1.
Qi Baishi’s shrimp, Xu Beihong’s horse. I can't draw and I don't understand painting, but I have seen shrimp and horse by two great painters in picture albums. I know even less about their lives, especially the old man Qi Baishi.
I had known that Mr. Baishi’s paintings were natural, simple, and childlike. It was only after reading the book "The Narrative of Mr. Baishi" that I understood why. Only old man Shiraishi could have painted such a picture. Reading his words, I often smile knowingly.
Mr. Luo Jialun, the former president of Tsinghua University, commented: "This is a very good autobiography, for the good reason that it is unpretentious and full of the author's native flavor."
For example, the opening sentence, "Our family is very poor!" immediately brings us to the old man's sad and tender memories, without any language barriers.
2.
Old man Baishi said that life was very poor at that time, and it was difficult for the whole family to make ends meet. His father was weak, and he relied on his diligent and frugal mother to support him. I studied for less than a year, but stopped because I had no food to eat. Go to the fields to dig taro and go home to stew it with cow dung. Old man Baishi said that every time he painted taros later on, he would think of the scene back then, and he once wrote a poem: "A hill of fragrant taros in the late autumn and cool autumn should be worth the grain of a poor family. Don't be too dissatisfied when you are an old man." It has a thin flavor and is fragrant when simmering cow dung on the stove."
After peeling the taro, I dug out the wild vegetables and later wrote poems about them. Old Man Baishi said that only the poor themselves understand the bitter taste of the poor, not the wealthy and aristocratic.
Old Man Baishi learned literacy from his grandfather when he was four years old. When he was seven years old, he had learned all the three hundred characters that his grandfather knew. When he was eight years old, he went to the Mongolian school run by his grandfather to continue learning. I can read and recite "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Surnames" and "Thousand Family Poems" by heart. Old Man Baishi said that reading at that time was to pick up a book and read it desperately. When you are familiar with it, recite it, and when you recite it, it will flow out.
In addition to reading and memorizing, there is also writing. Writing is homework, and after tracing the big characters, I start drawing. Draw everything you see with your eyes, especially the flowers, plants, birds, animals, insects, fish, etc. you see in the countryside. If you don’t draw Thunder God, if you say you have never seen a real Thunder God, your drawing will always be unreliable.
Children from poor families have already become masters. When Shiraishi was a child, he was too weak to work in the fields. When he was fifteen, his father asked him to learn the carpentry trade from an uncle in his family, so that he could support his family in the future. I learned to be a rough carpenter, also known as a large-scale carpenter, who made rough tables, chairs, benches, and rakes for field use.
Being looked down upon by others for making large ware, I felt unconvinced, so I learned how to make small ware - carving from a master named Zhou Zhimei. Master Zhou was Old Man Baishi’s first real teacher, and he said he would never forget him in his life.
When it comes to making large-scale or small-scale carvings, people who are born as carpenters are always looked down upon as being just a craftsman. Later, I studied with Teacher Chen Shaofan, Teacher Hu Qinyuan to learn meticulous painting of flowers, birds, grass and insects, Teacher Tan Lizheng to learn landscape painting, Master Xiao to learn frame painting, and also learned engraving from some familiar friends.
At that time, the teachers introduced him. Mr. Shiraishi said that many people came to him for portraits. He made more money than carvings and it was easier to do. So he gave up tools such as axes, saws, drills, and chisels and became a painter.
Old man Baishi recalled his hard work, reading, painting, and apprenticeship in his poor days, as if he was telling other people's stories. It was obviously very hard, but when he read it, there was a fragrance of chewing vegetable roots. , the taste of bittersweetness.
When I was working as a carver, I saw a set of "Mustard Seed Garden" at a customer's home, and I was very happy. He had no money to buy, so he borrowed one. After finishing work in the evening, he sketched each picture one by one under the diesel lamp and bound it into sixteen books. Later, he copied it over and over again several times. He said that this is how the basic skills of painting came about. of.
