Love in Painting
Love in Painting — Huang Yongyu in May and June 1982 Jin Kejian The Painter Monk On May 31, after seeing off the Shen Congwen couple, Zhang Meixi, Huang Yonghou and others who were returning to Fenghuang, Huang Yongyu stayed behind alone, wanting to reminisce with his old friend Ma Ling and do some painting along the way. That night, Huang Yongyu, staying at the Golden Whip Rock Hotel, was in especially high spirits, and everyone who came to ask for a painting went away with something. The painting he gave the poet Hong Zheng, who had followed him all the way from Changsha, was…
Love in Painting
——Huang Yongyu in May and June 1982
Jin Kejian
The Painter Monk
On May 31, after seeing off the Shen Congwen couple, Zhang Meixi, Huang Yonghou and others who were returning to Fenghuang, Huang Yongyu stayed behind alone, wanting to reminisce with his old friend Ma Ling and do some painting along the way.
That night, Huang Yongyu, staying at the Golden Whip Rock Hotel, was in especially high spirits, and everyone who came to ask for a painting went away with something. The painting he gave the poet Hong Zheng, who had followed him all the way from Changsha, was of a little bird with its beak open and eyes glaring, tail raised and chest puffed out, like a little doll-gentleman in a swallow-tailed coat, irresistibly amusing. Huang inscribed it: “Singing doesn't rely on the voice alone; it mainly relies on sincerity.”
With just those two lines, everyone suddenly looked at him with new eyes, never imagining that a painter could be so accomplished with the brush of words. After all, politics had only just loosened its grip at the time, and the names of Shen Congwen and Huang Yongyu had only gradually begun appearing in the newspapers over the past two years, so few people knew of them.
Amid the laughter, one old man alone sat in a corner, keeping to himself, quietly lost in thought. That was Ma Ling, who had just hurried in from the countryside to see his old friend Huang Yongyu after nearly 40 years apart. Reading his expression, observing his mood, one could see the countless emotions welling up in his heart.
It was the deep spring of 1946. Ma Ling, then in his early twenties, had gotten into trouble with his pen for editing the Dayong People's Daily, and fled from place to place to Ganzhou, Jiangxi. Later, through the maneuvering of the underground Communist Pan Tianyu, he managed to make a living on the “New Land” literary supplement of the Zhengqi Daily. Since Chiang Ching-kuo was the paper's founder and first president, it had considerable influence nationwide. And the previous editor of “New Land” was the famous writer Wang Xiyan.
One day, a young man suddenly appeared, wearing a sweat shirt and shorts, unkempt and dirty, bursting into Ma Ling's editorial office and shouting again and again: “I'm looking for Chen Zhenlun of Dayong (his original name; he later changed his pen name to Ma Ling). I want to eat, I want to submit manuscripts!”
This impetuous young man was none other than Huang Yongyu.
In the days that followed, as the two slept head-to-foot or strolled and chatted by the river, Ma Ling finally cleared away the rosy cloud hanging over Huang Yongyu's head. In short, it was said that Huang Yongyu, bold as could be, had actually set his sights on the daughter of a certain high-ranking military officer in Guangzhou. He had fallen passionately in love with the beautiful and affectionate Miss Zhang Meixi. A wandering rustic bumpkin (Huang belonged to the Tujia ethnic group) courting the daughter of a high-ranking officer—even without embellishment the story had its problems. For instance, the officer threatened to have him arrested and to give him “a peanut” (a bullet), and the young man fled in terror alone, running all the way from Guangzhou to Jiangxi in one breath, finding the Zhengqi Daily and his Dayong fellow townsman Ma Ling—it could well be called a tale of astonishment.
Then, after hearing Huang Yongyu's account, Ma Ling immediately decided to advance him payment for manuscripts first and publish his works later. Huang Yongyu, having unexpectedly come into a sum of manuscript fees, went straight to a pawnshop and bought a set of clothes. A writer named Li Bofeng even carved Huang Yongyu a seal with an ox-head design, as a celebration of his debut.
