Sanmao said, "The most beautiful years lie in the inevitable passage of time" But I feel that the years are merciless and break the time. It weathered frame by frame, and dried up a song and chanted.
Those scrolls that have been yellowed by the wind erosion, those chants that drift away, are the photos of history and the talk of the ancients. We are frantically pursuing, and love is crazy. Because they are cultural relics, the context of history, and the seals carved by the Chinese people for themselves.
"Entering my room are dignified people and upright soldiers, ascending to this hall and many ancient paintings and strange books" This is the late Qing Dynasty famous courtier, Emperor Shi Weng Tonggong's proposal and merger book. Weng Tonggong's fifth grandson was Weng Wange. In 2018, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, he donated 183 pieces of Chinese historical relics to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston! Cultural relics are priceless treasures, not just money can buy them. Where did his huge collection of artifacts come from?
"Father and son, two emperors, one five scholars, and one family and three inspectors" This is the proudest glory of the late Qing Wang clan and the Weng family. The reputation of "one of the nine major collections of books in the late Qing Dynasty of China" is an affirmation of the status and number of books collected by the Weng family. The Weng collection began with the ancestor of the Weng family, Weng, and the scale of achievements was greater than that of his son Weng Tonggong.
Weng Tonggong, a famous courtier of the late Qing Dynasty, was born in Zhuangyuan. Calligraphy everyone. Two generations of imperial masters. He had the integrity and innocence characteristic of a literati. It is also this kind of pure fragment of the literati that makes him love calligraphy and painting and collect them like crazy.
Weng has always been clean and honest as an official, so he has always been poor. But the life of poverty could not curb the enthusiasm of the Weng father and son (Weng Xincun, Weng Tonggong) for books, calligraphy and painting, and for cultural relics. In addition to family heirlooms, they expand their collections by purchasing, transcribing, and exchanging them. There were records that Weng Xin could not bear the loss of cultural relics and purchased the huge wealth of the Changshu Chen Family at the original price, as many as 40,000 or 50,000 copies. Weng Tonggong's "Five Gu "Collection rhymes"" is also widely circulated and is enjoyed by future generations. Relying on the efforts of two generations of father and son, the Weng family's collection of books has a reputation throughout the late Qing Dynasty.
The ancestral precept that "wealth is not enough to protect, but the poetry book is loyal and thick can reach infinity" makes future generations also cherish books and love books. The new collection of later generations, although limited, is a qualified collector.
Weng Wange, who donated a lot, is the one who inherited the most from the Weng family's collection.
Onwango was the fifth grandson of Weng Tonggong. Weng Gong did not have a parent, and his descendants were also withered. Onvango was also the heir apparent.
Born in 1918, Onwango went to the United States to study in 1938. In the autumn of 1948, Onwango briefly returned to China and checked in the cultural relics. Since then, this huge number of Chinese cultural relics has inhabited the United States with Weng Wange.
What is the number of artifacts? And how precious is it?
Take, for example, 183 artifacts donated by Onwango to Boston, which are conservatively estimated to be worth as much as $1 billion!
This batch of cultural relics spans the 13th century of the Five Dynasties, with 130 paintings, 31 calligraphy works, 18 rubbings and 4 weaving notes. Among them are shen zhou's "Sixteen Pages of Calligraphy and Painting Album of Sutai Jisheng" by Shen Zhou, the "Four Houses of Wumen", and Wen Zhengming's "Nine Links of Family Books". There are also 14 works by Wumen Dong Qichang and Chen Hongshou! Xiang Shengmo's self-portrait, 11 works of Saint Wang Yi painted in the early Qing Dynasty! The "Four Monks" Zhu Yun's "Eight Great Mountain People's Law Books" are all listed.
It is worth mentioning that Onwango is a long-term patron of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston! The two have long been partnerships. Wang Yi's "Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River" is of extremely high artistic value, which can be regarded as the treasure of the town museum, and Weng Wange was also donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He also donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Chicago Museum.
Xiang Yuanbian, "Four Kings Wu Yun", Hua Yan, Jin Nong, as well as their ancestor Weng Tonggong's ink treasures, diaries and a small number of collections of four treasures of the study room, jade seals, gujue, ruyi and so on. Treasures count.
From the last years of the Qing Dynasty to the founding of New China, Our country has experienced more than half a century of turmoil and war. The bandits of the West, the little ghosts of the east, and the snakes of the land have taken turns to set off a world-shattering war on the land of China. China is big but can't find a pure land!
In this case, the six generations of the Weng family have protected this huge number of cultural relics, and the degree of hardship is unimaginable. Haiyuan Pavilion, one of the four major bibliophiles, was poisoned by the war, and most of the collection was lost. Not to mention how many precious cultural relics have been lost overseas since the end of the Qing Dynasty and destroyed.
These cultural relics have been through war, traveled far and wide, and have been tossed and turned several times, but they have not been damaged in the slightest, and finally they have been completely preserved, and weng's contribution is also the same.
Onvango's much-criticized donation and sale of cultural relics
Onwango's initiatives on his 100th birthday, coupled with the 21 pieces he had donated before, Wengwango single-handedly pushed the Boston Museum of Fine Arts onto the stage of the International Museum. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has become the world's most extensive museum in China.
In 2000, he donated 80 kinds of books totaling 542 volumes to the Shanghai Museum for $4.5 million. A free donation, a strong contrast, an uproar at home and abroad, has been criticized. Countless Chinese scolded him as a traitor, a pro-American element, forgetting his roots and forgetting his ancestors, boiling against the heavens, and so on.
First, he said, "China cannot protect cultural relics." He was born until he left his hometown, and the land of China was invaded by other countries, and the war was raging. The devastated and devastated China was probably his deepest impression of his motherland. And this impression gradually solidified in the depths of his soul over the long years, and then firmly believed.
After the founding of New China, China took off and developed. Great progress in the research and preservation of cultural relics can make cultural relics properly preserved. Standing majestically in the forest of the world, it has the strength to protect cultural relics from coveting. But he didn't know all this, or didn't believe it! He believes that China is still the chaotic and backward China that he remembers, and he cannot even protect the heritage of his ancestors!!! Therefore, he stubbornly said that "China cannot protect cultural relics." How arbitrary! How unfair to China!
Second, the near water tower platform first gets the moon. He has lived in the United States since he was 20 years old, and for nearly a century, he has been a thorough American in addition to his ancestry and bloodline. His hometown is already his hometown. The motherland is far away, distant and strange. Boston, which is close at hand, can bring more convenience and benefits than the homeland at the end of the world.
Third, his nephew once said that U.S. law has strict regulations on the export of cultural relics abroad, and the process of donating is cumbersome and complicated. Perhaps the elderly Ongwango could not bear the complexity. And his descendants were born in the United States and grew up in the United States, how is it different from Americans?
Fourth, Ongwango once said that I am not a collector, I am only a collector. He also said, "I live for my family," and my family has become my life." He accepted this family collection at the age of 2, and until now, he has been waiting for a hundred years, bearing his guilt. In order to protect them, it took countless hard work to think of it, and he was tired.
We intellectually understand Ongwango's final choice. But emotionally disappointed, extremely regretful.
Music knows no borders, but there are artifacts! Artifacts have their own unique background, which contains the deep emotions of the makers. How can we expect other people to understand the spiritual inheritance of the Chinese nation for 5,000 years and China's unique cultural system! We can't imagine how the ancient Chinese literati in the long river of time could whisper with blonde hair and blue eyes.
If the artifact could open its mouth, it would probably say, I want to go home and have a look.