Recalling the old man Baishi
Ai Qing
Shortly after I entered Beijing in 1949, I inquired about the old man Baishi. I found out that he was still alive, so I wanted to visit him. An old painter. I made an appointment with Comrade Shakov and Jiang Feng, accompanied by Comrade Li Keran, to see him. He lived at No. 13 Kuache Hutong, Xicheng. There was a little old man without a beard living in the small room where he entered. Later I heard that he was a young eunuch from the Qing imperial family who guarded the door for him.
At that time, the three of us were cultural management committee members of the Beijing Military Control Commission. We were wearing military uniforms and had armbands on our arms. When three of us went to see him, it would inevitably make the old man feel strange. After being introduced by Li Keran, he received us. I immediately stepped forward and said: "When I was eighteen years old, I read four albums of the old gentleman's album. I was deeply impressed. I haven't had the chance to see you for many years, so I came here to visit you today." ?
He asked: ?Where did you see my paintings?
I said: ?1928, twenty-one years ago, at the West Lake Art Academy in Hangzhou. ?
He asked: ?Who is the dean of the Academy of Art?
I said: ?Lin Fengmian. ?
He said: ?He likes my paintings. ?
Only then did he know that the visitor was a person from the art world, and he got closer. He immediately asked the nurse to grind the ink, put on his sleeves, and took out some pieces of paper for us to draw. He gave each of the three of us an ink painting and a two-foot piano strip. What I drew was four shrimps, translucent, with two small fishes on them. Inscription:
"Mr. Ai Qing is eighty-nine years old, Bai Shi", the seal is "Bai Shi Weng", and the other side is "I can do my best to make things happy".
We were so happy and said goodbye to him with gratitude.
I was the military representative who took over the Central Academy of Fine Arts. I heard that Mr. Shiraishi is a professor. He goes to school once a month and draws a picture for students to demonstrate. One student proposed to stop his salary.
I said: For such an old painter to come and paint a painting once a month is a great contribution. When the Japanese came, he did not starve to death. When the Kuomintang came, he did not starve to death, but when the Communist Party came, how could he starve to death? Moreover, Xu Beihong, the president of the Academy of Fine Arts, valued him very much and collected many of his paintings. Of course, such a proposal would not be adopted.
The old man has been very diligent all his life. He was a carpenter and studied carving and later painting. He has been painting for more than half a century, and his skills are refined. He is also an innovative person, and he paints a wide range of subjects: landscapes, figures, flowers, birds, insects, and fish. I haven't seen him copy anyone else's work. He has keen observation skills, a particularly strong memory, and can accurately capture images. He has a pair of microscope eyes, and the insects he painted in his early years are very detailed. I saw the moth he painted, lying on the ground, covered with white powder, with two tentacles on his head; the bee he painted seemed to have a buzzing sound on its wings. ; The wings of cicadas and dragonflies are like tulle; the grasshoppers he painted are bright red and green, very similar to post-Impressionist oil paintings.
He painted cockscombs and peonies, but his painting method was different from other people’s. He painted big red flowers with thick strokes and only a few dots of black ink on the leaves; he painted loofahs and melons; especially He likes to draw gourds; he likes to draw remnants of lotuses, which look messy but very powerful.
There is a picture of sunflowers he painted. Title:
Painted by Qi Baishi in the eighth year of his residence in the capital, and his seal was painted by "Mu Jushi". Poem:
? The eaves are short and the sunflowers are tall, and the rain and wind shake and damage the leaves. When there is drought, I still think about the good weather, and my heart should be directed towards the sun and the east and west. The old man in Baishishan asked again in the dim light. Seal?White Stone Weng?.
There is a piece of persimmon with thick branches and large leaves and reddish-orange fruits. It is written "Xingziwu Old Man's Residence in Jinghua, the Eleventh Year of Dingmao", and the seal is "Wooden Figure".
He also painted landscapes. I didn’t see him painting mountains and mountains. Most of them were easy to see on a daily basis. The title of one of his landscape paintings is:
I use my own brush and ink to write landscapes, but everyone is confused, and I think so too. Baishi Shanweng and the title?. Impression: Shiraishi Shanweng.
Then write in the blank space of the painting? This painting has no date. It was painted by the artist twenty years ago. It is re-titled today. Eighty-eight white stones, seal "Qi Da".
The fact is that he does not want to paint what others have painted.
I bought a two-foot ink painting of a small pine forest that he painted at Duoyunxuan in Shanghai. I took it to Heping Bookstore and showed it to Xu Linlu. Xu thought it was a fake, so I asked him to go to Baishi with me. Old man, hang it up for Old Man Baishi to see. I said: "I bought this painting from Shanghai. He said it was fake, but I said it was real. Look, he looked at it and said, "This painting cannot be painted by others." The signature is Qi Baishi, and the seal is "Bai Shiweng".