Huang Yongyu was only 21 then, yet his painting skills already showed real power. I remember his first published work in “New Land” was called “The Old Man Selling Candy Toys.” In the picture, a Miao old man, having made a big batch of candy toys, sits there dozing, waiting for children to buy, full of the rustic flavor of Xiangxi. Its theme: an old man in the twilight of his years, still bitterly waiting to make a living—amid the bitter humor, a tenacious pursuit is hard to conceal, and it moves the reader.
Ma Ling's rough impression of Huang Yongyu was: diligent, indifferent to food and clothing, unkempt, always looking greasy, belonging to the radical faction. It was a time when the land was broken and the smoke of civil war rose on all sides; several young newspapermen could not help gathering together to talk big—on national affairs, the future, current politics, freedom, democracy, reaction or progress, and the like, which of course were the fashionable topics of those hot-blooded youths. Amid the wild talk, Huang Yongyu would sketch out the dynamic likenesses of each person with a few strokes.
Thus the two, Huang and Ma, curled up together on a three-foot cot, shared hardship for three or four months. As soon as Huang Yongyu had saved a little money, he plunged headlong into grand Shanghai. At that time Shen Congwen was editor of the literary supplement of the Ta Kung Pao, and he devoted two full pages to publishing Huang Yongyu's woodblock prints in a concentrated feature—the first time in Huang Yongyu's career as a painter that he was grandly presented to the public. The following year, Ma Ling followed in his footsteps to Shanghai, where he paid respects to Ye Shengtao, Chen Yusun, Xu Zhucheng, Huan Xiang and several other top figures in the literary and journalistic worlds, and was appointed correspondent in Hangzhou for the Wen Hui Bao, adding fuel to the storm of anti-Chiang and anti-American struggle on the eve of liberation, and for a time making a name for himself in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In the early summer of that year, in the house of a painter in Shanghai called CA (Chinese name Xiya), Huang Yongyu and Ma Ling met again after a long separation. Huang Yongyu was then creating anti-Chiang and anti-American woodcut works. After that the two parted and vanished like the yellow crane. Later, rumor had it that Ma Ling had been shot dead by secret agents at Songmuchang in Hangzhou, and Huang Yongyu even invited some companions to prepare a memorial meeting. Later still, Ma Ling went up Mount Kuocang to wage guerrilla warfare, and then, called back by his hometown, returned to Dayong to teach, and from then on sank into nightmare years of wasted time……
These fragments of the past, polished by the years, shine ever more brightly—how could they not give rise to so many emotions?
At this moment, Huang Yongyu was wholly absorbed in painting “Portrait of Li Sao,” in which a loose-haired monk sits upright on the ground, deep in solitary thought, his face cold and strange. As everyone looked closely, he resembled none other than Ma Ling in the corner, and they could not help smiling. When the painting was finished, Huang Yongyu again took up his brush and wrote a colophon:
“In the late spring of the Renxu year I met Brother Ma Ling at Dayong; we had lost each other in the rivers and lakes for nearly forty years. I paint Qu Yuan as a gift. Your younger brother of Xiangxi, Huang Yongyu” (fingerprint).
The next morning, the fine rain had just stopped. I went to Huang Yongyu's room to look in on him; a light shone from the half-closed door, and Huang was bending over his desk writing rapidly. On the horizontal scroll he wrote:
“Old friends parted by rivers and seas, how many times have mountains and streams come between; suddenly meeting, we doubt it is a dream, and sadly ask each other's age. A lone lamp shines in vain on the rain, deep bamboo floats dark mist; and if tomorrow's parting brings regret, let us cherish the farewell cup together.” Then he added a note: “For decades I did not know where Ma Ling was wandering, yet I found him by chance on a page pasted on a wall at Zhangjiajie. I have been to Zhangjiajie three times—for Zhangjiajie, and also for Ma Ling. Life's comings and goings often have their themes, and this kind of fate is a theme too. Writing out the Tang poet Sikong Shu's poem to add to the occasion, in the Renxu year, your brother Huang Yongyu of Fenghuang, at Dayong Zhangjiajie” (fingerprint).
