"Yan Zhenqing - Beyond Wang Xizhi's Famous Pen" Special Exhibition Tokyo National Museum
At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, the most eye-catching thing is undoubtedly the special exhibition "Yan Zhenqing - Beyond Wang Xizhi's Famous Pen" held by the National Museum of Tokyo, Japan from January 16 to February 24. The total number of this exhibition is as many as 177, in addition to Yan Zhenqing's "Sacrifice Nephew Manuscript" borrowed from the National Palace Museum in Taipei, many of them are collected in Japan and are not easily published, no wonder this exhibition is called "once in a century". Along with Yan Zhenqing's "Manuscript of sacrifice to the Nephew", which received Chinese attention, there was also exhibit No. 158, Li Gonglin's "Five Horse Diagrams" of the Northern Song Dynasty. This work, starting from the Northern Song Dynasty's "Xuanhe Pictorial Notation", has been recorded in successive dynasties: the Southern Song Dynasty's Zhoumi "Records of Clouds and Smoke Passing through the Eyes", Ming Wang Keyu's "Coral Net", Qing Bian Yongyu's "Examination of Calligraphy and Painting in Shigutang", Wu Sheng's "Daguanlu", etc., and later collected in the Qing Dynasty's Inner Province, so the "Shiqu Baoji Recompile" is also recorded. After the Republic of China, it flowed into the people, and there are many opinions about the whereabouts, and the close associates Zhang Boju, Yang Renkai, and Zhu Shengzhai all have written records, which can be roughly determined to be exiled to Dongying, but they have long been hidden and locked, and they do not know where they are. The Palace Museum on the mainland holds Li Gonglin's "Wei Mo Yan Jiao Tu", while the "Five Horse Diagram" only contains a Colo version of the painting. According to statistics, the Chinese visited by this exhibition reached more than 50,000 people, and the reason why yan Zhenqing and Li Gonglin's works aroused the interest of Chinese was not unrelated to their encounters in modern times. The fact that they are overseas undoubtedly involves the sensitive nerves of Chinese.
Therefore, the appearance of the original "Five Horse Diagram" in the Tokyo National Museum is no less important than the "Second Line of the Book of the World" of the "Sacrifice of nephews", and the influence can be described as far-reaching; in the media, especially the scholars' introduction to the flow of fate, it ignited the public's interest in li gonglin and his paintings in the history of painting.
Li Gonglin's "Five Horse Diagrams" in the special exhibition "Yan Zhenqing - Beyond Wang Xizhi's Famous Pen"
The scroll of the Five Horse Figures on display at the Tokyo National Museum is 27.8 cm in length and 256.5 cm in total length (according to the catalogue of the exhibition). The names of the five horses are crested horses, brocade horses, good head red, and night white, and the last one, which is generally believed by scholars to be a horse named Manchuanhua. In front of each horse, there is a Xi official (horse breeder) leading the horse, the first three are dressed as Hu people, and the last two are decorated by The Song people. After each horse, there is an inscription by Li Gonglin's contemporary poet and calligrapher Huang Tingjian, and the inscription on the fifth horse has been lost. At the end of the volume, there are inscriptions by Huang Tingjian and Zeng Lun, which were included in the Inner House in the Qing Dynasty, and there are three imperial pens of Qianlong.
