In the forty-fourth year of Jiajing (1565), Xu Wei, who had passed the age of no doubt, decided to end his life. He wrote "Self-Epitaph", which briefly summarized his knowledge and family background in the first half of his life.
After that, he tried his best to commit suicide: he split his head with an axe, pierced his ears with nails, and hit his kidney sac with his vertebrae, and he didn't die several times, but it became a precursor to a series of tragic events after that.
The world thought he was crazy, but the onset of his "madness" was not for no reason.
At that time, the Ming Dynasty, with its outdated thinking and strict precepts, had already declined. Scholars like Xu Wei who are arrogant and unruly have been completely marginalized by society. In his later years, Xu Wei compiled his personal autobiography "Deformity", which showed almost the trajectory of his life.
In the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521), Xu Wei was born into a declining family in Shanyin, Zhejiang. His father died early and his biological mother was expelled, Xu Wei grew up under the fence and followed his brother and sister-in-law. He was gifted and intelligent, he entered the school at the age of 6, surprised his teachers at the age of 9, and was admitted to Xiucai at the age of 20.
Everything seemed to be going well, but fate didn't seem to favor him. He held the ambition in his chest and excelled in talent, and repeatedly sent an impact to the scientific examination, but he never failed in the 8 township examinations. In order to make a living, he left his hometown and came to Taicang, Jiangsu, but he still didn't know the essentials and could only return in vain.
Finally, the opportunity came. In the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing (1558), Hu Zongxian, the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian, wanted to sacrifice the white deer, and Xu Wei, as his staff, wrote the above table, which was greatly appreciated by Ming Shizong and became famous for a while.
What's even more commendable is that unlike those literati who can only dance and write, Xu Wei is also proficient in the art of war and has a strategy that spans thousands of armies. During the 10 years when the coastal plague was raging, he repeatedly offered miraculous tricks and helped Hu Zongxian defeat the Japanese and capture the Japanese leaders many times, making great contributions.
However, the creation of people, and the sword and pen endowment of Master Shaoxing did not bring more good luck to Xu Wei. In the forty-fourth year of Jiajing (1565), Kanhu Zongxian was imprisoned, and Xu Wei was also implicated. is not only a hero, but also unwilling to be low-powered, and the matter of being someone else's staff is also stranded.
Not long after, the news of Hu Zongxian's death in prison came. Seeing that the success of the secular path and the ideals of the world's application were all in vain, Xu Wei's spirit took a sharp turn for the worse. In a state of confusion, he not only attempted suicide one after another, but also "threw off" his stepwife Zhang, and was imprisoned for 7 years.
But life is so paradoxical. Unexpectedly, although Xu Wei's reputation in prison was ruined in the first half of his life, it also started the second half of his artistic career, where he annotated Taoist classics, sorted out poems, and often studied calligraphy and painting.
In the first year of Wanli (1573), Mingshenzong succeeded to the throne and granted amnesty to the world. Xu Wei, who has spent six years in prison and has reached the age of 53, has finally been able to see the light of day again and walk to the other side of his destiny.
After being released from prison, Xu Wei began to paint ivy like crazy. For example, Baoyu is to the stubborn stone under the Qinggang Peak, Daiyu is to the Zhuzhu grass on the side of the Sansheng Stone, Xu Wei and Qingteng have long been each other's inside and outside. This deciduous entanglement of the vine has almost become a mirror image of his life.
Xu Wei's "Seventy Small Statues of Taoist Priests with the Inscription of Qingteng" in his later years describes the intertextuality of his life with Qingteng: "I planted Qingteng at the age of ten, I am now a rare year, I write a picture of longevity and longevity, and he is an ancient immortal vine." ”
On the one hand, in Xu Wei's eyes, Qingteng's strong vitality is the spiritual map of his struggle against the world of rivers and sunsets; On the other hand, the old and withered connotation of "vine" also bears his life experience of "lonely fireflies stop gray and cold, and ancient trees and thousands of vines write and drag".
Therefore, Qingteng has become Xu Wei's root and Xu Wei's soul. Xu Wei planted the green vine, and the green vine nourished his life. In the late Ming Dynasty, when the party was in turmoil, the nature could not be released, and the twisted and coiled green vines just reflected Xu Wei's entangled, fearful, and longing for freedom but unable to free himself.
In the third year of Wanli (1575), Xu Wei was invited by Zhang Yuanchen to compile the "Huiji County Chronicles", which lasted four months. Later, he traveled to many places to work as a staff member for his friends, and finally returned to Shaoxing Shanyin after several times due to his advanced age and relapse of illness.
At that time, Xu Wei was already calm in the face of all kinds of visions. This genius, who has been abandoned by both society and life, is no longer resentful; The vigor and ambition of his youth gradually dissipated with his understanding of the state of the world.
