This year is Ye San’s fiftieth birthday, and the family is discussing how to celebrate the old man’s birthday. The eldest brother and the second child both suggested that dad should stop selling fruit outside the house because they could afford to support him.
/p>
The son quickly explained:
"No. You are old and running around outside all the time, in wind and rain, on water and dry roads. As a son, I feel uneasy."
"I'm used to running around. I'm used to delivering fruits to these people. Just for the sake of Master Ji Si, I have to sell fruits."
Master Ji Si is Ji Tao Min. He is the fourth eldest son, and people in the city call him the Fourth Master.
"You don't have to give me anything to celebrate my birthday. If you are filial, take out the painting that the Fourth Master gave me and frame it, and then give me a birthday gift." There is such a custom here, The longevity materials are prepared early in order to bring good luck: to bring blessings and longevity. So they all followed him.
Ye San still sells fruit.
He really sold fruit for Ji Taomin alone. He gave fruits to other people's homes to make money, and he gave fruits to Ji Taomin because he loved his paintings.
Ji Taomin has a temperament, painting and drinking at the same time. When drinking, don’t just drink vegetables, just fruits. Draw two strokes, hold the spout of the pot to take a sip of wine, hold a piece of fruit in your left hand, and continue painting with the pen in your right hand. To paint a picture, one needs to drink two kilograms of Huadiao and eat half a kilogram of fruit.
When Ye San collected the best fruits, he always sent them to Ji Taomin first.
When Ji Taomin comes up every day, he walks into his small study - his studio. Ye San entered through a small hexagonal door without any notification and walked through a winding path of ice flowers paved with gravel. When he saw Ji Taomin through the window, he walked in carrying his fresh fruit.
"Sir, loquat, from Baisha!"
"Sir, watermelon from Dongdun, Sanbai! - This kind of three-white melon has a pear blossom fragrance that cannot be found anywhere else!"
He brought fruits to Ji Taomin, and it took him a long time to come. He helped Ji Taomin grind ink, bleach vermilion, grind stone, bluestone and green, and stretch paper. When Ji Taomin was painting, he stood by and watched intently, concentrating on the painting without even expressing his breath. Sometimes when I see something wonderful, I can't help but take a deep breath, or even exclaim softly. Wherever Ye San inhales and exclaims, it is also Ji Taomin's proud work. Ji Taomin never painted in public. He sometimes locked the door of his study room while painting. An exception was made for Ye San. He was very willing to have such a person watching from the side. He thought Ye San really understood and Ye San's appreciation came from the bottom of his heart, not pretending to be an expert or flattering.
Ji Taomin hates hearing people talk about painting. He rarely went to relatives' houses to socialize. Even if he really had to go, he would drink half a cup of tea and say goodbye as soon as he arrived. Because there must be some fake celebrities talking loudly during the banquet. Because Ji Taomin is a great painter, these celebrities especially like to comment on books and paintings in front of him to show off their elegance and erudition. This kind of discussion is all hearsay and seems to make no sense. Ji Taomin felt really uncomfortable after hearing this. He also knew that if he answered and said a few words, a certain celebrity would repeat his lofty views at other social gatherings and say: "Brother, Ji Taomin also deeply agrees with this."
But he looked at Ye San differently.
Ji Taomin admired Li Futang the most①. He believes that among the eight weirdos in Yangzhou, Futang has the most profound skills. He is good at both large-scale and short pieces. He has pen and ink, is unrestrained, rigorous, rich, and elegant, and is not pretentious and has no charlatanism.
One day Ye San sent him a quarto album of Li Futang's album, which surprised Ji Taomin: These quarto album pages were real! Ji Taomin asked him how much he paid for it, and Ye San said he didn't spend any money. He went to Sanduo to sell fruit and saw four paintings inlaid in the glass of a cupboard. He had seen a lot of Li Futang's paintings at Fourth Taiye's place and could identify them. He exchanged four "Suzhou pictures"② with that shop. . The "Suzhou movies" were colorful and brand-new, and the shop was very happy.
Ye San just likes painting from the bottom of his heart, and he never makes blind comments. Ji Taomin finished the painting and nailed it to the wall. He put his hands behind his hands and looked at it from a distance. Sometimes he would ask Ye San:
"Is it good?"
"Okay!"
"What's good about it?"
Ye Sanda can tell what's good about it in one sentence.
Ji Taomin drew a picture of wisteria and asked Ye San.
Ye San said: "There is wind in the wisteria."
"Hmm! How do you know?"
"The flowers are messy."
"Excellent!"
Ji Taomin wrote two sentences:
"The deep courtyard is deserted, and the wisteria flowers are blown by the wind."
Ji Taomin drew a sketch of a mouse on a lampstand. Ye San said: "This is a little mouse."
"Why do you see it?"
"The mouse wrapped its tail around the lamppost. It is very naughty."