How deep was the affection for his close friend contained in these words of Huang Yongyu. After reading them, Ma Ling wept so hard he could not speak, and at once, with tears, wrote a passage on the painting as a return gift to Huang Yongyu:
“Yongyu painted 'Portrait of Li Sao,' pouring in all his spirit, and finished it in a moment. Viewers, not understanding its meaning because the form and spirit of the model were so close, laughed secretly again and again. I was moved by his deep affection and love, and tears streamed down, so I wrote a poem to record it: In form like a bald monk who does not chant, hair loose, sitting upright and pondering. The world's clear and muddy are hard to foresee, yet the nation's affairs, in spring sunshine, still weigh on the heart. Having already died nine deaths and still feeling no shame, how can one at sixty sigh at dusk? A good friend knows me beyond flesh and blood; at the mere sight of his fingerprints, tears pour down!”
Painting a Couplet
On the afternoon of June 1, Huang Yongyu and Ma Ling and their party went down the mountain and stayed at the county committee guesthouse.
After dinner, the two strolled in the courtyard, reminiscing. Old Ma asked with concern: “Are you used to life back in your hometown?” Huang replied: “Honor and disgrace, success and failure, praise and blame, toil and ease—I have tasted every flavor of the human world, so I can get used to anywhere.”
With just that one sentence, he summed up the extraordinary life experiences of both men.
Zhang Yulin, the head of the guesthouse, in order to receive the Shen Congwen party, had specially rushed to build a classical-style round gate in the back courtyard's “VIP Building” overnight, and asked the two gentlemen Huang and Ma to compose a couplet for it, to add literary elegance and charm. On hearing this, the two gladly agreed.
Ma said: “Let's collaborate on one.” Huang nodded in agreement, but insisted that Ma produce the first line.
As Ma strolled, he thought hard, and in a moment inspiration came, and he recited the first line:
Qu Yuan's Sao songs sing of the Li River
This line alludes to Qu Yuan's lines such as “On the Yuan there are angelicas, on the Li there are orchids; I think of the prince, yet dare not speak” (“Lady of the Xiang”), and “I cast my sleeve into the river, I leave my girdle by the Li's shore” (“Lord of the Xiang”).
Master Huang was momentarily at a loss for words. As he paced, he happened to see Tianmen Mountain in the distance from the main gate, and suddenly laughed and recited:
Yi's arrow shoots Tianmen
Old Ma clapped his hands and cried out in praise!
Master Huang had cleverly borrowed the ancient myth of “Hou Yi Shoots the Suns,” changing shooting the suns to shooting Tianmen, piercing through an entire mountain, while its meaning still kept to Qu Yuan's peerless line “Wide open, O Heaven's Gate, in a throng I ride the dark clouds” (“Nine Songs: Great Master of Fate”). Without extraordinary literary talent and rich historical knowledge, how could one have produced such a marvelous matching line!
Master Huang mulled it over again and again, still somewhat hesitant, and said: “When I go back I'll discuss it with my uncle (Shen Congwen).”
Many years later, when Huang Yongyu returned to Dayong again, he learned that his old friend Ma Ling had already passed away, and could not help feeling deeply grieved. At that time the Tianmen Mountain International Hotel had just been extensively renovated and opened, and Huang Yongyu was asked to paint a central hall picture. After Huang Yongyu splashed ink and in one breath painted a huge freehand Tianmen Mountain scene, just as he was searching his guts for a matching couplet, he suddenly remembered the couplet he had composed with Ma Ling, which would serve perfectly. But when the brushwork was done, it turned out to be two lines each reduced by one character:
Qu Yuan's Sao songs, the Li River
Yi shoots Tianmen
This compression omitted the two repeated characters, making it even more refined and exquisite.
Whether this was Mr. Shen Congwen's idea, one cannot know.
Painting Theft
Speaking of Huang Yongyu's friends in Zhangjiajie whom he worried about most, besides Ma Ling there was Liu Kailin, the director of the Zhangjiajie Forestry Farm. I remember that when Huang Yongyu first went up to Zhangjiajie, a group of forestry workers at the farm were puzzling over a strange term, and that term was “tourism.” Banning logging and hunting, building houses and roads, letting idle people run wild among the mountains and waters—quite apart from the fact that such behavior was unbearable, could the hundred-odd mouths at the forestry farm survive on water and wind?
