artistic style of a generation of famous Chinese painters and show his unique and profound inner spiritual world. The content of this interview covers many aspects of Mr. Fu Baoshi's personal life and creation, and many specific cases and historical details are disclosed for the first time. Some of the highlights of the interview will be released one after another for the benefit of readers.
Comfortable and affectionate - Fu Baoshi's family life
Old photos of Fu Baoshi and his wife and their children
(Fu: Fu Yiyao Zhao: Zhao Qibin Zhuang: Zhuang Tianming)
The wind of talk
Fu: One of the strange things about our family is that we like to sit down and talk. I've been sitting next to my dad ever since I was sensible and can remember, and it's really hard to hear. My dad has a good point, he lets you sit next to the sofa and listen, and he won't drive you away, because all he talks about is literature, science, history and philosophy, and there is nothing that children can't listen to. If we have to talk about things that children can't listen to in our family, that is, not only the door is closed, but the lights are turned off, and at this time we talk about private matters at home, or about children's affairs. Especially my eldest brother, at that time, I only remember that it was late and late, my eldest brother and my parents were still sitting in the dark living room, and I saw my father still crying when he was talking. Usually there is absolutely no such topic, so I never want to drive you away, and I will often touch my head. Sometimes when he's sitting there painting, sitting next to him, he'll say you take this and wash it, you participate, and you're completely involved.
Fu: My dad is the two biggest topics of conversation at home. A topic with my son, so let's talk about the conflict between Eastern and Western cultures, my eldest brother and they all learn from the West. I spend most of my time around my dad at home, my dad's painting studio, sometimes my bedroom, and I follow my dad to see and listen to whatever he does.
Fu: My brother and they sat there, and my father kept talking. As long as my father is at home, there is not a day when he doesn't sit down to talk about dinner.
Zhao: This is ideological enlightenment and education, so that we can imperceptibly influence you in Chinese culture, knowledge, and behavior.
Fu boulders in different periods
Children's Education
Zhao: I definitely know a lot about things in your later years.
Fu: Many. I was by my dad's side from junior high school to high school. My mentality was not a simple father-love plot at first, and I felt that I would get a lot of education from my father. My dad once said, "If I didn't want you to go to school for the sake of character, I would be better at home than anything else", and he had an opinion on school education, and only went to give me a parent-teacher conference. Our homeroom teacher is very dissatisfied with me, the homeroom teacher is a bit of a little woman, and often talks about this and that behind her back, I don't like her very much. She takes her class, and I don't like her class, it's a physics class, and I often do small movements, read novels, and my teacher hates me to death. I finally waited for my dad to come and talk about me desperately, saying how I was not good and how bad, and how I didn't follow the rules in class. I watched my dad smoking there, smoking three cigarettes, and standing in the yard. Because my dad came to the parent-teacher conference, it was late, and after the teacher sent the other parents outside the gate, my dad came in, I remember winter, and brought a round hat with a top on it, as if I didn't see the photo, and wrapped a scarf, and didn't enter the house at all. The teacher stood at the door and talked to him for a long time, and then I hid behind the billboard to see what to do. I was scared, really scared, because my dad had never had a parent-teacher conference, and I didn't know what the little woman was going to say about me. After I came out, after the teacher separated from him, I quickly walked through the back door, grabbed my father, and said, "What did the teacher tell you?" In the end, she said that what she talked about was all trivial things, and there was nothing remarkable, and I was relieved. My dad was very angry, and he knew that I wasn't bad in principle, in being a human being, and that it wasn't bad to sneak into novels and stuff like that.
Wen Tianxiang Zhengqi Song Side Paragraph 1934
Zhao: When your father told you about Chinese painting, one was to ask you to study Chinese. He himself said, "Ascending to the heights is to be a scholar", let you all read a little literature, and then draw, and resolutely insist that you must enter the Chinese department.
Fu: I wanted to learn foreign languages, learn foreign languages to be translators, and wear suits, isn't it cute? My dad said, you're crazy, how can you use tools as knowledge.
Zhao: He has this kind of awareness.
Fu: He said, "Now I have to do a lot of homework for you, and you may not be able to learn Chinese well." If you learn some foreign languages, go outside and spell your knowledge of foreign languages with others, I don't care if you can spell it out or not, but I will never let you spell this."
Fu: My dad has a book called "The Biography of Heroes", and these stories are all stories that my dad keeps telling and telling. My dad's own paintings, he also took my hand to look at them. will talk about "Qu Yuan".
