Recently, a great event happened in the art circles on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, that is, Fuchun, a great painter of the Yuan Dynasty, was very famous in the art history of China. After looting, burning, breaking and other disasters, the two surviving parts were preserved in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum and the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and are now being jointly exhibited in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Huang's painting achievements have long been evaluated in the history of China fine arts. Of course, I don't need to waste my breath here. What I want to write now is just the feeling caused by a postscript behind Huang's famous painting Fuchun.
Huang's real name is Lu. Born in the fifth year of Xianchun in the Southern Song Dynasty (1269). When the Southern Song Dynasty perished, he was only about ten years old, but his parents had died. At that time, an old man named Huang Le lived in Yongjia, Zhejiang Province and adopted him as an adopted son. It is said that the old man loved him very much. As soon as he met him, he was delighted to say "Huang Jiu is a son", which is why he was later named "Huang" and "Zi Jiu". Huang is gifted and intelligent. 12 13 years old, he was tried by a child prodigy. Later, he once entered the official career. However, because his temperament was not suitable for official life, he abandoned his official position and wandered between mountains and rivers. At the same time, Xia (the cloud mentioned in the postscript) described the exquisiteness of his landscape paintings in Painting Treasure. He once said that when he lived in Yushan, he "explored the vicissitudes of Yushan day and night, and the fate of the four seasons was in his heart, taking painting as the shape, so the more strange the mountains and valleys he painted, the more mountains and rivers overlapped. He also joined the Neo-Taoism with Yang Weizhen, Zhang Yu, Fang, Ni Zan and other secularists at that time. He once wrote a poem for Ni Zan's Six Gentlemen, saying, "Looking at Yunshan across the autumn water, you can see an ancient tree holding a broken peach. In fact, compared with the Six Gentlemen, he is upright and impartial, which shows his character cultivation. At the age of 79, he came to Fuchun Mountain with his younger brother. This mountain faces Fuchun River, and the Diaoyutai of the famous Gao Shi Yan Ziling is near the river, which is admired by the world. He and his younger brother lived in the nearby South Building, so the victory of Jiangshan Map aroused his interest in painting and began his creation of Fuchun Shan Jutu. The younger brother who lives with him every day is useless. Not only did he appreciate his paintings, but he was also moved by his love for them. He was worried that the painting wouldn't last long, so he asked Huang to write a postscript at the end of the painting. The original text is "Zheng Zheng lived in Fuchun Mountain for seven years, and it was useless to follow the teacher. In my spare time, I wrote this volume in the South Building. When I am in the mood, I don't feel how good I am. Fill it out one by one. Read for three or four years, incomplete. Guy stayed in the mountains and traveled abroad, so he stayed. Today, I have taken it back to my luggage. If you are free in the morning and evening, you should write. It's useless to worry too much, but some people take luxury goods skillfully, so that they can know the end of the paper first. I know that it is not easy to achieve. " There is a date and signature in the postscript, and the cloud says, "Ten years of Qinglong, the day before Gengyin Festival. This idiot wrote a book "Up in the clouds" in Shi Xia Zhi Zhi Concert Hall. "Ten years" refers to the ten years from Yuan Shundi to Zheng Zheng, and Gengyin year is counted as Gregorian calendar 1350. "Festival" refers to the Dragon Boat Festival. Huang was 82 years old when he wrote this postscript. Eight years after Huang's death, this painting was preserved by his younger brother. Useless real name Zheng Zun. After the demise of the Yuan Dynasty, Zheng Zun died soon, so his favorite scroll spread to different collectors. In the meantime, of course, there are tricks and plunder. Until the seventh year of Shunzhi in Qing Dynasty, it happened to be Gengyin year, Gregorian calendar 1650. It has been 300 years since the postscript of Huang, and this volume suffered a disaster and was burned in half. There must be many stories in this period. We can know something about this scroll now, because fortunately, some people who love this scroll have written some inscriptions for it.