Many modern craftsmen cannot calm down to do these basic skills. It is not necessarily good if they have too much material. There are piles of copybooks and drawings, but it is extremely rare to copy with single-minded concentration and restraint. matter.
3.
Old man Baishi lived for ninety-seven years, and his whole life was filled with separation. He has an indifferent temperament and accepts various situations and people. He lives the longest and watches his relatives and friends leave one by one. He didn't say leave, he only said they died. In the eyes of the old man, life and death are ordinary things, as natural as flowers blooming and fading. But my heart is also full of reluctance and pain.
When my mentor Hu Qinyuan passed away, Old Man Baishi said, how can we suppress the sadness after being separated for an eternity?
His parents died twice in a row. Mr. Shiraishi said that he had no interest in living.
When his first wife passed away, Old Man Baishi said that they had been together for more than sixty years, and even though there were as many grains of sand in the Ganges, it would be difficult to tell them all about the poor and humble couple. Once they were separated, their hearts would be broken.
In this long life, everything I wanted to gain was gained, and everything I needed to lose was also lost.
During the fall of Peiping during the Anti-Japanese War, Old Man Baishi said that enemy and puppet leaders came to the door to make friends and beg for hoarding calligraphy and painting to make a fortune. He was too lazy to talk nonsense and posted big words on the door: "Old Man Baishi has a heart attack again and stopped seeing guests."
The Japanese military police rushed into the house and shouted that they were looking for old man Qi. They wanted to lure and threaten him, and wanted to kidnap him to go to Japan to sell his paintings. He sat on a wicker chair and declared: "You want Qi Huang, but Qi Huang's "Take the head." (Qi Baishi, named Huang, also known as Baishi.)
Some people advised him to protect his life wisely. The old man Baishi said, "It's not a pity to die if you are in trouble in your remaining years. What else is there to fight for your life?" Terrible. "I shed tears again and again under the lamp to see that there are no mountains and rivers like this in China." Then he stopped selling paintings, but he continued to paint every day. The paintings he made were distributed to his children for preservation.
During this period of time during which he escaped from the world, the old man Shiraishi was already eighty years old and lived a miserable life in depression. How the old man spent his time was difficult for people to guess. When I was reading the following text, I remembered the previous description: "I engrave, just like writing. When writing, I don't repeat the description, and when engraving, I go out with one knife and never return the knife. Things in this world are expensive and happy, not to mention seal cutting is an elegant thing, how can it be? He was dragging his feet, but he did well?"
Reading this oral biography, the impression of the old man Baishi gradually became richer. When "Qi Baishi" was mentioned before, the appearance of an old man appeared in front of his eyes: He has a white beard, a long gown, and glasses. He is a great painter, calligrapher, seal engraver and poet, a genius in poetry, calligraphy and painting.
Now I know that Mr. Shiraishi is a child of a poor family. He was weak when he was a child and could not afford paper and pen. He drew portraits of others to make ends meet. He was laughed at by others for his background as a carpenter. He was looked down upon for his poor poetry skills. He was a snobbery. He didn't know how to communicate, and no one paid any attention to him. The many memories of life with his parents, wife and children are warm, touching, vivid and interesting to read. The image of the great painter Qi Baishi appeared on the paper unconsciously.
4.
Nowadays we appreciate the paintings of Old Man Shiraishi and read his clear and profound poems. Where are the people who laughed at him and looked down upon him? .
There are several paintings at the back of the book, including some of Shiraishi's classic techniques and his seals. The book is not thick, but it covers a long life, ninety-seven years.
This book is an oral text, as clear as a stream and as deep as the sea. It is fresh and easy to read. I read it in one breath. Good writing, without playing around with style, telling simple facts, is really a pleasure to read.
I thought that if a person never does something to win applause from anyone in his life, he just needs to be diligent and studious, and have principles and bottom lines in doing things, that would be enough.
Grandpa Shiraishi said that things in this world are expensive and happy!