He is still a drinker and often writes hearty freehand ink. When he is invited to a banquet by a powerful person and asks for a painting with a lot of money, he will close the door and avoid seeing the guests. But when the interest came up, the neighbors, relatives and friends protégés could exchange a handful of vegetables and a pot of wine for him to splash ink. He once laughed at himself for "counting plum blossoms for Mion". Presumably, he has relieved himself of his burden and found his most stretched posture of life.
"Ink Grape Picture" is Xu Wei's masterpiece. According to research, Xu Wei was already at the age of knowing the destiny of heaven when he painted this painting. One day, he mourned in his heart, picked up the brush to complete this masterpiece in one go, and inscribed on the painting: "Half a life has become a man, and the independent study is howling in the evening breeze." The pearl at the bottom of the pen has nowhere to sell, and it is thrown into the wild vines. ”
In the painting, the branches and leaves are not luxuriant, the grapes seem to be falling apart, and the brush and ink are scattered at random, which is quite like the mud and sand are burning.
The composition is also very out-of-the-box, neither balanced nor secure. The branches of the grapes are inserted into the picture, as if they have no origin and no whereabouts. The inscription is also strange and barbaric, and there is no scruple and care between the words and between the text and the pictures.
This strange work implies the freedom and freedom of Xu Wei's life. He frees himself from the cage of truth-seeking, and the form of all things is no longer controlled by the form, but is subordinated to the catharsis and flow of emotions.
Xu Wei harnessed an introverted and arrogant spirit, dodging the redundant choreography and deliberate creation on the paper, and galloping all the way. He also doesn't bother to build grand backgrounds – his backdrops are lonely emptiness.
He just threw a bunch of grapes, a handful of vine grass, and a few banana leaves into the open space, and let them branch out and grow savagely—he broke into a new world with ink in the posture of a raging destroyer.
In that world, the barriers between all things disappear, and the natural creation, the clear light of the mountains and forests, and the subtlety of nature are all transformed into the pen. As a result, pen and ink are no longer the tools of the elephants, but in the repressive social rules, they have achieved a conscious breakthrough. Intentionally or unintentionally, he lifted the ink and constructed a generalized landscape that exiles all things and accommodates all things.
Of course, Xu Wei's genius is not only reflected in painting.
Together with Xie Jin and Yang Shen, he once boasted of being the "Three Talents of the Ming Dynasty": "My book is the first, the poem is second, the text is second, and the painting is second." Regardless of whether his personal order is appropriate or not, his good piano skills, tonal rhythm, knowledge of scriptures and Taoism, poetry, drama, calligraphy and painting all have unique achievements, which are obvious to all.
Xu Wei's cursive writing is full of paper and treachery, completing the creative subversion of the penmanship of the Jin and Tang dynasties; The Narrative of Southern Opera, China's first theoretical monograph on Southern Opera, is unique and insightful.
The miscellaneous drama "Four Apes", which was rated as "the flying general of the word world" by Tang Xianzu, is known as "the first Ming opera", which has a far-reaching impact on the creation of opera in the late Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty.
However, as a sick genius, Xu Wei has a strange imagination that is thousands of miles away on the one hand, and on the other hand, he is "guessing and jealous" for others.
He has a very lofty and distant air in his chest, but he also has the disadvantages of perverse paranoia and narrow energy. Therefore, this contradictory person, in the ups and downs of life, finally gradually lost from the strength of his life.
Xu Wei's evening scene is very bleak, he lives in his hometown, isolated from the world, and his health is deteriorating. He had no property in his life, and his money was scattered. I couldn't even paint, so I began to sell my property to make ends meet.
Soon, the thousands of books stored in the family were also sold out by him, and only the tattered tents were left in the residence, and in the end he could only "linger in the stomach under the hungry moon".
Perhaps because he felt that his end was approaching, Xu Wei wrote "Deformity" before he died, telling a life of hardship. The word "deformity" shows his judgment on his life.
In the twenty-first year of Wanli (1593), 73-year-old Xu Wei completed a lifelong cliff dance and left the world in the miserable wind and rain. When he died, there was only a bed of broken wool and a few fragments of manuscripts left around his body. The faithful domestic dog under the Qingteng Gate witnessed the last days of its owner's life.
It is worth noting that the place where Xu Wei was buried is only a few miles away from the Lan Pavilion where Wang Xizhi gathered.
Presumably, the scholars and ghosts who have long been transformed into the green mountains and flowing springs and the wild paths will often sing and drink in the lofty mountains and mountains of Lanting, the lush forests and bamboos. Otherwise, where else can we find the most dissolute and unbridled spiritual atmosphere of Chinese art?