It turns out that before Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty, this picture scroll was kept by Shen Zhou, a great painter at that time, and was later cheated and sold to a Suzhou man named Fan Shunju. Shen Shi later saw this painting at his home in Fan Shi, but he was unable to buy it back. Shen Shi in regrets, then wrote a postscript at the end of the volume. Later, this scroll flowed into the hands of Tan Zhiyi in Wuxi during the Qin Long period of the Ming Dynasty. Some scholars at that time, such as Wen Peng, Zhou, Wang and others, were invited to watch and write inscriptions respectively. Later, during the Wanli period, this painting flowed into the hands of another great painter, Dong Qichang. Dong Shi was embarrassed at home in his later years and gave this scroll to Wu. The son of Wu and Dong Qichang, both scholars, loved calligraphy and painting, and once printed his collection on the seam of the picture scroll. After Wu died, this painting was introduced to his youngest son, Wu Deyu. Wu's friend Zou Zeng read this picture scroll on behalf of Wu and wrote an inscription. He once mentioned that when the Ming Dynasty perished, "Ask Qing (according to Wu Deyu's words) to ask no, and take this scroll alone. Oh! This is not the first feeling, it is a direct life. " It is this man who wants to sacrifice this painting with his own life, but when he is facing death, he wants to sacrifice this painting, throw it into the stove and turn it into a lie. Fortunately, Qing's son Wu was asked to rescue the painting from the fire, so the painting was broken in two after the fire. Who knows, Wu, who rescued the painting from the fire, sold it to others soon, and Zou, who had written an inscription for the painting before, also saw the impermanence of the painting, so he added a translation after the inscription, saying, "Dongpo doesn't mean' fingers left on the ice carelessly, counting things'" (according to the original sentence of Dongpo's poem, it should be' fingers left on the mud carelessly'). Madam, everything in the world is impermanent, and even self can't be guaranteed for a long time, let alone a thing outside. However, things are different, but through the description of these inscriptions, people who have seen it for thousands of years or less are still moved by the friendship of people who have loved it for thousands of years or longer.
I just experienced a loss of "everything has a destiny" recently. Several paintings and calligraphy hanging in my living room in Vancouver were stolen in June last year (20 10)5438+02. Personally, I am not a materialistic person, so I can really say that there is nothing at home, and I never take the initiative to buy or hide any antique paintings and calligraphy. Even the treasures that most women love very much are not interested. The five calligraphy and paintings lost this time are all gifts from teachers and friends, and I cherish them very much. What I cherish is not the value of things, but the friendship given to me by my teachers and friends in those years. So after reading some accounts of Fuchun Shan Jutu's gains and losses, I thought why not write a friendship when teachers and friends presented these paintings and calligraphy, so that no matter where these paintings and calligraphy flow in a few years, just look at the people I described and you will remember a friendship related to these paintings and calligraphy. Perhaps this can also be used as my thanks to the teachers and friends who sent me these paintings and calligraphy, and my guilt for stealing these paintings and calligraphy from my own home today.