Qu Yuan's "Lisao" The full text has a total of 2765 words, 1928 or 1930
Zhao: Your father attaches great importance to your admission to the Chinese Department, and why didn't he bring up this when your two older brothers went to university, one at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the other at the Shandong Academy of Arts?
Fu: My eldest brother is the one who teaches the most around me. At home, my father is a preference for women over men, and to this extent, I think it's the same...... (laughs)
Zhao: Preference for women over men?
Fu: Hey, it's absolutely feminine over male. The so-called light man means that he is too strict with his son, and he is absolutely strict with his father. So once the eldest brother came back and said how the family rebelled. My dad sat there, and we girls sat there and read novels with our legs crossed. My brother and they all had to stand first when they came in, and my father said they would sit only when they came in. The rules of the son in the family are very heavy, and we have no rules at all. My brother was shocked, and it was obvious that my father was very strict with them.
Fu Baoshi's family took a group photo at the foot of the Jingang Slope in Chongqing, about 1941-42
Fu: My dad said that "going to college is a train", and this topic is very interesting. Take the train, even if you can't buy a ticket, buy a third-class ticket, even if you are standing, you can still get to the destination. It means that as long as you enter the university, as long as you study hard, and graduate in the future, you will be able to achieve results.
Zhao: Did he ever beat someone?
Fu: I'm probably the only one who will be beaten. Once, when I was in the first grade of middle school, I had a party with my uncle of the People's Liberation Army in a military club. The PLA uncle liked us girls very much, and after the party, he took us to eat. At that time, only the PLA uncle had something to eat in the canteen. Then when I got home, I walked back again, walked back and played outside, from the current Shanxi Road to my house, it was going to walk for an hour, to Fu Hougang. When I got home, it was past 9 o'clock in the evening, and my family was in a hurry. My dad was a man who loved his children so much that he was so anxious that he called the police. When I happily knocked on the door and came back, my father was so angry that he said, "You kneel down for me, you kneel down for me", forcing me to kneel down and kneel on the ground. Then he brought a big kitchen knife from the kitchen, and he untied the cow's knife and said, "I'm going to cut you to death, I'm going to kill you," and so on for a long time. My mom hit me on the head next to me and said, "You cry, you cry", my mom has never seen my dad so fierce and so angry. Let's just say that you cry quickly, and after crying, he will just soften. I didn't cry, so my dad liked me so much that he didn't cry when he cut her — "Of course not." Then he left, saying he was mad at me. When he saw that I was safe, he was relieved and left.
Comfortable and affectionate
Fu: My mother is also a very humorous person, she said, "You are really amazing, you are too old." Dad said, "Why do you suddenly praise me like this, saying that I am Taishi Gong, Sima Qian?" Mom said, "Aren't you writing 'Historical Records' every day?" Because my eldest sister eats every day, how much she eats, what time she eats, and what time she urinates, all of them are my father's notes, which shows his love for licking calves. My mother sarcastically said that he was like Taishi Gong and became Sima Qian. My dad thought she really complimented him on how well he wrote, which was quite interesting. It shows that everyone's father is different.
Zhao: If you don't talk about your life experience and don't write about it, people won't pay attention to it. Recording your father through this kind of video recording is more real and flesh-and-blood, and there must be a reason why he can establish such a cultural peak. If a person who doesn't even love his family, as is the case now, and the divorce rate is so high, it is impossible to create a classic of the times.
Fu Baoshi painting in the 60s of the twentieth century
Zhao: Your father's expressions, movements, creative process, how to lick the ink and how to move the pen have entered your brain, become a potential memory, and have become a kind of demonstration process for teachers to teach students.
Fu: One of the big reasons why my dad doesn't take students is that "many people will probably say that he doesn't have compassion." I told you that he didn't scold me at all when he held a parent-teacher conference. When he came back, he told me another sentence, saying, "Don't compare with the left and right, even if you fight to the first, and the first among more than 50 people." is the first in the whole school, but there are only 2,000 people competing for the first place. You have to compare with the top and bottom, and the top and bottom ratio is up and down for thousands of years, and you can compare it. Many parents say that even 50 people can't be compared, can they be compared to the ages?" My dad's wisdom is in this place, he must tell you that it is difficult to get in and easy to get out, it is difficult to get in through the ages, but it is actually easy to get out. Why, I don't want to compare with the one next to me, I will compare with the eternals, and my psychology has relaxed a lot all of a sudden. What he meant was that compared to the surroundings, in fact, your realm has been very low, and the realm is very low, that is, the first among fifty or one hundred people. So what is your first one, it's only fifty, a hundred. So he said, "Don't look at the left and right, don't look at the left and right, but look at the ages, up and down the ages." Therefore, even if it is the first in the contemporary era, it is not as good as the previous generation, the previous generation is not as good as the previous generation, and the previous generation is not as good as the ancient. Every day we have to improve ourselves and elevate ourselves." Therefore, he said, one of the big reasons why teaching students not to give students textbooks is not to look too much at those sloppy pen and ink. My father always said, "Sheng Xue is not a first-rate violinist, he is a first-class teacher". Why? He was able to produce first-rate violinists. So, each has its own mission.
