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Planning | Zhang Fei
Moderator/Subtitle | Cai Shiying
Shoot | Lin Min'er Tang Wangxin
Editing/Copywriting | Tang Wangxin
In the multitude of things, beautiful things can always stimulate people's hearts. What is beauty? How aesthetic? As a writer who has been engaged in folk collection for decades and has created several collecting works such as "Ancestral Memory" and "Appreciation of Snuff Bottle Collection", Yang Yongnian has a lot of experience to talk about. A few days ago, at his home in Shenzhen, Yang Yongnian was interviewed by a reporter from Hong Kong Wenhui Network. He described his writing of poetry and collection as a pursuit and capture of beauty, a process of cultivating human nature.
Yang Yongnian. (Courtesy of the interviewee)
01
Journalists experience the cultivation of aesthetic experience
Born in 1943 in Fuling, Chongqing, Yang Yongnian was hired by Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po as a special correspondent for the southwest region in 1985. In his position as a journalist, he not only traveled north and south to report many major news, but also met strange treasures around the world. "Being a journalist has an advantage, I know more people, I see more things, and I can find a teacher." He recalled an interview about the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway and became acquainted with xu Zhantang, an investor and Hong Kong businessman. Xu Zhantang was the earliest Hong Kong businessman to invest in the southwest, and Yang Yongnian wrote news about the southwest region for many years, and the two have since intersected. Xu Zhantang is a well-known expert in cultural relics collection and appreciation, and has invested in the construction of eight art galleries named after him in museums and universities around the world. At that time, there was the Tsui Art Gallery at the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.
Yang Yongnian recalled that in the process of fellowship, the two found that they had a hobby of collecting, and when Yang Yongnian came to Hong Kong, Xu Zhantang took him to visit the Xu Art Museum and tour Moro Street together to find treasures. For Yang Yongnian, this experience is a process of a lot of watching, communicating and learning, which is of great significance to his collection path. "Mr. Xu has given me a lot of guidance and encouragement from the aspect of knowledge and action of collection. Under his leadership and influence, I have achieved a little success, and I should thank him." Yang Yongnian said.
Xu Zhantang and Yang Yongnian on Moro Street. (Courtesy of the interviewee)
Fellowship with people is the opportunity of the "present", and acquaintance with things is the gaze of the "ancient past". For decades, Yang Yongnian has traveled to many places because of official interviews and private contacts. He described the museum as the first place to go everywhere I went, "I went to my daughter, I told her, you take me to the museum, and then you go to do something else, I'll see it myself." 」 He told reporters that aesthetic experience needs to start with aesthetic experience, "to constantly improve your historical, cultural and literary foundation." The more this happens, the more confident you will be when judging and identifying something."
"Knowledge is equivalent to the blood in the body, and a variety of nutrients can be combined to establish a nutritional system." Yang Yongnian loves books, the furnishings in the home are simple, only the collection and books are listed, and it can be an afternoon when you flip it.
02
Folk collections enter from goodness
In the course of the conversation, Yang Yongnian emphasized the most on folk collections. He joked that his standard of collection is that "what is worth collecting is not necessarily beautiful, but beauty must be worth collecting." Yang Yongnian believes that the focus of the museum's collection is "true", field archaeology, and inheritance and preservation of cultural relics from generation to generation, "The emperor's daughter is lost, you find it for me, no matter her tall, short, beautiful and ugly, as long as there is royal blood flowing in her veins, I will find it out." The starting point of folk collection is "goodness". The so-called "goodness" is to first see whether you like it or not, and whether you think it is beautiful or not. Discover the "beauty" of this object from the perspective of "goodness" and finally examine its "truth". "This is how to complete a process of aesthetic experience and accumulation," Yang Yongnian said. As for the similarities and differences between museum collections and folk collections, he believes that the two cannot be abandoned, and the display of museums and the accumulation of folk collections, although the paths are different, are both activation and display of beauty."