I lost five paintings and calligraphy, among which my favorite is a couplet written by Mr. Tai Jingnong in the 1960s. I got a sentence in my dream. I was recommended by Xu Shiying to teach at Taiwan Province Provincial University. 1954. At that time, Mr. Tai was the head of the Chinese Department, and there were always some disciples around him, while I was a teacher of Chinese as a foreign language, and I was rather shy. Besides, I was shy when I was young, so I never visited Mr. Tai's house privately. Until the 1960s, one day Mr. Tai suddenly called and asked me to go to his house. It turned out that the wife of Professor Zheng Qian from the Department of Chinese Studies at the front desk died soon. Mr. Zheng is a friend of my teacher, Mr. Gu Sui, and Mrs. Zheng once warmly received me in their home. At that time, Mr. Zheng's mother was still there, and I respectfully called her Mrs. Tai. Mr. Zheng's daughter is only ten years old, so call me Sister Ye. So when Jenny Zheng died, I wrote an elegiac couplet. The first part said: "Xuantang is still alive, and the left daughter is charming. I came fourteen years ago and looked up at my mother's instrument for the first time and smiled. " The second part said: "Pan's temple will decline, and Zhuang's pot will roll. After people go to the Double Ninth Festival, it can be seen that the host is doubly sad. " Mr. Tai read this couplet and thought I wrote it well. Shortly after the death of Mr. Dong Zuobin, the Chinese Department of National Taiwan University, Mr. Taiwan asked me to draw up two couplets on behalf of all the teachers and students of the Chinese Department of National Taiwan University. The first part of the couplet reads "simply pick up quicksand, be reburied, and trace back to the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, the industry of Tibetan mountains should be immortal", and the second part reads "Save the cold snow, Qin Lengbi Pool, Huai, Teacher Jing E is here", and there is an elegy inscribed by Mr. Daitai. The first part of the couplet reads "Forty years of running water, I remember meeting in Yantai that year, and my classmates regarded my brother as Jude", and the second part reads "I died at the age of three thousand, but now I hurt the sea, so I am old and left me to cry". Since then, Mr. Tai has often called and asked me to write him some couplets, including elegiac couplets and congratulatory couplets, with more than a dozen pairs before and after. Generally speaking, after he called me, he introduced me some information about the couplets to be written. When I come back and finish writing, I'll send it to listen to his opinion. Generally speaking, most of the couplets I intend to write are praise and encouragement, and only once did he make a little suggestion. That was when Mr. Yu Youren died. Mr. Tai asked me to write a couplet for him. The couplet I intend to write is "I was born in 33 years of the Republic of China, and I have been in charge of the cypress department for 33 years, assisting the people in the ruling and opposition." The couplet is "Looking back at Wan Li for a long time, the wind rises high in Wan Li, splashing ink, and remembering the old poet for a long time." I once discussed with Mr. Taiwan Province whether to use "beard" or "bearded man" in the last sentence of the next couplet. Mr. Yu Youren is famous for his beautiful beard, so I originally wanted to use "beard", but Mr. Tai has a free and easy personality and thinks it is unnecessary to be so formal. It is better to use "beard" instead. In this way, after I became familiar with Mr. Taiwan Province, I gradually eliminated my sense of shyness. Once I talked to him about some poetry couplets in my sleep. After listening to this, Mr. Tai was very interested and told me that he had a dream of writing poems in his early years. But Mr. Tai never showed his poems to others before his death, so he didn't tell me the poems in his dream, but asked me to tell him the poems and couplets in his dream. At that time, I didn't write down the poem in my dream, because it was just a broken sentence, but the couplet in my dream was complete, so I wrote it on a piece of paper. Who would have thought that after more than ten days, Mr. Tai personally wrote this couplet in calligraphy, put it into a beautiful frame about 35 cm wide and 75 cm long by pressing the mirror, and gave it to me. In the dream, the first couplet is "the sexual intercourse is far away, and the willows are sentimental and resentful", and the second couplet is "the rain passes through the spring and the begonia is gaunt and not charming". In the previous paragraph, Mr. Tai wrote "My wife got a sentence in her dream and wrote a book all her life", and in the next paragraph, he wrote "Jingnong rested in Beilongpo". There is a small seal at the lower right of the upper part of the couplet, and a small seal at the upper and lower parts of the couplet with Mr. Tai's font. The couplets are mounted with gold wire, and the frames are decorated with gold paint, with black straight edges. The overall tone is precious and beautiful. As for Mr. Tai's calligraphy, it is a running script with official script style, and the distance between upper and lower couplets is about 2 cm. As for the popular spirit between the lines, it is written in a mysterious way. Generally speaking, there is a sense of density in the end show, which is both smooth in running script and concise in official style. It is quite different from Mr. Taiping's daily cursive writing, and it is a very thoughtful work. It's a calligraphy work from my favorite friend in my life.