I bought another eight-foot large painting. It depicts a pine tree with no leaves and pine cones. There is a poem on it: "The pine needles are gone and the worms are still thin, but the pine nuts are still green for the rest of the year." Like moss. And God has mercy on this tree, rain, wind, thunder and lightning come together. Grandpa once said that in the early summer, the pine trees near the old house in Xingtang were eaten by insects. One day, there were strong winds, rain, thunder and lightning, and all the insects were wiped out. Since Ding Si, I have borrowed the pines behind the mountain pavilion to reduce the appetite of insects. The thunderstorm of Gengwu is unattainable. I painted this and wrote it in the first month of Xin Youchun. Three hundred stone seals of "The Rich Man Five Passed the Capital Gate" have eight characters below: "安德之安" (Benyu).
Seal?White Stone Weng?.
After seeing it, he actually said: "This is a fake painting." ?
But I smiled and said: "I drove it out overnight last night." ?He knew he couldn't deceive me, so he said: ?I will give you two paintings in exchange for this one. ?I said: ?Just give me twenty paintings and I won’t change them. ?He knew it was a compliment to his painting.
This painting was made when he was in his seventies. He took a magnifying glass and looked at it carefully and said: "I was so diligent in painting when I was young." ?
One painting shows nine sparrows flying around. Title of the poem:
? Leaves have fallen and the vines are in tangle, and the cold weather brings the sound of birds. The old man's poems are about to sing, but the wind is blowing his clothes. There has never been a bird with dead vines and a cold bird. It not only creates new paintings but also composes new poems. The old man borrowing the mountain is not a lazy person. The viewer of the painting is Lao He Lang. Seal "Qi Da". After reading the painting, he asked me: Who is Lao Helang?
I said: I was just going to ask you. ?He said: ?I can't remember. ?This painting was painted by him in his early years, with a large seal "Zengwu".
I have seen him draw chicks many times, which are fluffy and cute; I have also seen him draw ospreys. The water is green and they dive into the water, which is very vivid.
He admired his art very much. Once, when he was drawing shrimps, he drew a long beard as thick as a hair on the paper with a pen, and said to me: "I am so When I am old, I can still draw such lines. ?
He hung up three paintings for me to see and asked me: Which one do you think is better? I asked him: What is this for? He said: You know. ?
I have accompanied foreign guests to visit him many times. Once, he was very unhappy. I asked him why, and he said that the foreign guests did not praise him after seeing his paintings. I said: "He praised him, but you didn't understand." ?He said what he wanted was for the foreign guests to show their thumbs up. How naive he is!
When he was ninety-three years old, the State Council celebrated his birthday and made a movie. He took a photo with Premier Zhou Enlai. He was very happy. The next day, I drew a few pictures as gifts of thanks, signed them on red paper, and personally delivered them to the homes of several relevant people. He gave me a two-foot-long color painting, depicting a basket of lychees and a loquat. This is the second painting he gave me. The title is:
Mr. Ai Qing, Qi Huang, Bai Shijiu When I was thirteen years old, the seals were in full size. In addition, there was a large seal in the lower corner, which made people feel regretful.
His original paintings were four yuan per square foot for ordinary paintings. I bought his paintings for ten yuan per square foot, double the amount for gongbi grass insects, landscapes, and figures. I invited him to a restaurant every time. Then take him home in the car. He loves prawns and is said to be able to eat up to six. He has a very strong stomach. He bites the peanuts into two halves and then swallows them. He does not smoke and drinks one or two glasses of liquor every meal.
One day, I received two seals he had engraved for Chairman Mao. The yin and yang characters were both Mao Zedong (he didn’t know Chairman Mao’s nickname was Runzhi). I asked Chairman Mao's secretary to forward the seal. In return, Chairman Mao hosted a banquet for him, with Guo Moruo as his companion.
He had many disciples. It is said that even Mei Lanfang knelt and kowtowed. The most outstanding among them was Li Keran. Li Yuan studied painting at the West Lake Art Institute and had a good foundation in sketching. During the Anti-Japanese War, he painted several paintings of soldiers being nailed to the wall by the Japanese army. Li was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and worshiped Mr. Baishi as his teacher. Li has a painting of a lying buffalo. The backbone of the cow's back is traced out with a single stroke. The momentum is very good. A child is bare-backed and holding a birdcage. The bird in the cage is singing. The cow turns its head to listen to the cry?
Old man Baishi looked at a painting and wrote the inscription:
?The thoughtful work is worthy of the masters who succeeded him during the Qianjia and Qianjia eras. Eighty-seven-year-old Shiraishi Jiahai?. Seal? Baishi inscription and postscript?