Mr. and Mrs. Fu Baoshi took a group photo in Nanjing, about the end of the 50s of the 20th century
Zhao: Mr. Fu and your mother's relationship between husband and wife, you think it is very touching to talk to us.
Fu: For us, the two of them are the relationship between parents, and when you talk about the relationship between husband and wife, it is actually a very important thing. The relationship between husband and wife is like a dish, it looks like a dish, and it tastes completely different, the taste of this house, the taste of that house, the good taste, the bad taste. I think my parents gave me the impression that it was a very layered taste, it might be sweet on the table, a little spicy on the inside, and a little salty on the inside, but it was always changing.
The first biggest taste is what, my father and mother are very humorous, very happy, and very happy in their bones. I remember that my parents always talked about some of the earliest things, that is, before he got married, how to tease the teacher, how to .......
After my father got married, one day when he came back from outside, the servant said to him, "A Mr. Wang has come to look for you, and I have been waiting for you for a long time." My dad said, "Is there a name?" and he said, "No, no, I'm waiting for you in the house." My dad said, "I haven't heard of any kind of people." It was said in the past that if you want to visit people officially, you have to have some explanations, and when you go in and take a look, the room is dark, and there is no light. He just stood there, and then he said, "Hello, hello, Mr. Wang, I don't know where I met Mr. Wang." After talking for a long time, my mother burst out laughing. My mother put on makeup, put on a beard, wore a little melon skin hat, and put on the makeup of Mr. Wang, and deceived my father. There's no big prank to tell, just to see how serious my dad is about a guest he doesn't see through at all, so this story is often told in our house. Later I remembered that there was another picture of my eldest brother and my mother together, and my eldest brother was laughing, and my mother also drew a mustache here, probably talking about it.
My mom and my dad are eight years apart, and she's my dad's student, and most of all my mom is a very, very self-reliant person, and my mom is a very caring person, although she doesn't want to, but in fact she gives everything for the family. So I remember that there was a picture of my father in Chongqing, painting a beautiful woman, this long story said that my mother entered Shu for eight years, suffered hardships that she did not endure, did difficult things that she did not do, and finally arranged our family, I am really grateful to her, I have never expressed it to her, so I made this painting today to give my mother a life. Maybe it started at that time, every year when it was my mother's birthday, my father was sure to work, one was to draw a picture for my mother at night, and the second was to make a birthday for my mother, and my father himself never did a birthday. My dad never does shou, maybe a little superstitious, my dad doesn't like shou. But it was very grand to celebrate my mother's birthday, and I used to have to go to the "big three yuan" (restaurant) to treat me, and I had to go to the Nanjing Hotel to treat me. My dad is a man of the older generation who has a true affection, which has a great impact on our family, and the respect for my mother has always been legal.
Fu: Although my father is very good to my mother theoretically and emotionally, he is still very generous in practical life, eating three meals a day.
Zhao: It's casual?
Fu: Not casually. If it doesn't taste good, my dad will get angry and say, "Why do you spend oil and salt on light soup?" And my dad has tastes, he has his own preferences, the first one can't be salty, it must be light, very light. My mom was just going to eat salty. That's why my dad used to say that braised pork was also dipped in soy sauce, saying that my mom's taste was not quite the same. Also, my dad loved to entertain. It doesn't matter who it is, no matter who it is, the students are coming, the colleagues are coming, the friends are coming, no matter who comes, they all eat at home, "come and sit, come and sit", and then let the mother add a dish. In the past, you may not have counted, unlike now you can buy things wherever you go, at that time, if you don't buy the vegetables in the morning, there will be no vegetables at all at night, and how to add a dish. So my mom had to rack her brains. My mom would have a lot of grievances, but it never made my dad feel dissatisfied.