As mentioned earlier, I have a "conscious" attitude towards Mr. Taiwan Province, and I am rather shy, so although I love Mr. Taiwan Province's calligraphy very much, I have never asked him for any works. Mr. Dai's "life is a book" mentioned in the previous paragraph is only his modesty. After receiving this calligraphy presented by Mr. Tai, I have a little guess about Mr. Tai's love for this couplet. I think Mr. Tai probably felt some bitter thoughts in my subconscious through this couplet in my dream. It turned out that in 1948, after I came to Taiwan Province with my husband's work, my husband was arrested by the navy in June 5438+02 of the following year. At that time, our eldest daughter was only four months old, and six teachers in Changhua Girls' Middle School, where I taught, were also arrested for white terror. I was less than one year old, with a nursing baby. After interrogation and confession, the original intention of the police was to deport us to garrison headquarters in Taipei. Later, because I had a nursing daughter, I was released in advance. But I lost my job and dormitory, became a homeless person, had to live in a relative's house, and lived a life of sweeping the floor in the corridor with my daughter every day. Fortunately, a few months later, my relatives and friends introduced me to teach in a private girls' middle school in Tainan, so I moved to Tainan with my daughter and lived in a dormitory with only straw mats and nothing. At that time, my colleagues and students were very suspicious of me, a young woman with a daughter who hadn't seen her husband for three years. I only said that her husband was busy at work, but I didn't dare to say a word about the white terror I experienced. After coming to NTU, I certainly didn't tell anyone about it. But I think Mr. Tai may know what I went through. That's because my teaching at NTU was recommended by Mr. Xu Shiying, and my teaching at Changhua Girls' Middle School was also recommended by Mr. Xu Shiying. Mr. Xu once lived in Nanfang, the outer court of his hometown in Beijing. At that time, I was only a middle school student. 197 1 years ago, after Mr. Xu's death, I wrote a seven-character poem called "Poems of Mr. Xu Shiying", in which "My old home is still in the west of the city, and the sound of books moved to the south", describing the reason why I met Mr. Xu. As an old friend, xu teacher has always taken great care of me. Mr. Xu is a friend of Professor Zong, the husband of President Huangfu of Changhua Girls' Middle School. He couldn't help but know that there was a white terror incident in Changhua Girls' Middle School, and when he introduced me to teach at National Taiwan University, he must have told Mr. Taiwan Province my experience. The couplets in my dream are probably some subconscious expression of my distress at that time. Mr. Dai is a sensitive poet. I think he probably felt the subconscious feeling of the couplet in my dream at that time, so he wrote and framed it in earnest and gave it to me. Of course, all this is just my guess and hypothesis.
As for Mr. Tai once told me that he also had a sentence in his dream, Mr. Tai never told me the poem in his dream, so I never asked him. In this way, until a few years after Mr. Dai's death,1in the summer of 995, when I went to Harvard University in the United States to compile an English manuscript, Xing Jun, the second daughter of Mr. Dai, who lived near Boston, came to me one day and gave me a copy of Mr. Dai's manuscript with manuscript paper, saying that his brother and sister asked me to write a few words for this upcoming manuscript, so that I could have a chance to read Mr. Dai's poems. About this matter, I have already described it in the article preface to Mr. Tai Jingnong's poems, so I won't repeat it here. What I want to say now is just a story of "a dream sentence". When I received Mr. Tai's poems from Chunhang, I couldn't wait to know what kind of poems he had in his dreams. Sure enough, there is a poem about it in his collection of poems. The preface before the poem reads: "When Yu Fang was twenty years old, he got a sentence in his dream and wrote it to his classmates, but he didn't understand its meaning. When I was eighty years old, I suddenly recalled this, and the play was enough. " What he achieved is a seven-character quatrain, which reads as follows: "Where is the soul of spring going? Full of silence and laughter. This is a teenager's dream. Smallpox is dazzling and calm. " Judging from this poem, Mr. Tai is really a thoughtful and far-sighted poet, which is why he dreamed of such an exquisite poem in his dream and was so interested in the couplet I got in my dream. Moreover, I thought he might have noticed some sadness of "seclusion and resentment" that I had never told before. As for turning that sentence in my dream into a poem, it also reminds me of what I said to Mr. Tai in my dream. All I got in my dream at that time was one sentence, and this poem was "Look at the bright moon alone and share the burden". When Teacher Tai and I mentioned this sentence in our dream, there were also two sentences in our dream. I also want to turn these interrupted sentences into poems, but because my consciousness after waking up is too clear and rational, the sentences I made can't be combined with the subconscious sentences in my dream, so I gave up the idea of using poems and decided to pick some poems with vague meanings from Li Shangyin and make my dream into