Qi Baishi met Chen Shizeng when he came to Beijing to live in Fayuan Temple in 1919. At that time, Chen Shizeng was already well-known, but Qi Baishi was very lonely, and his works were priced at two yuan a piece and no one cared about them. Master Chen once visited Qi Baishi at Fayuan Temple. After seeing Qi Baishi's "Borrowing Mountains" and other paintings, he wrote a poem: "I knew the king of Qi from the engraving, but now I see the paintings like seal script. Silkworms on the paper are writing about the feet, and the mountains and rivers are under my feet. There is a cloud of confusion. Qi Jun is a master of printing and painting, but it is difficult to distinguish the beauty of it. But I am afraid that people in the world cannot understand the painting. Just like the beauty of the painting, it is no wonder that I painted it myself. In ancient times, why should you bow your head and seek to be in the same group?" Qi Baishi was advised to create his own style and not to seek to please the world. Qi Baishi accepted it happily, adapted his painting methods, and founded the school of red flowers and ink leaves. The two became close friends from then on. Qi Baishi said with emotion in his "Oral Autobiography": "At that time (58 years old), I learned the way of Leng Yi from Bada Mountain. Except for Chen Shizeng, there were only one person who understood my painting. ... Making friends with Chen Shizeng is also something I will remember in my life." The relationship between the two was later summarized as "Without Chen Shizeng, there would be no Qi Baishi, and without Qi Baishi, there would be no Chen Shizeng." What is even more valuable is Chen Shizeng's support for Qi Baishi's life. ! At the invitation of Japanese painters, Chen Shizeng specially brought several landscape paintings by Qi Baishi when he participated in the Sino-Japanese Painting Exhibition at the Tokyo Prefectural Government Crafts Museum in 1922. Two feet of landscape paintings were sold for 250 silver coins. He also promoted Qi Baishi's paintings into the Parisian art scene. exhibition. Because of his good advice when meeting people, Qi Baishi was able to join the ranks of first-class painters and his net worth doubled.
At that time, Chen Shizeng was already the leader of the Beijing painting circle, a talented and arrogant figure. How could he come to Fayuan Temple to visit an unknown rural painter? Zhu Deshang's "Thirty Years of Hearing and Seeing" is appended to "The Story of the First Father" written by his granddaughter Zhu Yun, which says: "Gongguan Jingshi, the same city Qihuang Baishi, good at painting, metallurgy, seal cutting, Gu Shilin Wei Zhizhi Ye. Gong had an old friendship with Shi Zeng in Yining, and Shi Zeng became his friend, and his name was greatly praised. The seal of Huang was engraved on the margin, and it said: "I learned about Shi Zeng from my ignorance." The teacher has a destiny, and he must follow it. ”
It turned out that the driving force behind the friendship between the two masters was Zhu Deshang. Zhu Deshang, courtesy name Shihui and nickname Jiuhuan, was born in Guan Kiln, Xiangtan County, Hunan in 1874. In 1903, he married Yang Changji and Qiu Liang , Chen Tianhua, Liu Kui and others went to Japan to study under the leadership of the local sage Liang Huankui, studied police administration, and joined the Tongmenghui, and had varying degrees of interaction with Wang Kaiyun, Yuan Shikai, Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, Tang Cichang, Yu Quyuan, and Shanqi. The epitaphs of Wang Kaiyun and Shanqi were all written by Zhu Deshang. He had the deepest friendship with Huang Xing, Cai E, Chen Shizeng, Fan Yuanlian, and Qiu Liang. He served as the chief writer of the "Democracy Newspaper" run by Qiu Liang. He worked in the Ministry of Communications of the Republic of China. He wrote "Six Books of Philosophy", "Guanzi Notes", "Yangqu Xueyan", "Xiangjun Zhi", "Poems" and "Collected Works". He died in Taoyuan, Xiangtan in 1936. . Zhu Deshang and Chen Shiteng were both students in Japan, and later worked in Beijing. They had similar interests and became close friends.
Qi Baishi once painted a frame of "Shrimp" for Zhu Deshang, with the inscription: "Nine. I also like my paintings, but I don't think I am greedy. The public is like an official, and seeing money is like seeing the paintings of a mountain man. How can the people live in peace? This is a strange feeling. Please don't be angry if you return my brother Jiu. Brother Huang remembers. "The two were fellow villagers and good friends, and their close friendship is evident from this.
"Thirty Years of Hearings and Seeings" written by Zhu mentioned Chen Shizeng in many places. Chen Shizeng died of illness, and Zhu wrote a mourning poem , the preface says: "Heng Ke, whose courtesy name is Shizeng, is the grandson of Zhongcheng in Yining, the son of Mr. Sanyuan, and a student at the Japanese Normal University. Living in Sophora Hall, there are no neighbors. Yu Yi resigned from office and lived in Lanxi Hutong outside the city. We were ten miles apart, and there was no time to go back and forth, so we didn’t ask him to paint..." From the "Chen Shizeng Seal Book", we can see that he made many seals for Zhu Deshang.
Before getting acquainted with Chen Shizeng, Qi Baishi also met in Beijing Zeng Nongbeard, Li Jun'an, Yi Shifu, Xia Wuyi and others were not as close to Chen Shizeng as they were, while Yao Mangfu, Chen Banding, Wang Mengbai and Ling Zhiyou were compared with each other after they got to know Chen Shizeng. According to analysis, Zhu Deshang has the greatest possibility of forming a friendship between the two masters.