Fu: Wu Linsheng often comes, and we have dinner in the morning and evening, and he happens to meet him, sit down, add a cup and a bowl, that's all. So these things I think my mom and my dad are very competitive, one is very dedicated, and my mom is absolutely dedicated. My mom always said, "I don't have myself in my life." But on the other hand, my mom is very proud of my dad, which is the pride of her heart. When it comes to bouldering, that sense of inner fulfillment may not be experienced by people now. Now people often have their husbands promoted, and they are very proud and boast to others.
Fu Baoshi, Zhao Qingge, 1945
Fu: My dad and my mom have a very interesting daily life. My mom said that their quarrel was indeed a quarrel, and that after the argument was over, both of them would eventually find something remarkable about the other that he hadn't discovered. Dad, you're amazing, you can do this. And then my dad will regret it, mom you are so right. This is called mutual discovery, there is always new discovery, and quarreling is an old thing. My dad would never admit his mistakes when he drank, and my mom would always catch his handles, but it always ended with discovering something new, which was so interesting. And my mother said that there was a telephone pole in front of me, didn't there be a retrospective monument before, I forgot which allusion, that pillar is my father's retrospective monument, retrospective pillar. Every time he quarreled, he was so angry that he rushed out, but when he walked to that pillar, which was less than twenty meters away, he would definitely look back when he walked there. It's me who says it's wrong, it's me who is wrong, and I'll wake up soon. When I rushed out, I ignored no one, as if I would never come back, but when I walked to the pillar, I came back, and it was my father's looking back pillar.
Photo taken in 1962 when Fu Baoshi was recuperating in Hangzhou
In 1962, Fu Baoshi painted in Hangzhou, with Guo Moruo sitting on the right and Guo Liqun as Mrs. Guo and Yu Liqun
Zhao: You have also talked about this in your book, and you have also talked about this in other books, and Mrs. Luo laughed at herself, saying that she was Mr. Fu's "ink woman", and you can tell us the allusion here.
Fu: That's right. You know that the original ink has to be ground with an inkstone, which is too difficult to study. The inkstone is very fine, but very, very slow. My dad didn't have any ink after half of it, so he had to sharpen it. I remember when my mom grinded, the water was all watery, and there was so much water in this teacup. And the grinding disc of Duanyan is so big, just grind and grind, and it can't be sharpened fast, and the ink particles will be coarse and polish the corners, so we call her "ink grinding woman".
Fu Bouldering Mountain on the Vagina in 1947
Zhao: When she sharpens her ink, is it when he is drawing?
Fu: Well, when I'm painting. Tomorrow I have to paint a big painting, and I have to grind a lot of ink today, and I have to grind it until late at night. At that time, there was no TV, so it was impossible to watch TV for entertainment, so my father chatted with her, chatting while grinding ink.
Zhao: After your father died, did your mother still talk to you about him often?
Fu: Of course, it's very important to talk about Dad. It's not a topic either, but it's an important thing. Sometimes I drink two sips of wine. My mother doesn't drink white wine, she drinks rice wine. Drink a little bit of rice wine, and later drink beer, just drink a little bit. will immediately twitch, and then scold, "This bouldering, these are your children and I don't want, they are all left by you." At first, it was scolding, and slowly I began to miss it, and then there were a lot of great good words from my father. So there are several topics that my mother started with scolding, and then they were all full of praise.
Fu Baoshi, Mountain Ghost, Collection of Nanjing Museum, 1946
Zhao: She held up your family.
Fu: This is the idea of the little people, and the big people will do it at this time, and they will never think about it too much, and they will not think about it if they think too much.
Zhao: That's not the case in many families.
Fu: That's right, this is the little person. My dad said before that some families are too pampered and protective of their children. Dad said, "Children and grandchildren have their own lives." If you don't teach him well, if you don't have a good life for yourself, don't talk about blessings for him, you will already give him a disaster, and you have to think about your own situation."
Fu: You said that my mother has to think about it, how worried she is. Alcohol to kill sorrow or suicide, but my mother was a hero all her life.
Zhao: She survived.
Fu: That's right. It's not like it's survived!
(Text collation: Zhao Qibin, Wang Jinjian, Huang Shengzhi, Yu Qifei, Wang Jinqiang, Chen Changlong, Zhao Yilong, Huang Yalan, Camera: Wang Jinjian, Huang Shengzhi, Photography: Zhao Liandong)