three seven words. The three poems I finished are as follows: one is "Spring dreams are full of rain, and the eternal soul leans on the sunset glow." Last night, the west pool was full of coolness, and I watched the lotus flowers alone with Mingyue. "The second is" the waves are far away, and the scarlet gas protects the palace. "LingLun blew the solitary bamboo, buried in the ash, hatred. The third is the long-cherished wish of "turning Zhu into harmony and sea into field". "Always sweeping the spring mountain, the rain falls in the moon." The first poem was written before I left Taiwan Province Province. I also showed it to Mr. Tai, and Mr. Tai also wrote a small banner for me. As for the last two songs, I haven't seen them since I left Taiwan Province Province. When I read a poem written by Mr. Tai in a dream, I had two thoughts. First, I think the last two poems written by Mr. Dai are very good. He summed up his dreams as a whole with a sentence "This is a teenager's dream", and combined the hazy dreams and the reflection after waking up into a realistic and illusory whole with a sentence "The smallpox is dazzling and calm", showing a strong means of opening and closing paintings, which is much more brilliant than the way I pieced together poems from Yishan. Secondly, the sentence in Mr. Tai's dream was not completed until he was 80 years old, and that was after he saw my work of completing the sentence in the dream with a mountain poem. So when I read his poem, I also thought that he had written that sentence in his dream into a poem. Have you been influenced by me to make poems out of the sentences in his dreams?
In addition to these conjunctions and poems in my dream, Teacher Tai did two things that impressed me very much. First, when Mr. Xu Shiying introduced me to teach at National Taiwan University, the school asked me to try some works, but I was worried for the rest of my life, and I really couldn't come up with any decent works. Therefore, when xu teacher personally came to my house to pick up his works, all I could submit was the mimeographed poems I wrote in my early years, and several essays about poems I was invited to write when I was teaching in that private girls' middle school in Tainan. When Mr. Xu asked me for his work to be submitted for trial, I had to give him my mimeographed poems and my indecent prose in a hurry. After I passed the examination, it was a long time before these manuscripts were sent back to my own hands by the Chinese Department. At this time, I suddenly found that my indecent manuscript was neatly cut and pasted into a booklet, and a series of neat articles were listed on the title page, which was Mr. Tai's handwriting. I was deeply moved after reading it. It's just that when I met Teacher Tai, we never mentioned it to each other. Another time, it was 1988, and Taiwan Province Province lifted the ban. It was 20 years since I left Taiwan Province Province. Professor Chen Wanyi from Tsinghua University, Taiwan Province Province invited me to give a lecture tour to several universities in Taiwan Province Province. In my opening speech at National Taiwan University, I mentioned a poem I wrote when I was forced to give lectures in English when I first arrived in Canada. This little poem is a seven-character quatrain, and the first sentence in the poem begins with "Pengfei". The whole poem is "Pengfei, who talks to the cloud, is sad today." Beihai is full of memories, and I will talk about it for the rest of my life. " I used to be a person who liked to play "running wild horses" at will during lectures. Now I have to teach in English. Without this fun of casual play, I can't help but feel sorry for my loss. The next day, this poem was published in the national Taiwan University newspaper, and I didn't care. Who would have thought that when I left the stage to say goodbye to Mr. Taiwan Province, Mr. Taiwan Province had actually written this poem published in the school magazine into several small banners for me to choose from. I was still a prude, so I only chose one. Later, I regretted it very much. Why am I afraid to ask Mr. Tai for those little banners? After that, there was another thing that moved me. It was the autumn of 1990. When I went back to Taiwan Province to give lectures again, Mrs Tai had been admitted to the National Taiwan University Hospital because of esophageal cancer. When I visited him, although he was ill and weak, he was still conscious. He once said to me sincerely, "You'd better come back to teach." I think he must be caring for the sadness of "loss" revealed in my little poem, which still makes me feel deeply. A few days later, I will go to the mainland for a meeting, visit him in the hospital and say goodbye to him. He was in a coma, so I didn't say a word. When I returned to Taiwan Province Province from the mainland after the meeting, Mr. Dai had passed away. In fact, I have always had deep feelings for Mr. Taiwan Province, because I was very shy and reserved. I never expressed my gratitude before his death. In 1994, when I wrote "In memory of several teachers and friends at National Taiwan University", I also made some excuses for not thanking myself, saying, "I thought that with my hero husband, I wouldn't care if I thanked him, but with my warm-hearted husband, I could feel my gratitude even if I didn't thank him." Now, nearly 20 years later, I stole and lost one of my most cherished calligraphy works from home, which is beyond words.