Li Gonglin (李公麟), courtesy name Boshi (字伯時), was a resident of the Dragon Sleep, and an official of the Imperial Household. His painting of the "Five Horse Diagram" is a historical fact of the tribute of the Western Regions during the Northern Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, and the works have the function of sketching and documentary: "Try to write the Royal Horses of the QijiYuan, such as the Tribute of the Western Regions in Khotan, good heads, red brocades, and skins, etc., and write at most." The Zhiyuan pleaded for fear and took away the artifact. "(Xuanhe Pictorial Notation)" Character painting to the Song Dynasty, which underwent completely different changes from the Tang and Five Dynasties, and Li Gonglin, the author of "Five Horse Diagrams", is one of the key figures. He can be said to be the culmination of the figure painting collection after Wu Daozi, and the Xuanhe Painting Notation records the paintings of the Northern Song Dynasty, of which 149 are figure paintings, and his works account for 107. It is worth noting that the "characters" and "Daoshi" categories in the Xuanhe Pictorial Notation are juxtaposed, and Li Gonglin inherits the comprehensive tradition, but the form has changed, even if the Taoist religious figure paintings are the mainstay, they are no longer frescoes but the creation form of scrolls. The white painting technique he pioneered became a paradigm, a dynamic line technique that not only enveloped the two Song Dynasties, but also affected the Yuan and Ming dynasties. Painting underwent many variations in the Song Dynasty, and Li Gonglin's white painting is one of them; the various factors of the times are integrated, the artistic orientation is more free, the literati atmosphere is strong, pay attention to inner observation, and the painting art that once belonged to the craftsmen added literary color. Li Gonglin's "Five Horse Diagrams" has a certain official background, but he does not belong to the courtyard painting system, and he has close relations with literary artists such as Ouyang Xiu, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and others at that time, and have mutual influence. Huang Tingjian said in an inscription:
"Where calligraphy and painting should be observed. In the past, Li Boshi snatched Hu'er's horse for Yu Zuo Li Guang, took Hu'er's bow, and drew it to the full to pursue. Look at the arrow blade straight, hair, people and horses should also be stringed. Bo Shi laughed and said, "Let the common man do it, and chase it as a middle arrow." Yu therefore deeply realized the painting frame. This is the same as the article, but it is rare that everyone will hear it. ("Titled Yan Guo Shang Father")
This shows that Li Gonglin's prescient characteristics in painting, and his greatness lies in this. As a work of Li Gonglin's contemporaries, the "Xuanhe Pictorial Notation" has been evaluated by later generations: "Most of the Gonglin takes the intention as the first, and the arrangement of the edge decoration as the second." Its dyeing is exquisite, laymanship may be learnable, to the point where the rate is slightly simple, it is not close to it. ”
The appearance of the "Five Horse Diagram" is largely due to the calligraphy left by Huang Tingjian, one of the "Four Houses of the Song Dynasty", on the "Five Horse Diagram". The inscription after the painting is:
"Yu tasted the characters of the Bo Shi, like those who had edges in the Southern Dynasty. However, the sergeant doctor sighed a lot, and Bo Shijiu was in the pavilion, only tired of the happy painting. Yu Zhizhi said: Bo Shi Qiu Zhongren, temporarily hot reputation, The Crown of The Crown of The Coming, this gong is not drawn to The King. This horse donkey is quite similar to my friend Zhang Wen's latent pen power. Qu Tan's so-called whip-wielding shadow knower also. Huang Luzhi book. ”
This is to illustrate Li Gonglin's character as a painter as a friend, he is not drawn to his career, he is a "man in the hills and ravines", and even his characters are also "those who have margins in the Southern Dynasty", which shows that he has extraordinary temperament and high moral character. This undoubtedly opened one of the important criteria for the evaluation of works by later generations, that is, the work is weighted by person; we look at Li Gonglin's "Five Horse Diagrams" today (not necessarily to go to the Tokyo National Museum), even if we can't appreciate the superiority of the work for a while, but in terms of Huang Tingjian's comments, it will be awe-inspiring: this is the work of a decent painter, and his spiritual temperament that does not float with the world seems to be right in front of our eyes.
"Yan Zhenqing - Beyond Wang Xizhi's Famous Pen" published in the special exhibition publication of Li Gonglin's "Five Horse Diagrams"
British art historian Michael Sullivan once said of Li Gonglin that it was Li Gonglin who "imitated the paintings of previous masters without any discomfort, showing respect for the past" and "opened up the Chinese connoisseur fashion". Li Gonglin copied the works of a large number of previous generations of painters, and before the "art of the mechanical reproduction era" came, Chinese artists improved their painting skills by copying the works of their predecessors, which was the basic training for learning art. And this kind of learning from predecessors is also complex, copying, copying, and copying, which involve subtle differences. But as far as this way of learning is concerned, the copyer's pursuit of the charm of the original work, especially the efforts of his heart to follow the original author's creative world, is undoubtedly consistent.
Like many famous artists in history, Li Gonglin's "Five Horse Diagrams" has accumulated its reputation and become a classic in the history of painting since the Song Dynasty, and it has also been sought after by collectors and become a model for artists to learn. This vein can be traced back to the present - just when the original "Five Horse Diagram" was in the East Ying, I was fortunate to see a volume of "Five Horse Diagram" in the southern sky, painting the qi style, jumping on the paper, making people feel the inconceivability of the classic work.