One day, I went to see him, and he took a piece of paper and asked me: What kind of person is he? His poems are not bad, and he can express them well. ?I took it and saw that it was written by Liu Yazi. The poem basically said: ?You are twelve years older than me, so you should be my teacher? I was very surprised and said: "You don't even recognize Liu Yazi. He is a member of the Central People's Government." ?He said: ?I have no ears to hear the affairs of the world, even such a big shot does not know. ?Feel a little ashamed.
I bought a small banner from the eunuch who was guarding the door for him. It said: Jiashan Xingziwu, the day is about to take a leisurely stroll. Suddenly he forgot his way back home and followed the tracks of the oxen's hooves. The seal is A Zhi, and the other seal is I am eighty years old. I particularly like his poems, which have a rich flavor of life and a simple beauty. In the early years, some people said that the poems he wrote were in Xue Kai style, which was really unfair.
I went to see him several times, always accompanied by Li Keran. This time I heard that he moved to the home of a female disciple? It was the home of a rebellious general. When he saw Li Keran, he suddenly asked: "What's your surname?" Li Keran immediately knew that he was unhappy, so he said: "I've been busy recently and didn't come to see the teacher." ?He turned to me and said: ?Mr. Ai Qing, in the early days of liberation, Li Keran, who always thought I could draw a few strokes thanks to my gratitude, immediately said: ?Mr. Ai recently went abroad and did not come to see the teacher. ?He calmed down his anger. He said that someone recently came from Hong Kong and asked him to go to Hong Kong. I said: "Why are you going to Hong Kong? There are many people there who have fled from the mainland. What if you die on the way to Hong Kong?" He said: "Someone from Hong Kong asked for my handwriting and said I can Go to Hong Kong to sell paintings. ?He didn’t know that someone had deceived him into selling fake paintings in Hong Kong.
Soon, he moved back to No. 13 Quache Hutong.
I wanted him to draw a picture that he had never painted before. I said: "You draw me an album page, a picture that has never been painted before." ?He readily agreed, and the nurse arranged it. He walked to the painting desk and drew an ink painting: When a frog jumped into the water, one of its hind legs got caught in the grass. There were three tadpoles swimming in front of the frog. It also shows the anxiety that the frog cannot escape. He said happily: "This, I have never painted before." ?I'm happy too. He asked me what kind of question I wanted. I said: "You just ask the question, I am your student." ?His title:
?Qing Ye and my younger brother Huang Shi were together in Beijing to study painting techniques. When he was ninety-three years old, he remembered Qi Baishi?
One day, I saw it in Lunchizhai An album. The first page of the album was drawn by Old Man Shiraishi: A plate was filled with cherries, five of which fell under the plate. The plate was on a small wooden stand. I want to buy this painting. The shop owner said: If you want to buy it, buy the whole book. ?I didn’t like other paintings, but I just wanted this one. He raised the price so high that I didn’t buy it. I immediately ran to Shiraishi’s house and said to him: ?I just saw the cherry you painted by Lunchi Zhai. ,very nice. ?He asked: ?What was it like? I told him the painting, and he immediately said: ?I will draw you one. ?He painted on a two-foot piano strip, but the color was not as bright as Lun Chizhai's. He said: ?The Western red is gone. ?
After the painting was finished, he wrote two lines of poetry, with very large characters:
?If you teach a beautiful woman how to speak and express her emotions, she will lose her soul?
He was obviously getting old, so I invited him to dinner in Quyuan, drove him back to Kuache Alley, then ran to Lunchizhai and bought the album at a high price. Signed "Qi Baishi", seal "Wooden".
Later, I showed the painting to Wu Zuoren, and he said that he had seen this painting at an exhibition a certain year, and that it was the most outstanding painting in the entire exhibition.
Once, he asked me to write his biography. I felt that I knew too little about him. He was already over ninety years old, and I had only known him for the past seven or eight years. Moreover, I had already read his chronology, so I said, "Don't you already have your chronology?" It is about the "Chronicle of Qi Baishi" co-written by Hu Shi, Deng Guangming, and Li Jinxi and published by the Commercial Press. He remained silent.
Later I asked others why he was dissatisfied with his chronology. It was said that the chronology had written his "Hidden Things". In 1937, when he was seventy-five years old, a fortune teller told him that he was in bad luck, so he added two years to his age.
After that, I seldom went to see him, and he became less and less talkative.
The last time I went to see him, he was lying on the recliner dying. I went up and held his hand and asked him: "Do you still recognize me?" He gave me a weak look and said softly: Said: "I have a friend named Ai Qing." ?He rarely spoke, so I said: ?I will come to see you. ?But he said: ?When you come again, I will no longer be there. ?He already had a premonition that he would not be alive for long. Who would have thought that this farewell would become an eternal farewell? A movement that followed immediately sent me to Beidahuang.
He was ninety-seven years old when he died. Actually ninety-five years old.