"Eight Monsters of Yangzhou" - Zheng Xie's "Bamboo Stone Diagram"

Throughout the ages, the reason why literati and inkers have favored bamboo is mainly because bamboo has the character of not being afraid of cold, not avoiding heat, and standing tall and tough. Zheng Xie of the Qing Dynasty was a person who planted bamboo, loved bamboo, watched bamboo, winged bamboo, and painted bamboo. Zheng Xie (1693-1765), zi kerou, no. Banqiao, Jiangsu Xinghua people. He was Kangxi Xiucai, Yongzheng Juren, Qianlong Jinshi, and served as Fan County and Wei County Zhi County in Shandong Province, and was later deposed for helping disaster victims, and lived in Yangzhou as a member of the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou". He works poetry, is good at painting, is the best at painting bamboo, and the bamboo in his pen is dense and elegant, whether it is bamboo branches or bamboo leaves, showing a free brush and a vigorous and rigorous style.

Zheng Xie's Bamboo Stone Diagram (see below), now in the Jinan Municipal Museum, is ink on paper, 182 cm in length and 103.5 cm in width. The painter inscribed himself: "Qianlong Nong Noon Banqiao Zheng Xie wrote." "钤" Zheng Xie's seal "White Text Square Seal", "Official of the Shuang Dove Clan" Zhu Bai Wen Square Seal. Qianlong Nongwu (1762), when Zheng Xie was 70 years old. In this work, several green bamboo trees stand tall at the cliff cliff and spread out in the wind. The stone walls are not large, but they crisscross each other, majestic but imposing; although the bamboo stem is thin, it is strong and powerful, and the wind blows without bending; the green bamboo leaves sway with the wind, appearing smart and beautiful, arrogant and tall. Looking at the whole picture, there is a lot of "firmly holding on to the green mountain and not relaxing, and the roots are in the broken rock." Thousands of grinding blows are still strong, and ren'er's east, west, south, and north winds" (Zheng Xie's "Bamboo Stone") means.

Bamboo is a symbol of "gentleman" in the hearts of the literati and inkers of all generations, and the embodiment of ideal personality, so they often borrow bamboo to praise noble character. Zheng Banqiao painted bamboo in order to "induce the breeze". He said: "Everyone who paints orchids, bamboo, and stones is used to comfort the laborers of the world, not for the peace of the world." (Zheng Banqiao's "Jin Akita Suo Painting" inscription) "Laborers" means the working people of the world, "Peaceful People" means officials and nobles, and "Laborers who comfort the world" express his concern and sympathy for the toiling masses. When he was in Fan County and Wei County, Shandong Province, he was dismissed precisely because he did not marry high-ranking officials and cared about the well-being of the people. This "Bamboo stone map" expresses the uninhibited state of mind of Zheng Banqiao. The boulder cliffs on the screen are thick and solid, and from a distance, there is still the trend of Taiyue, which seems to be majestic, which can be described as "painting stones to save Yue Yi" (Zheng Xie's sentence). Between the boulder cliffs, a few green bamboo plants are tough and upright, allowing the wind and rain to blow calmly, which can be described as "painting bamboo to lead the breeze" (ibid.). Through the representation of a mountain stone cliff and a few windward green bamboo, the painter sketches the lofty realm of bamboo and stone with a few strokes. Zheng Banqiao's painting of bamboo is not a family method, but a natural method and emphasis on sketching. He takes the bamboo shadow on the paper window powder wall as the learning object, and through the observation and speculation of various moods of bamboo in different seasons, different climates and different growth stages on weekdays, as well as the understanding of bamboo with the help of subjective consciousness, he transforms the "bamboo in the eye" into the "bamboo in the chest", and then uses the brush to wave the natural bamboo on the paper, forming a unity of bamboo in me and I in bamboo, which makes the viewer breathtaking.

In terms of painting method, this "Bamboo stone map" has its own style, the composition is solid in the middle and virtual on both sides, and it has the potential to stand tall in the sky. The dried bamboo is made in one go, the bamboo knot is hooked, and the bamboo leaves are skimmed. The bamboo stem is strong and powerful with a center-forward line pen; the bamboo leaf or center-forward, or partial-edge line pen, is different and flowing and natural. Bamboo stems and bamboo leaves are densely interspersed. The painter pays attention to the change of brush and ink, so that the front bamboo is thick and the back bamboo is light; the mountain stone and cliff are sharp and thick, and the outline is outlined with light ink first; the cliffs between the cliffs are first rubbed and then dyed to show the hard and steep; and then the thick ink is used to dot the moss to highlight the spirit of the mountain stone. The sharp contrast between the pale pen mountain stone and the thick ink green bamboo shows the broadness of the stone, the firmness of the bamboo, especially the proud spirit of the fine bamboo is vividly expressed.

Zheng Banqiao has a deep relationship with bamboo. His hometown ZhengZhai has two huts, planting bamboo in the south, not far from the county seat. Whenever he entered the city, he had to pass through a bamboo alley hundreds of meters long. Therefore, bamboo left an unforgettable impression on the young Zheng Banqiao's heart. In his later years, he returned to his hometown of Xinghua, built a house on the spot, named it "Embracing Green Garden", planted his beloved green bamboo and Youlan in the courtyard, enjoyed the literati interest of "green bamboo horizontal window, which can be used as material for poetry" (Zheng Banqiao's "Idle Residence"), and lived the pastoral life of "Youlan in the window, bamboo cultivation outside the window, this is how elegant" (Zheng Banqiao's "Jin Akita Suo Painting" inscription). According to incomplete statistics, he left more than 300 bamboo poems and paintings in his lifetime. He painted Bamboo Changxi and Stone Matching to express his will to "hold fast to qingshan and not relax", indicating his deep affection for Bamboo Stone "not only I love Bamboo Stone, that is, Bamboo Stone also loves me" (Zheng Banqiao's "Bamboo Stone Diagram" inscription), as well as the creative purpose of "painting stone to save Yue Yi, painting bamboo to lead the breeze".

——Excerpt from China Painting and Calligraphy