Mi Fu's name, you must be familiar with it. When I wanted to go to school, as long as the Chinese calligraphy art was mentioned in the history textbooks, especially the calligraphy art of the Song Dynasty, Mi Fu was an important figure that could not be avoided. Of course, today, I don't plan to introduce you to the story of Mi Fu from the mainstream perspective, I want to talk to you today, Mi Fu's aspects that are not very noticeable. Let's start with Mi Fu's cleanliness.
Cleanliness is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder. More than 1,000 years ago, the ancients also had the concept of hygiene? Also have a cleanliness fetish? To what extent is cleanliness?
If you crossed, returned to the Northern Song Dynasty, and Mi Fu lived in the neighborhood, every day to see Mi Fu wearing a Hanfu, in and out of your house next door. One day, you passed by Mi Fu and touched his clothes. As a result, this old man Mi, who was supposed to go out to run errands, was sure to turn around and go home, and he had to change his clothes again before going out. It's clear that you are dirty, and you say that you are annoyed?
After that day, you will also find that you have touched the clothes, Mi Fu is absolutely not going to wear again. Out of curiosity, you must ask, Mr. Mi, why haven't you seen that dress worn again? He would say, "That dress, you touched it last time, and I thought I couldn't wash it clean, so I just threw it away." ”
You are not angry when you hear this, do you have the heart to strangle him? Mi Fu's cleanliness habit has reached this level!
Mi Fu's cleanliness is really that serious? To tell you the truth, his cleanliness habit has really reached this level! You know, Mi Fu's cleanliness habit has entered the official history of the country! In the "Song History, Mi Fu Biography" is specially recorded, said that Mi Fu is so clean that he does not share hand towels and utensils with others. Some people may think that cleanliness is a minor problem at best. Indeed, but on this small problem, Mi Fu also suffered a big loss, what's going on?
Once, Mi Fu got a new inkstone, which is a good baby. For this reason, he specially invited a friend to come to his house to admire this inkstone together. After the friend came, because he knew the rules of Mi Fu, he deliberately washed his hands first, and then picked up this inkstone to watch carefully. It doesn't matter if you look at it, it's really a good inkstone, and my friend asked to use this inkstone to study ink and write two strokes to try. Mi Fu listened, immediately asked the family to get the ink water, but the family went for a long time and did not come back. My friend was impatient to wait, so he simply dipped the ink block in his own saliva and studied it on the inkstone.
Mi Fu collapsed at that time, he said to his friend, this inkstone has become dirty, I can't use it, send it to you! At first, my friend thought he was joking, after all, things are quite expensive, give them to me? How inappropriate that is. But Mi Fu's attitude is particularly resolute, friends look at it, well, then I will accept it. Think about it, what is the mood of this Mi Fu? I guess that's really dumb and eating Coptis chinensis -- I can't tell if it's bitter.
It is undeniable that Mi Fu himself is a very good and well-known collector, which should be related to his superb artistic attainments. After all, the artistic attainment is high, and the taste of art will naturally go up, and of course, you will be able to identify and collect many outstanding works of art. However, Mi Fu and the average collector is different, in the collection of this matter, he can already be described as obsessive or obsessive, everything he fancies, he always has to do everything he can to get his hands on it, even royal things are no exception!
As a literati, Mi Fu's favorite collection of things, is the inkstone in the four treasures of the study, as well as ancient celebrity calligraphy and painting, especially the love of inkstone, that can be called the ancients without the ancients. Once, the emperor at that time, Song Huizong, recruited Mi Fu into the palace and asked him to inscribe a screen. After the word was written, Mi Fu took a fancy to the inkstone used when writing. You know, it was the imperial inkstone used by the emperor, and it was a treasure that had just been paid tribute.
As a collector of Mi Fu, that vision is really poisonous, he fancy this inkstone, it also happens to be the beloved thing of Emperor Huizong. Mi Fu began to ponder, how to let the emperor, give me this inkstone?
At this moment, Emperor Huizong spoke: "Oh, Mi Aiqing, your writing is really amazing, I have to reward you heavily!" Let me think about it, what should I reward you? As soon as I heard this, Mi Fu hurriedly took the stubble: "Your Majesty, the words of the minister can be appreciated by His Majesty, it is really a blessing for three lives, and the minister does not ask for a reward." It's just that His Majesty's imperial inkstone, which has been used by the minister just now, has been polluted by a layman like the minister, so His Majesty can no longer use it. It's better to give this imperial inkstone to the minister. ”
If you want to say that this Mi Fu really knows how to chat, first belittle yourself, and then open your mouth to find the emperor's things, it is also direct enough. As for Emperor Huizong, he hesitated at first, but the royal style must not be too stingy. Forget it, I'll reward you with Mi Fu! Hearing this, Mi Fu was overjoyed, he immediately grabbed the inkstone, directly stuffed into his arms, but he forgot, there is ink in this inkstone! Get this ink! Mi Fu also can't take care of his cleanliness, kowtowed, turned around and left, for fear that the emperor would regret it.
