Female poet and painter Zhou Junxia
Over the years, the publication of biographical books has been booming, and the biographies of Lin Huiyin and Zhang Ailing have grown to twenty or thirty kinds. Some small and famous talented and beautiful women have also become the masters, and they have not seen Zhou Junxia passed on so far.
Zhou Junxia has influence in the painting world and the literary world, and in the 1930s and 1940s, there were big newspapers and tabloids, three days and two ends, either publishing her poems, jade photos, or reporting her anecdotes, and the fame far overshadowed many female writers and female stars who have been established today. She has been close to top painters such as Wu Hufan and Zhang Daqian, and has traveled widely with many celebrities such as Mao Heting, Jian Youwen, and Ma Gongyu.
A few years ago, there was a book "No Lights and No Moon Two Hearts: Zhou Yuxia and His Poetry", in which "his people" are no bigger than "his poems", only a rough "biography", combined with several related narratives, the weight is very thin. This book is not enough to be called a biography, but it has compiled more than 600 poems of Zhou Junxia, and for the first time has gathered a large number of Zhou Junxia's poetry works.
In recent years, another book "Danqing Elegant My Grandmother Zhou Lianxia" has been published, which has not yet been fabled. Although the author is a relative of the Zhou clan, but he lives overseas, he is also a grandchild, and whether the gap between time and space can fully pass on the life of the Lord, people do not dare to be superstitious. It is too inappropriate to see that the title of the book "鍊" is printed with the word "refining". There is a saying that Zhou "pen name Lianxia", or take it for granted. Zhou Junxia published poems signed "Lianxia" many times, but it was rare to see "Lianxia". The occasional signature of the word "refining" may have been mistakenly planted by the hand people, and even once mistakenly became "Zhou Xiabao". Nowadays, "Zhou Lianxia" seems to have become popular in many articles, and the title of the book written by relatives will once again "sit down" with the word "refining", and the difficulty of eliminating its false rumors can be imagined.
I saved a volume of "Female Painter Zhou Junxia", signed "Xu Yuzhong, Xu Zhaonan", the two are the youngest sons and beloved daughters of the painter. I was surprised to get this book. The "Yiren Series", a kind of "Wife Collection", is a selection of novels by women writers on the sea in the 1940s, and the first works are Zhou Junxia's "The Romance of Dr. Song" and "Beauty", both of which are affixed with commentaries. I don't know which enthusiastic person traveled to the United States and brought the "Wife Collection" to Mr. Xu Yuzhong's hand. Mr. Xu and I do not know each other, and his friend who returned to China handed us this exquisite souvenir book, and also attached a letter with his telephone number and e-mail address. "Female Painter Zhou Junxia" was printed overseas at her own expense, was not publicly distributed, and its circulation was naturally limited. The folio of the book is slightly larger than the A4 paper, the coffee-colored lacquered cloth seal, no graphics, the gold background in the vertical strip frame supports the title of the book, and the beautiful imitation Song printing is also brown. Simple and generous, pleasant to the eye. The inner printing is all coated paper, counting more than 100 pages. "Female Painter Zhou Junxia" is also not a biography, most of the length is still poetry, all words are two or three hundred, and nearly one hundred poems. Before the book "No Lights, No Moon, Two Hearts" came out, I read Zhou Junxia's old style poems, which was a great view. Zhou Is a highly acclaimed poet and lyricist, and the title of the book is "Female Painter", which is probably the social repercussions of her paintings. In fact, there are not many paintings printed in the book, only six in total. She is best known for her female subjects, especially good at writing. Most of the six women in the gong pen were created when she settled in the United States after her ancient rarity, and when it was the last work, it was exquisite.
Recently, I came across a picture of a woman with a pen on the Internet, referring to it as a work by Zhou Junxia. Comparing it to a painting of "Rolling Curtain Lady" (above) in "Female Painter Zhou Junxia", it can almost be chaotic. However, compared with the original work, there are slight differences between the title and a few lines. With the layman who doesn't understand Danqing, I can't help but suspect that the one on the Internet may be a fake. In the book, an ink painting of "Basho" (below) is full of another charm of the female painter Gongbi Lady. Two or three large black banana leaves—she seems to like to paint plantains, and the banana subject paints too many pictures—and the leaves are lined with a few tiny light red peonies, which is very spiritual. Inscription: "Banana window moon flower bloom well, moon moon flower people do not grow old." This painting of "Basho" was painted in 1979, and Zhou Junxia came up with this masterpiece with "at a glance", and the painting circle should be particularly similar. For example, when it comes to its content, it conveys the joy and confidence of the painter at that time. The originals of the banana pictures and several female paintings should be on the other side of the ocean, but I am afraid that it will be difficult to see the originals in the sea. The last thing to say is the photo, two frames of photos taken in Los Angeles when she was more than seventy years old, compared to the beautiful style of her youth, adding a little elegance, beauty is not reduced in that year, no wonder a professor lamented that she was "seventy or so".
Gifted by Mr. Xu Yuzhong, I was going to send a few humble articles about Zhou Junxia as a reward. I also learned that when I was studying at Luwan Middle School, Teacher Wang Xinsen, who was working in the school union, was Zhou Junxia's son-in-law, and I always saw him busy on campus. When Teacher Wen Wang was dying, Zhou Junxia flew from Los Angeles to Shanghai to visit. After the heavens and men were separated, she wrote a link: "Returning from thousands of miles, hurrying on the side, when the heavens ride on the dragon, the earth cries phoenix; thirty-three years of getting along, suppressing more thoughts, forbearance to see the empty tent, dust full of the east bed." "The words are elegant. Adding this layer of teacher-student relationship, I feel very close, and I am eager to restore the past on the other side. Unexpectedly, the Yahoo mailbox that Mr. Xu showed was suddenly abolished as a whole, so he broke off contact and regretted it.
