Allusions and legends of Mi Fei's stone carving methods

Many stories about Mi Fei and the stone have been told by later generations. There are poems in Ni Zan in Yuan Dynasty, and Mi Gong once lost his official position because of worshipping stones. But he didn't regret it, but made his own pictures of worshipping stones. Although this painting has not spread to this day, it is not uncommon for later painters to draw a picture of Mi Dian worshipping stones. For example, in the "Figure of People" written by Wu Wei in the Ming Dynasty, it vividly depicts a lake stone standing in the garden, rugged and rugged. It is exquisite and porous, and its unique shape conveys the charm of Wen Chou. It is a veritable "stone brother" worshipped by Mi Fei. Chen Hongshou, Min Zhen, Ren Bonian, Ren Xiong, Huang Shanshou, Zhang Daqian and other painters have done it successively.

Traditional classical stone appreciation is the most difficult to understand. To truly understand its connotation, I'm afraid we should go deep into its cultural context. Judging from the cultural form and expression form, stone appreciation culture is an elegant culture that combines aesthetics and inspiration, which is eye-catching and refreshing. From a philosophical point of view, it is the traditional culture of "harmony between man and nature" consciously constructed by ancient China literati with their own culture, which avoids the most primitive fantasy of "supernatural mountains and strange rocks have spirits" and secular religious worship, and is an extension of the spirit of landscape culture of "benevolent Leshan, wise men enjoy water". The view of landscape culture formed in the pre-Qin era holds that landscape is the most important part of nature, and ancient literati's appreciation of stones, like literati's landscape paintings, brings infinite thinking to people. As a symbol, a small stone appreciation draws the connection between mountains and the picturesque meaning of layers. Through the taste of Jiashi, we can express our feelings in the memory of nature and experience the mystery of nature in the blending of things and me.

Ancient and modern Chinese and foreign countries, collecting and appreciating exquisite stone offerings can be said to be a symbol of the life taste of literati. In the Tang Dynasty, when stone appreciation culture prevailed, Bai Juyi, for example, was not only a master of poetry and prose, but also an elegant person who appreciated stones. He is happy to write songs and lyrics for all kinds of strange stones and elegant stones. Others such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan. Also left many famous sentences to appreciate the stone. Song Dynasty was also the heyday of stone appreciation culture. Hui Zong, the Emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, held a "Flower Stone Class" and became the largest stone collector in China. The story of literati's love for stone in Song Dynasty has been told by many stone lovers, among which the story of Mi Fei's worship of stone is even more talked about: It is said that when Mi Fei was appointed as the army supervisor of Wuwei Prefecture, he saw a strange stone in his office and shouted happily, "This is enough for me to worship". So he ordered to change the officer's hat from left to right, knelt down and bowed down with a water board in his hand, and respectfully called this stone "Zhang Shi". As mentioned in Wang Shouqian's "Lingbi Stone Examination" in the Ming Dynasty, the most famous literati and painters in the Ming Dynasty all had Jia Shiqing's confession. Dong Qichang's Xihongtang, Mi's Yuan Shao, Zeng Liansheng's Drunk House, and Fifty Lents? Lingbi stone is the study of these famous literati and the witness of the porch. It can be seen how attractive ancient stone appreciation is to literati. They often travel thousands of miles to find famous mountains and rivers in order to find a satisfactory place to enjoy stones.