“Yes!”
Ji Taomin loved painting lotus the most. All he painted were ink flowers. He admired Li Futang, but his painting style was not similar to that of Futang. Li's paintings are mostly dignified, while Ji Taomin's paintings are elegant. Li Hua mostly uses the center stroke, while Ji Tao Minwei uses side strokes - he writes with Zhang Cao. Li Futang sometimes has dripping ink, thick hair and messy clothes, and the intention is first; Ji Taomin is not that bold, his paintings are freehand brushwork, but they are always full of brushwork, very clean, and the brushwork is sparse and clear, and he is good at making use of white space. His black ginseng uses Zhang Daqian, but it is more relaxed. The lotus leaves he painted do not have hooks or thorns on the stems, and he likes to make long paintings, with very long stems and one stroke to the end.
One day, Ye San sent a lot of lotus pods. Ji Taomin was happy and painted a lotus painting with many lotus pods. After finishing the painting, he asked Ye San: "How did it go?"
Ye San said: "Fourth Master, your painting is wrong."
"Wrong?"
"'Red lotus seeds and white lotus roots'. What you painted is a white lotus, but the lotus pod is so big, the lotus seeds are full, and the ink is deep. These are the lotus seeds of the red lotus."
"Is that so? My first impression I heard it back!"
Ji Taomin then unfolded an eight-foot-long piece of paper, drew a red lotus, and wrote a poem:
"Red flowers, lotus seeds, and white lotus roots,
p>
The fruit seller Ye San is my teacher.
I am ashamed that the painter has little knowledge,
I made an exception for you and gave Ye San as a gift. Three many paintings. ——Sometimes Ji Taomin drew a picture and was not satisfied with it, and the picture fell off. Ye San picked it up and gave it to Ji Taomin a few days later. Ji Taomin thought it was pretty good, so he slightly changed it, added a question, and gave it to Ye San again. The paintings Ji Taomin gave to Ye San were all inscribed with the above inscription. Ye San also has a scientific name. His five elements lacked water, so he was named Runsheng. Ji Taomin named him Zezhi. The paintings given to Ye San are often inscribed "Ya Zheng, the Third Brother of Ze". Sometimes the title is "Painting and Ye San". Ji Taomin also explained to him: It is an ancient custom to call him by his ranking, and it is not to look down on him.
Sometimes Ji Taomin drew a picture for Ye San and said, "Don't put the inscription on this picture. You can sell it for money - it's hard to sell if there is an inscription on it."
Ye San said: "It doesn't matter whether you have a title or not. But I won't sell your paintings."
"Not for sale?"
"Not for sale at all?"
He put all the paintings given to him by Ji Taomin in his coffin.
More than ten years have passed.
Ji Taomin is dead. Ye San no longer sells fruits, but he still looks for fresh fruits everywhere during the four seasons and makes offerings to Ji Taomin's grave.
After Ji Taomin's death, the price of his paintings increased significantly. There are people in Japan who specialize in collecting his paintings. Everyone knows that Ye San has many paintings by Ji Taomin, all of which are exquisite.
Many people want to buy Ye San’s paintings. Ye San said:
“Not for sale.”
One day a foreigner came to visit Ye San. Ye San saw his business card. The man’s last name was very strange. "Tsuji" is called "Tsuji Tingtao". When asked, he was Japanese. Tsuji Tingtao said that he made a special trip to see Ji Taomin's paintings in his collection.
Because he came from afar, Ye San had to take out the painting. Tsuji Tingtao was very pious. He asked for water to wash his hands, burned a stick of incense, and bowed three times to the scroll before unfolding it. As he watched, he kept praising:
"Oh! Oh! How good! It's really a masterpiece!"
Tsuji Tingtao can buy these paintings for any amount of money.
Ye San said:
"Not for sale."
Tsuji Tingtao had no choice but to leave in despair.
Ye San is dead. His son followed his father's will and put Ji Taomin's paintings in the coffin with his father and buried them.
February 28, 1982
① Li Futang, whose given name is Zongyang, and his nickname is Futang, also known as Chao Daoren. He was a juren during the Kangxi period and served as magistrate of Teng County. Because he offended his superiors, he was dismissed from his title and official position, and he only worked as a painter all year round. Sometimes he had to borrow paper from Zheng Banqiao when he was painting, so he was probably quite poor. He specializes in fine brushwork and is a disciple of the court painter Jiang Tingxi. Later he went to Yangzhou and changed his painting style to freehand painting. He learned from Gao Qipei and was influenced by Xu Qingteng, Bada and Shi Tao. His demeanor changed drastically and he became his own style.
② Most of the imitation paintings are meticulous flowers and birds with delicate colors. In the old days, they were mostly made by Suzhou painting studios and sold all over the country, so they are called "Suzhou pictures". There are also good imitations of Suzhou films, which are not tacky