Yang Yongnian collection Song Dynasty Ru kiln azure glaze three-legged disc. (Photo by Tang Wangxin)
In 2012, yang Yongnian was nominated by the China Guangcai Career Development Promotion Association and reviewed by the Central Propaganda Department, and Awarded Yang Yongnian the title of 2012 "Role Model" Person of the Year. He believes that from the perspective of the collecting community, this is the importance that the state attaches to private collections. "Now I feel that the country has increased our cultural self-confidence in the future and paid more and more attention to private collections. From the perspective of the whole country, it is important to talk about archaeology. The Politburo Standing Committee all met to study and also mentioned social archaeology." "Social archaeology includes our folk collections." Yang Yongnian said that as a private collector, he should make greater contributions under this excellent situation.
03
Tell the story of the dragon's descendants
In recent years, Yang Yongnian has held a series of lectures on "Collection + Workshop" in Shenzhen, sharing his collection experience with others, not only teaching, but also guiding everyone to discuss and research together. He used to tell his audience that you have to have this kind of confidence, and if you don't understand, you will seriously say, "I'm sorry, I don't understand this." Maybe in two months, when I learn, we'll communicate with each other." For himself, he also made such a request, "You say I am good, say I am not good, I have absorbed, for my use", Yang Yongnian believes that this has a positive effect on establishing cultural self-confidence, and can well inherit and carry forward the profound Chinese culture.
Talking about the future, Yang Yongnian said that he wants to do an exhibition in Shenzhen or the Greater Bay Area on the "New Story of the Dragon" and "The Descendants of the Dragon". "Not long ago, our Liangzhu cultural world successfully applied for heritage, and there is a symbolic cultural marker in the middle of Liangzhu culture, which is the so-called 'God Man Riding Beast', called 'God Man Emblem'. Over the years, I have collected many kinds of divine emblems on different jade shapes, and I can observe the occurrence, development and flow of Liangzhu culture on them." In addition, there is also a precious collection of "Red Mountain Dragon" related to the Hongshan culture. Yang Yongnian said that for this reason, he has prepared more than 300 exhibits and commentaries, and hopes to be able to exhibit smoothly one day.
The inner page of Yang Yongnian's book "Ancestral Memory".
● Collection experience ●
Collecting requires inspiration and opportunity
Yang Yongnian calls himself a "collector who dares to explore", and he believes that collecting needs inspiration and opportunity. Inspired by chance, then proceed to the collection of the series. "I come from subject to subject, rather than buying what I see." Yang Yongnian recalled that in 1989, when he went to the former Soviet Union to cover an interview, in Moscow's Red Square, a Russian man in his forties and fifties showed him a philatelic book on the street. Although the language barrier, Yang Yongnian saw at a glance that "there is a stamp of Zoya being put on a winch."
"I said this stamp was too precious, and when I looked at it, there were probably twenty or thirty sets of stamps in it." Yang Yongnian said that he was keenly aware that there was no book on the market that used stamps as a carrier to tell the history of World War II on the side of the victory in World War II. He immediately bought the philatelic book back, immersed himself in research, collected it at a fixed point, and spent several years completing stamps from more than 50 important battles during World War II. This was followed by the publication of the book "World War II on Stamps".
Summarizing the series of collections that he is most satisfied with, Yang Yongnian said that one is the earliest collection of snuff bottles, and the other is the World War II stamps mentioned above. In addition, there is the collection of ancient Shu jade in the "Ancestral Memory".
● Press Memorasm ●
Gu Rare Bao young mentality Play antiques love to let go
After more than ten years of retirement, Yang Yongnian has already turned the hobby of collecting into his main business. For the lifespan of ancient objects of thousands of years, a person is born like a drop in the ocean, but it often shakes the waves. Probably accompanied by antiques every day, in front of these "old predecessors", Yang Yongnian, who has passed the age of ancient rarity, is also like a "naughty boy", talking and loving. Contemporary poet Zhang Xinquan commented that he was "over seventy years old and still jumping."
For collection, Yang Yongnian always has endless topics. When he showed and explained the porcelain to the reporter, he took it out one by one, carefully analyzed and explained it, and then carefully put it back. On the day of the interview, the day was a little cool, the reporter followed Elder Yang to the park for a stroll, the old man walked in good shape, visited the lake to ask about stones, explored flowers and birds, and could be full of curiosity about the ordinary things around him, which can also be said to understand the "beauty" of life.