- Please look across the phone screen for this picture -
Wu Tailin's "Five Horse Diagrams"
What I saw was the "Five Horse Diagrams" written by Mr. Wu Tai more than thirty years ago. Hand-scrolled, silk, 29.5 cm in length, 262 cm long, in order different from the originals exhibited in the Tokyo National Museum, in order of crested, brocade, illuminated night white, good head red, manchuan flower, illuminated Huang Tingjian inscription and inscription, after the inscription: "壬戌夏 摹 Li Longmian Five Horse Figure, Wu Tai", plutonium print "Wu Tai". In 1982, when Wu Tai was only 20 years old, he already had a 5-year copying resume:
"Since the age of fifteen, I have worked hard to learn to paint, copying the Song people's fans and lying down all day long, and I am not tired of it. Twenty years old to "Qingming on the River Map", twenty-two years old to "Han Xizai Night Feast Map" ... Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, almost all the famous relics of the past were copied, and a good young man, so immersed in such homework, erased the time for the teenager to play, in exchange for the admiration of the elders and a body of sickness. (According to Wu Tai's Collected Works, "Self-Description")
Wu Tailin's reference to Li Gonglin's Five Horse Diagrams is a Colo edition publication
By the 1980s, the painter Wu Tai was still learning in the same way as copying everyone's classic works, both because of the times and more because of his unusual experience. His ancestral home was Foshan, and the sixth ancestor was Wu Rongguang (Lotus House), a famous official, collector and calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty. Wu Rongguang has a rich collection, and his book "The Record of Xin Ugly Summer" is also a famous painting history document. Great-grandfather Wu Chiyun, a professional doctor and sex favorite, gave a great influence to his childhood father Wu Ziyu. Wu Ziyu (1930-2017), also known as Hao, also known as Yu, Chi Yuan, Hinayana Mountain House, is a famous lyricist and calligrapher in modern Lingnan, who wrote "Dream Curtain Xiangge Poems", "Hinayana Mountain House Poetry Manuscript", "Laughing Grass Hall Talk about Painting Essays", "Wu Ziyu Calligraphy and Painting Collection", "Laughing Grass Hall Printing", "Green Lantern On Painting" (three volumes) and so on. He is also good at printing, and his calligraphy and paintings are mostly self-engraved. In 1948, he was admitted to the Western Painting Department of Guangdong Provincial Art College, and was quite valued by Ding Yanyong, who was the principal at the time, and Ding Yanyong was also an artist in modern times, known as "Oriental Matisse". During this period, Western painting methods and painting theories influenced the young Wu Ziyu, and in his subsequent artistic career, he also had Western paintings such as oil paintings and watercolors, but in the dark he still embarked on the road of studying and creating Chinese painting and calligraphy.
Wu Ziyu once studied painting with Zhao Shaoang, the second generation of the Lingnan School. However, in his subsequent artistic career, Wu Ziyu, who was in Lingnan, instead bowed down to the Painter Xie Zhiliu of the Hai School, and his disciples exchanged views with Fish and Goose, talking about poetry and art tirelessly. In the 1970s and 1980s, artists liked to come to Guangzhou from the south to avoid the cold, and the two were able to live from time to time and interact face to face. As early as the 1950s, Wu Ziyu betrothed to Rong Geng, a scholar who returned to Guangzhou to teach at Sun Yat-sen University, and enjoyed Rong Lao's rich collection. He painted in the two Song Dynasties and ink painting in the Yuan Dynasty after a long mechanical process, and Dong Qichang, Xu Wei, Bada Shanren, Shi Tao, and slept for decades, directly taking the ancient gods, and the extensive brushwork he made, the master Xie Zhiliu lamented that "its vivid and smooth, enough to make the green vines deterred, bitter melons and sleeves.". His calligraphy "Song Sijia" is especially strong for Huang Tingjian, and the occasional wild grass is taken from Zhang Xu and Huai Su. Born in 1930, Wu Ziyu, like a Chinese artist born at the beginning of the last century, is a generalist artist who is good at calligraphy, painting, poetry, and seal engraving. Take the fa of the ancients, not be limited by one time and one place. In Wu Ziyu's later years, in view of his status in traditional calligraphy and painting, those who had insight called him "a powerful successor in the modern Traditional Chinese Painting School", which can be said to be a very accurate evaluation.
