Hà Thu's poetry: the spirit of humility, advocating seeking truth from facts, being humble to others.
—— Zheng Banqiao
Zheng Banqiao (formerly known as Zheng Xie, November 22, 1693-January 22, 1766), whose name was Kerou, whose name was Li 'an and Banqiao, was called Mr. Banqiao, a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, whose ancestral home was Suzhou, a scholar, painter and representative of "Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou".
in the first year of Qianlong (1736), he was a scholar, and he was appointed to Fanxian County and Weixian County in Shandong Province, with remarkable achievements. Later, he lived in Yangzhou and made a living by selling paintings; The representative works include Zhuzhu Xinqitu, Qingguang Photograph, Zheng Banqiao Collection and so on. Zheng Banqiao painted only orchids, bamboos and stones all his life, claiming to be "a orchid that never gives thanks in four seasons, a bamboo that lasts for a hundred days, an invincible stone that will never change". His poems, paintings and calligraphy, known as the "Three Musts" in the world, are more representative literati painters in the Qing Dynasty.
Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy, which uses official script mixed with running script, calls itself "six-and-a-half-book" and is called "Banqiao script". Most of his paintings are bluegrass and bamboo stones, and the calligraphy art of Zheng Banqiao, whose bluegrass and bamboo are almost his soul, is unique in the history of calligraphy in China.
It is inferred from his 23-year-old "Ode to Autumn Songs by Ouyang Xiu in Lower Case" and his 3-year-old "Poems in Lower Case" that Banqiao learned books from Ou Yangxun in his early years. Its font is neat and beautiful, but a little stiff: this is related to the prevalence of neat and charming pavilion style in the book world at that time, which was used as the standard font for selecting scholars in the imperial examination.
In this regard, Zheng Banqiao once said: "The small letters on the fly are too evenly stopped, and it is afraid that the work will damage the spirit." After he was a scholar at the age of 4, he seldom wrote again. Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy is most praised as "six-and-a-half calligraphy", that is, "Banqiao style" with "Chinese eight-part calligraphy" (a kind of official script) as a unique style.
Zheng Banqiao's life has been bumpy, full of ups and downs, and he has seen through the coldness of the world. He dares to incorporate all this into his works. Zheng Banqiao's poems on paintings have got rid of the traditional pattern of painting with poems or painting with poems. Every painting he painted must be titled with poems, and the topic must be excellent, so as to achieve the goal of "picturesque image" and "poem attacking painting". Poetry and painting reflect and infinitely expand the breadth of the picture.
Zheng Banqiao's poems on paintings are concerned about real life and have profound ideological content. He uses words like guns and swords as needles.