In his old age, he started a business, guarding nearly 10,000 paintings but resolutely not selling, and wanted to build a Silk Road Art Museum that could be open to the public.
Since 1975, Geng Yukun and his wife Zhao Yixiong have embarked on the "Silk Road" more than 20 times in nearly 40 years to sketch, investigate and create. They traveled to 8 countries and 238 cities, traveled more than 500,000 kilometers, wrote more than 8 million words of notes, and collected and copied more than 1,000 Gaochang murals that were lost abroad. "Our greatest wish is to show nearly 10,000 works to everyone. Our original work is not for sale, this is my wife's will, and it is also my future will. ”
It is reported that Zhao Yixiong's oil painting "Over the Snow Mountain" was collected by the Chinese History Museum, and in 1975, when he first set foot on the hot land of Xinjiang, he felt that the colors, sounds, nature and history of Xinjiang made him suddenly feel that he had come to another world. Three years later, the couple took a more than 80-hour train ride to Xinjiang with their sketchpads on their shoulders. Later, Geng Yukun and Zhao Yixiong bought a jeep with frugality and completed the whole line of investigation from Chang'an as the center to Kyoto, Nara, Japan, and west to Istanbul, Turkey. Regarding the couple's feat, Mr. Wu Guanzhong said: "They are crawling in the dirt to find the footprints of their predecessors, and listening to the voices of their predecessors in the wind and quicksand. ”
The intoxicating exotic scenery on the road is dizzying, but a life confidant like Chang Shuhong makes the couple more and more fascinated by the Silk Road. On Chinese New Year's Eve in 1979, Geng Yuwang Xin and Zhao Yixiong hurried to the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and met Chang Shuhong, director of the Dunhuang Cultural Relics Research Institute and known as the "guardian saint of Dunhuang". Zhao Yixiong later said that the spring of that year began on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve. What made Zhao Yixiong and Geng Yukun even more pleasantly surprised was that Chang Shuhong took out the key to the Mogao Grottoes and promised them to enter the cave. In their diary, the couple wrote: "When the doors of the cave were opened for us one by one, we fell into the treasure house of art. The varied lines, the magnificent colors, and the unpredictable charm are all part of our souls. ”
On the long Silk Road, Zhao Yixiong and Geng Yukun's enthusiasm and dedication to the Silk Road are moving. Like the ancient wandering monks, they explore our national treasure art in the way of "bottle and bowl". Although his home is Beijing, his soul is on the Silk Road, which is the so-called soul haunting his dreams. （4.17）