Zhou Junxia's book is called "Luochuan Poetry House", and the self-titled "Luochuan" compilation and printing of poetry collection "Luochuan Rhymes" are known to everyone. She also has a book called "Confessional Red Xuan", but few articles have mentioned it. It was mostly used in the 1940s, and zhang Daqian's paintings were published under the name of "Confession of Red Xuan Collection"; many old-style poems were launched in the column of "Confession of Red Xuan's Recent Works", such as the acclaimed "Picking Mulberries": "At that time, I remembered that I had joined hands, people were drunk with flowers, flowers were drunk, and shame faded red incense and pink. Now it is just a memory, the lamp back people are lonely, the people are lonely, a thousand kinds of thoughts have no dreams. Like the "Confession red Xuan" that people don't know much, Zhou Junxia has drawn some lyrical "cartoons" before becoming famous, and the emotional rhyme is similar to Feng Zikai's, and the "Seaside", "Spring Girl" and "Makeup" published in "Post Voice" are all. He also painted a sketch of a Western painting for her husband Xu Lufu, which is lace.
Chen Zishan, an expert in literary historical materials, painstakingly collected texts other than Zhou Junxia's poems and published a volume of "Lost Pearls", but unfortunately there were still a number of "Lost Pearls", and "The Purpose of Calligraphy and Painting" is one of them. The article does not seem to have been published separately, but is only cited in Lu Danlin's report on the Yijing, which is particularly eye-catching. The special record shows that it was used in preparation for the zhou dynasty (the original publication was recorded, the typos and slightly unsmooth places are still old; the rambling is replaced by □):
The connotation of art is very extensive, and I only mention a few things that I have loved and studied, and I am neither willing to exaggerate nor be vain. Just make a faithful simple straightforward, reflecting and inner cross-section. Naturally, there are many that cannot be adequately described. Although I also like calligraphy and painting poetry, I naturally have some preferences because of the length of study and the difference in each degree, which is a regret that I have always been ashamed and cannot "seek refinement in one case".
Book: I didn't learn to be a poster until I was ten years old, originally a photo book, I had to write two hundred small words and one hundred big words every day, which was really enough to wonder! It was not until the age of seventeen that he learned to write lishu books, which made him feel quite interested, and the time of Linchi was too short to be enough. So although I also love calligraphy, sometimes I think it is very boring, probably because of the illegality of my study, and I have no good results, right?
Painting: In order to have a lot of family collections, I have heard about it since I was a child, and I have a special interest in it in my young mind. I remember when I was nine years old, I was happy for a while, I came to a page of fanning, and inscribed a few untidy words "When I was nine years old", which was of course very ridiculous, but at that time I was very excited and proud, and now that I think about it, this is the embryo of my learning to paint! Later, under the strict guidance of his family, he copied many ancient paintings from simple to complex. Until the age of fifteen, I officially started teaching, at first I learned two years of pen writing, and then I transferred to freehand writing, and in four or five years, I did work hard, unfortunately, the teacher died, and since then I have only been self-studying, but the progress has been very slow. In addition, at that time, I understood the charm of poetry, and most of my mental effort was inclined to the side of poetry, so I studied it for several years and felt that poetry was realistic and words were surreal. Poetry is a wave of light, like a natural scenery, which can soothe people's minds and cheer up the spirit. Words have a swaying curved charm, as if they are beautiful music, played in a quiet night, will give people's souls from ethereal and intoxicated. However, painting can be compared and combined, it can use the brush and ink of calligraphy to describe the mood of poetry; at the same time, poetry can also write the artistic conception that the brush cannot write. In other words, calligraphy, painting and poetry all have a related relationship, and if they can be smelted in one furnace, what a lovely and wonderful thing! A painting sometimes needs to be □ poetry □ subsidies, so that it will show what people can't see with their eyes and only allow their hearts to understand. However, I ask myself that their kung fu is too shallow, and in the past ten years, there has been little progress or amazing contribution, and now I can only say that the understanding of art itself is stimulated by the senses of the moment, and it has reached the engraving of the deep soul! In the path of art, I am still a flat forward, and I have never reached the peak.
Undoubtedly, this is a rare material for Zhou Junxia's biography. Although her poetic concept does not exceed the common sense of ancient literature, Li Qingzhao, whom she admires, said more than eight hundred years ago that "words are not one", but how apt and vivid description is here. It is not only a key to interpreting her poems, but also a way to appreciate the meaning of her paintings.
There really should be a biography of Zhou Junxia. There are very few talented women who have such a rich, magnificent, and turbulent life as her; her complex and distinct personality is almost no approximation. No one will not think of making a biography of Zhou Junxia, who is in a good mood, and will not be able to fulfill his wishes due to various factors. One of the main reasons when information on her life is difficult to search. Although the newspapers and periodicals of the Republic of China period liked to publish trivial crumbs about her, there was a lot of gossip. That is, as in the recently published "Trivia of Holding Characters", the details and vividness of the record are unprecedented, and the content that has been questioned is also not in the minority. Brushing away a lot of text dust and seeing through the authentic Zhou Junxia requires considerable energy, patience, and knowledge. However, it is worth facing the difficulties, narrating and interpreting such a modern woman, the meaning is not only that many talented women know only one more number.
Author: Chen Xueyong
Editor: Wu Dongkun