Xie Zhiliu and his wife took a group photo with Wu Ziyu's family, with Wu Tai in the middle
Wu Ziyu was a teacher of Xie Zhiliu after the change of life at the middle age, and Wu Tai, as his youngest son, was also affected by family changes, thus embarking on the road of learning art. His calligraphy and paintings began under the supervision and guidance of his father, and he learned to thin and gold at the age of 8 and copied the "Song Ren Picture Album" at the age of 12. In that era of pan-politicization, Wu Tai "hid in a small building to become a unified" and opened a unique way of learning painting. This is a rare experience of Chinese artists of his generation:
"Since then, I have been immersed in copying song sketches, and as soon as I have time, I have drawn them from morning to night, to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep. In a summer, you can copy twenty or so paintings, Song people sketches, landscapes, characters, flowers and birds, all learned, do not understand the father. At that time, Xie Zhiliu, who often exchanged letters with his father, also gave me encouragement and guidance, so that I understood the basic techniques used in the painting of the Song people, and appreciated the bright colors, simple and detached brushwork and elegant aesthetics. ”
Rong Geng and Wu Ziyu took a group photo
Wu Ziyu and Wu Tai father and son group photo
According to Wu Tai's recollection, his father and Rong Geng are the most rebellious in calligraphy and painting, and Rong Lao is particularly generous to them, and the collection can be borrowed back home to copy, but the Linben will also be returned with the original, which shows the status of the Wu family's copy in Rong Geng's heart. Wu Ziyu had close contacts with Zhang Liangyu, Chen Ning, Wang Guichen, Su Gengchun and others. He also had many pasts with Qi Gong, and the "Qingming River Map" that he came to, Qi Gong signed for it. Although Wu Tai's ancestors have become a distant past, the encounters and achievements of his two generations with his father, especially the obsession and talent for art, and the stoicism and detachment that are in the extreme misery of life and do not change, all make people marvel that this is the real cultural family of Lingnan.
Family lineage, talent, experience, social travel, all these things, when we place Wu Ziyu and Wu Tai among the artists of 20th century China, especially in today's customs and trends, we can appreciate their adherence to tradition. More than forty years ago, Wu Tailin's "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty", "Five Horse Diagram", "Han Xizai's Night Feast Map", as well as the Tang Dynasty's "Palace Map", "Fan Lady Picture Scroll", Song Huizong's Tang Zhangxuan's "Lady You Chun Tu", the Fifth Dynasty Liu Daoshi's "Hushan Qingxiao Giant Axis", Song Guoxi's "Early Spring Map", Dong Yuan's "Stream Bank Map", Wu Zongyuan's "Chaoyuan Immortal Staff Map", Cui Bai's "Double Happiness Map", etc., can't help but remind us of the author of the "Five Horse Diagram" of the master who copied the predecessors a thousand years ago- "All ancient and modern famous paintings, If you have it, you will copy it, and keep a copy of it...". This state, unlike today's relaxed, pluralistic, and even high-speed artistic ecology, must be observed in the era of fragmentation of tradition, although at that time their artistic creation was purely self-conscious, but it was connected to the great traditions of the past - the Linben "Five Horse Diagram" has such a historical meaning.
Whether it is flower and bird figures or landscapes, Wu Tai's works are deeply engraved with the exquisite, elegant and restrained style of Song Dynasty art. He talked about the bitterness of copying in "The Pleasure of Painting", he said: "As a painter with analytical power and familiarity with painting theory, through careful study and analogy observation, the spiritual outlook of the work will be restored on the basis of the original work. That's the joy I had when I painted. ”
Wu Tai, who is immersed in painting
When we look at this 40-year-old work, although it does not have a thousand-year resume like the original of the Tokyo National Museum, its superb technique allows us to appreciate the talent of the painter: he could only ponder and deliberate from the printed material in the 80s, but he could show the appearance of the original work in every detail. What is even more rare is that this work is infused with his understanding and feelings of the predecessor who walked a thousand years ago; he grasped the elegant and restrained temperament, and also conveyed to us Li Gonglin's spiritual world.
It is appropriate to rejoice and marvel at the exhibition of the authentic works of Dongying's "Five Horse Diagrams", and Wu Tai's "Five Horse Diagrams" probook also contains the historical details of the history of Chinese painting in the past hundred years, which should not be just a footnote to yan Zhenqing's cultural event this year, we look forward to one day being able to observe at the exhibition site, to experience, but also to make our judgment for this masterpiece.
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