This scene in front of him, really made Emperor Huizong laugh, the emperor was happy, the inkstone did not care, Mi Fu took this baby, it was more down-to-earth.
In addition to slandering things with the emperor, in order to collect, Mi Fu did not hesitate to compete with the dead! What's going on? It is said that Mi Fu once had a very beautiful purple gold inkstone, and later he asked for the inscription of Su Shi, who was also a great calligrapher, and gave this purple gold inkstone as a moisturizing pen to Su Dongpo. To say that this Zijin inkstone is really a treasure, Su Dongpo also loves it, and even before he died, he asked his son to put the Zijin inkstone in the coffin to bury him. Hearing the news, Mi Fu was anxious - eh, I sent you the inkstone no problem, after all, you died I still have the opportunity to buy this treasure back from your descendants. But if you really want to take this inkstone to the burial, then you will be blind!
For this reason, Mi Fu hurried to Changzhou, stunned from the dying Su Dongpo's hands, the purple gold inkstone to go back. Grab things with the dying person, Mi Fu is also enough, but he doesn't care, according to him, this inkstone is a treasure handed down from generation to generation, how can you live in a coffin with the dead? I don't know what Su Shi's mood was before he died......
To some extent, Mi Fu can become a generation of calligraphy masters, and his large collection of calligraphy works of the ancients has a close relationship. As early as when he was young, Mi Fu got a nickname, called "set ancient words". On the one hand, it refers to all the ancient calligraphy works on the market, and almost all of them can fall into the hands of Mi Fu; On the other hand, this nickname also shows that when learning calligraphy, Mi Fu copied and borrowed a lot of fonts from the ancients. This calligraphy skills on the reference, in Mi Fu in different periods of calligraphy works, can be reflected.
If it is the calligraphy of the ancients on the market, it can generally fall into the hands of Mi Fu, anyway, it is money, anyway, the lord is rich! But in the same era as Mi Fu, there are many outstanding calligraphy masters, for example, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, but are famous. For these people's calligraphy works, Mi Fu, who has a collection habit, also does not want to let go. But literati are relatively high-minded, and even if you have money in your hand, you may not be able to buy the words you want, so what should you do?
Mi Fu from the dying Su Dongpo hands, Leng put his inkstone back, this behavior sounds very unkind, but the friendship between the two people, in fact, is very good, otherwise this inkstone he will definitely not come back. Although the two of them are 14 years apart in age, in terms of feelings, they are almost the same as brothers. Although the feelings are so good, Mi Fu has always wanted Su Shi's words, but he has never been able to. What kind of person is Mr. Dongpo? No matter how good our relationship is, if we don't write it for you, we won't write it for you!
So, the time to test Mi Fu's wisdom has come. Eventually, he got a chance. It was in the seventh year of Yuanyou, Su Dongpo was transferred to Yangzhou, before leaving, Mi Fu gave him a wine to see him off. At the banquet, Mi Fu thought of a trick, he asked people to set up another table next to the table, with pen and ink and 300 pieces of paper. Then he said to Su Shi, Brother Su, see you off today, this wine can't be drunk in vain, we have to compete. How to compete? Let's drink a glass of wine, each write a word, and in the end, see who is not strong enough to drink first, and who can't write a good word, who will lose.
Su Shi heard it, okay, then come on. The two of them just pushed the cup and changed the lamp, and wrote while drinking, drinking from the afternoon until the sun went down. The two of them were drunk, and of course they had written hundreds of words. Mi Fu instructed his family in advance to put away all the words written by Su Shi. In fact, let's be fair, with Su Shi's mind, can you not see Mi Fu's careful thoughts, he wrote these hundreds of words, should be regarded as a parting remembrance for friends.
Facts have proved that this is exactly the case, after the banquet, Su Shi sighed: "I drank too much today, and the words I wrote are not as good as before." Mi Fu said: "No! Wine can be spiritual, I look at your words, more charm than usually written! After saying that, the two of them laughed hand in hand, exchanged works with each other, and said goodbye.
In fact, in many stories about Mi Fu, we can feel some of his character traits: obsessive-compulsive disorder, persistence, and admitting death. Cleanliness is originally a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and as for his daring to ask the emperor and the dying Su Dongpo for things, it definitely proves that he is the kind of character who goes all the way to the black. But from another point of view, it is precisely this kind of person who can become a generation of calligraphy masters.