A few years ago, I brought some calligraphy and painting donated by my friends back to China, but this calligraphy and painting was left on the wall of my living room in Vancouver because I liked it so much. And when I left Vancouver last year, I installed a burglar alarm at home, and two students lived at home. This has been an arrangement for many years, and there has never been an accident. Who would have thought that someone had broken the alarm, broken the switch and stole my precious paintings and calligraphy? I was far away in Tianjin when this happened. Although my relatives and friends called the police for me, it was too late to mend. But I was delayed in Tianjin this spring, because my blood pressure rose and I caught a cold, which caused asthma and other diseases. At that time, friends in Vancouver called Tianjin from time to time to ask about my return date. Sometimes they say don't miss the flower season, come back quickly, and sometimes they say it's still snowing, so I'd better come back later. At that time, I also wrote a little poem, saying, "If you dare to ask about the flowering period and the snow period, you will be sad in the declining year. I was born a homeless person, and I am ashamed to say that my trip will not come back. " By the end of March, I returned home to Vancouver, facing the blank wall, and I was really sad. A friend once asked me if these paintings and calligraphy were insured. I said no, because in my heart, these paintings and calligraphy represent a kind of inner friendship, which cannot be measured by the value of things or compensated by money. But judging from the rudeness of these thieves' behavior and the inferiority of their character, what they value is obviously only the value of these paintings and calligraphy. I am an old man who is nearly ninety years old now. Things can't last long. I have known about it for a long time. My original intention was to leave all these paintings and calligraphy to the China Institute of Classical Culture, which I founded in Nankai University, Tianjin, when I died, as some beautiful testimony of the classical culture I came into contact with. I still remember that more than 20 years ago, after the death of Mr. Dai, Professor Ching-Ming Ko from the Chinese Department of National Taiwan University wrote an article in memory of Mr. Dai. His title is Classical Glory, which vividly describes Mr. Dai's behavior, voice and smile. Today, Mr. Dai's calligraphy was stolen by someone who was so rude and had such a poor character. Sadly, I know these people must be from China. Compared with the classical glory of the previous generation, I really feel ashamed and sad. Some of us in China have degenerated into today's unscrupulous and mercenary mentality and behavior. But then I thought, since these thieves aim at making profits, this Mr. Tai's calligraphy will surely spread in the calligraphy and painting art market in the future. At this moment, Huang's Fuchun is being held in the Palace Museum. After hundreds of years of looting and burning, this painting was finally restored and exhibited. I was lucky enough to watch the whole painting carefully on the computer and read all the inscriptions and postscript. Therefore, I have a good wish for this lost calligraphy of Mr. Tai, hoping that this calligraphy can be transferred to someone who really understands and loves it, and this passage of mine may, like an inscription, let the later treasure hunters know all kinds of psychological friendship processes of "arrangement" and "success" in those years. Is to remember. Besides Mr. Tai Jingnong's calligraphy, I also lost four paintings by Mr. Fan Ceng: a statue of Qu Yuan, a painting of Buddhism, a painting of an old man and a monkey, and a painting of water. There are many stories in these paintings and calligraphy works. )