The late Ming Dynasty was a particularly special period in Chinese history, when cultural and artistic activities experienced the change of dynasties, the baptism of blood and rain, and the mixing of ideas from all walks of life, presenting a new artistic brilliance. At this time, the "Xin'an School" was shining in the art world of the late Ming Dynasty, they took the landscape of Huizhou and the Baiyue of Huangshan as the objects of description, and used the brush to sway the magnificent beauty of the rivers and mountains, alluding to the painting, expressing the painter's literati style.
Cheng Jiasui (1565-1643), a calligrapher, painter and poet in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, was born in Xiuning County, Huizhou Prefecture (now Xiuning, Anhui). The word Mengyang, Songyuan, Xuan, also known as Songyuan Old Man, Songyuan Daoren, converted to Buddhism in his later years, and his legal name is Haineng. Cheng Jiasui works in the landscape, proficient in music and rhythm, poetry and writing, and is respected by the world as the old poet of Songyuan. His flower and bird paintings are gentle and tranquil, landscape paintings are dry and graceful, and the hand-me-down paintings include "Imitation Ni Zan Landscape Map", "Lone Pine Gaoshi Map", "Songquan Zhishi Map", etc., and he is the author of "Pine Garden Lang Tao Collection", "Pine Garden Nunnery Collection", "Broken Mountain Xingfu Temple Chronicles" and other poems.
The social atmosphere in the late Ming Dynasty showed a situation of "not happy to advance", and a large number of families in the south were mainly engaged in business, and Cheng Jiasui was born in such a family with less cultivation and more business. The explanation of the Cheng family's father and ancestor is: "In the valley of my hometown, the land is ugly and the teeth are numerous, and non-businessmen have no way to make a living. Therefore, although the Cheng family, who has been in business for generations, is not as scholarly as a scholar, it is also rich and stable.
Cheng Jiasui was a carefree rich child when he was a teenager, often haunted the Qinlou Chu Pavilion, happy and happy, he was also very fond of calligraphy and painting, antiques, and good at singing with literati and doctors, so he was very close to people. He is not good at business, coupled with the difficult world and frequent thieves, the Cheng family is convenient for Cheng Jiasui's generation to gradually decline, and after the death of Cheng Jiasui's father, his living environment has plummeted. Without the financial support of his family, Cheng Jiasui was quite poor after middle age, but fortunately, he made many friends and was able to live a stable life by receiving help.
Once a noble son who spent as much money as a nobleman, and once he could only rely on his friends to help him get by, Cheng Jiasui's contradictory life experience also created his ambivalent attitude towards painting. Cheng Jiasui likes to paint landscapes, and once joked that he was a painter in his previous life, but he lazily complained that painting was very laborious, and finally became something that others played with and appreciated, and often sighed for it. This contradictory characteristic is reflected in the paintings, but they are very eye-catching, such as his works such as "Shadow of the Clear Mountain" and "Picture of Songxi Release", which should be faint and distant, but the ink color is thick, it should be ethereal, but the layout is dense and unique. "The old lazy is poor, and the poor hate the arts. Indulging in calligraphy and painting, it is difficult to be hungry and thirsty. On the one hand, Cheng Jiasui loves painting and is famous for his paintings, but on the other hand, he feels that calligraphy and painting cannot solve the pain of life and is quite difficult. Fortunately, he has always insisted on painting creation, so he has left many masterpieces for the Hui School of landscapes, and has not buried his name as a "pioneer of the painting school".
Cheng Jiasui was a smart young man, but he failed the imperial examination, and then worked hard to study poetry and books. His poems are gentle and generous, sad but not sad, very beautiful, and finally the poems are famous. Compared with the achievements of poetry and books, his landscape paintings are also worth sighing. Cheng Jiasui's landscapes have several strokes, which makes his landscape image more realistic and vivid, meticulous as hair, and establishes a clear image for the Hui school of landscapes, opening a precedent for the "Xin'an School of Painting".