That day, in front of farm director Liu Kailin and a group of county government dignitaries, Huang Yongyu delivered a lofty pronouncement. He said: “You are in a fairyland yet do not know you are immortals. I dare say the scenery of Zhangjiajie is first-rate in the world. America has a grand canyon (the Colorado Grand Canyon); seeing it can make you feel the greatness of the Earth, but it is terrifying—no trees or flowers, just a vast expanse of steep rocks and cliffs like something scorched by fire, without life, making you think of the end of mankind. Tourism is a new thing, but abroad it is a way of life. In the future, Zhangjiajie's income from tourism will certainly be much higher than from cutting fir trees. I also remind you that when building tourist facilities, you must remember to make them ethnic and local, for only thus can they enter the world. So-called world standards are in fact representative works of ethnic and local culture. For example, your stilted houses—you could paint them for a hundred years without tiring of them. Though very rustic, they are full of the beauty of harmony between life and nature, and can well compare with America's hundred-story skyscrapers. When foreigners come to China, don't China's local goods become foreign goods too……”
Huang Yongyu's words can be said to have influenced the generation of pioneers who founded Zhangjiajie's tourism industry in the early 1980s. Afterward, he went up Zhangjiajie three times to paint, and was the first to hold a “Qingyan Mountain (its old name) Painting Exhibition” in Hong Kong, setting off a “Qingyan Mountain Storm” for a time. He was one of the four great “mountain-opening masters” who pushed Zhangjiajie to the world (the other three being Mr. Wu Guanzhong, Mr. Chen Fuli, and Yang Fei). In particular, Huang Yongyu later, entrusted by General Secretary Hu Yaobang, named the new scenic area after the “unification of the three kingdoms” as “Wulingyuan,” which may be considered as giving this magical land its proper name and ancestry—one may say his merit was
great indeed!
No sooner had Huang Yongyu finished speaking than the door planks were laid out, and the crowd watching the great painter paint formed a tight, impenetrable ring. Incomprehensibly, Huang Yongyu tore up each painting as soon as he finished it, and did so three or five times, finally throwing down his brush and stopping, smoking fiercely while muttering: “I can't go on, I simply can't. All the vocabulary in today's painting treasury cannot express the spirit of these mountains.” So he went straight toward the lotus pond east of the farm headquarters, and with single-minded devotion began painting lotuses.
What an eccentric. Where are there no lotuses? Why must he paint them up here in these mountains?
Huang Yongyu, facing this ink lotus touched with transparent dewdrops, swayed his head and became intoxicated with himself for a long while, and said: “This is the lotus painting I am most proud of in my whole life.”
This painting later became the forestry farm's “treasure that guards the mountain.”
Yet before long, this painting suddenly disappeared.
The damned painting thief!
Several years after the lotus painting was stolen, Huang Yongyu went up Zhangjiajie again. When his old friend Liu Kailin mentioned the theft, he could not help wringing his wrists and sighing. Huang Yongyu smiled and replied: “A trivial matter, no need to take it seriously.” Then he spread out paper and splashed ink, painting with unrestrained freedom, and with just a few moves a painting several feet long, titled “Random Thoughts of Zhangjiajie, On Not Taking It Seriously,” leaped onto the paper. When the painting was done, he went on in one breath to write a colophon of more than a hundred characters:
“Five or six or seven years ago, I once painted a Zhangjiajie picture and gave it to Zhangjiajie during the forestry farm period. Later it was stolen by a meddlesome person with designs, recovered, and then stolen again by another person with designs, and from then on it was never seen again, and the people of the area hated it bitterly. Now I paint another picture as a gift. This work is simple: it is only meant as a keepsake for old friends in the area. Should outsiders harbor any fond designs, after seeing this picture they should no longer give rise to strange thoughts. I pray it be so, I pray it be so. Your Xiangxi fellow townsman Huang Yongyu, painted in the spring of the Jisi year.”