Whether composing poetry or painting, Cheng Jiasui strongly advocates "returning to the original temperament". According to historical records, although Cheng Jiasui himself is modest, he is uninhibited and very cute. He often drank to his heart's content, drunk and painted, his brushes and ink flying, scattered but not chaotic; If someone comes to visit and solemnly asks for a painting, he will not dare to put pen to paper, "I can't just put it on a paper after years." Wanton and happy, Cheng Jiasui, who relied on his temperament, made a good relationship in the Southern Literati Association, he knew that his family was in decline, so he relied on his talent to walk the rivers and lakes and live a hard life.
Many of his poems lament this: "I am really driven by hunger, and I have paid far away." Cheng Jiasui, who has traveled many times to make a living, although life is not easy, he also met many literati and artists and local ** on the way, so his paintings often have the nature of entertainment. Qian Qianyi, a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy in the Ming Dynasty, because Cheng Jiasui's confidant Li Liufang had to make friends with him, Qian Qianyi praised Cheng Jiasui's poems and paintings very highly, and even took his painting as fun, and once said: "Watching Meng Yang's poetry and painting is the first pleasure in my life!" "The two had a close relationship.
Cheng Jiasui and Qian Qianyi have a very close friendship, but the end of this good story is very dramatic. The love story of Qian Qianyi and Liu Ruyi, a talented girl through the ages, is well known, but the world does not know that Cheng Jiasui also admires this talented woman very much, and once wrote poems and paintings for her, intending to pursue Liu Ruyi. In the cold winter of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Cheng Jiasui went to Qian Qianyi's Yushan Banye Hall, and planned to stay drunk with his friends, but he unexpectedly saw Liu Ruis here. Liu Ru and Qian Qianyi fell in love with each other, and the conversation was very intimate, Cheng Jiasui saw this, hurriedly said goodbye, and ran away helplessly. Even later, Qian Qianyi invited him to visit Huangshan and go to the West Lake together, but Cheng Jiasui did not show up, knowing that Liu Ru was not behind, so he set up a boat and left, "seeing each other and smiling". After that, Cheng Qian and the two never saw each other again.
Cheng Jiasui enjoyed himself by painting, selling paintings for a living, or using paintings to ask for money, or giving paintings to friends to express gratitude, so he left behind a lot of works. This painting "Sparse Forest and Far Away" was painted by Cheng Jiasui at the age of 71, and it is a masterpiece imitated by Ni Zan in his later years, and the famous Qing Dynasty painter Song Baochun won it, which is especially cherished. The picture depicts the scenery between the forests, the slopes and rocks are scattered, the sparse forests are towering, the mountain shadows are green in the distance, and the breeze is leisurely in the distant mountains of the beautiful forest. The faintness of the ink color makes this work clean and dusty, not only with Ni Zhan's innocence, but also with a sense of leisure and leisure, which makes people feel comfortable.
Most of Cheng Jiasui's works have this kind of charm, which is not unrelated to the character created by his life experience. Taking the same Xin'an painting school as an example, he also has a lot of follow-up to Ni Zhan, Cha Shibiao is lazy, not easy to see people, has lived in seclusion in the mountains and forests for many years, and his paintings are naturally scattered and ethereal, the ink color is lighter, and there is a desolate charm. Cheng Jiasui is different, he sells paintings for a living, wandering between all kinds of elegant collections, his works have a trace of fireworks, his landscapes and figures, poems and books, often have a kind of melancholy rhyme in the red dust, the heart of the mountains and forests, which is also the most attractive feature of Cheng Jiasui's paintings. His poem Zeng Yun: "Outside the investment of leisure and pure industry, the old love of the famous mountain is in the painting." Although he could not find a quiet corner in the world, he found a wonderful and unearthly place in the landscape, and this artistic realm is also the greatest comfort in the world.