Eastern Xia culture and art attach great importance to the four words "spiritual spirit and wonderful energy". It is believed that the spirit, charm and soul of a person's life will be placed on the objects they carry with them.
So from ancient times to the present,
Nobles like to keep jade pendants, tea ceremony masters like to keep purple clay teapots, and even the old men in the alleys like to play with beeswax, bracelets, walnuts and so on.
The writing brush is where a painter’s spirit and energy rest.
A bamboo pen is passed down from father to son, and from son to grandson. It lasts forever and has a long history.
Like famous inks, writing brushes can have a service life of hundreds or even thousands of years. Some well-preserved antique writing brushes from the Song and Yuan dynasties that have been unearthed can be used directly for writing and painting without the need for maintenance.
Even if the nib of a wolf or sheep brush is easy to wear, it is not troublesome to ask a skilled craftsman to repair it.
“When my father handed this mahogany box to me, he told me that there are three types of Chinese painting brushes: the jade pen with suet white jade or jade as the body, and the bamboo pen with wood or bamboo as the body. brush."
"Which one do you think is the best?" Gu Tongxiang raised his eyebrows and asked.
Gu Weijing knew that there was a deep knowledge in Chinese painting brushes.
However, children don’t need very good pens.
The brushes he usually uses are the kind of modern brushes that cost 20,000 kyats and are thrown into the trash can after using them. They are not so particular.
At this time, he glanced at the bamboo tube brush in the box in front of him, hesitated for a moment, and tentatively guessed: "Maybe it's a bamboo brush?"
"Hmph, dishonest, trying to be clever."
The old man saw the look in his grandson's eyes, patted Gu Weijing on the back of his head, and blew his beard: "This is really unconscionable. How can a bamboo pen be more valuable than a jade pen? A small piece of famous jade can be exchanged for a large bamboo forest. Back then you When my great-grandfather asked me, I was much more honest than you and thought jade pens were the best."
"Then what?" Gu Weijing was curious.
"Then..."
The old man recalled the past and slowly laughed to himself.
Gu Tongxiang looked at the painting box in front of him and said softly: "Then I was shocked by your great-grandfather, sighing that his family was unlucky and his whole body was filled with the smell of copper. Alas, the poor people in the family were almost begging for food, and the old man was sick in bed. He is dying, but he still has the sourness of the old literati, and he deserves to be poor for the rest of his life."
The old man was obviously saying something sarcastic about his elders, but his expression was full of nostalgia and tenderness, and there were even tears flashing in his eyes.
The scene of that old-fashioned and square father handing this mahogany painting box into the hands of Gu Tongxiang, who was still a young boy, is still vivid in my mind now, as if it was yesterday.
But in the blink of an eye, half a century has passed.
The elders have long been turned into a bunch of small loess tombstones, even their own grandchildren are as big as them.
The old man shook his head gently and looked at Gu Weijing.
"Actually, your answer is very good. I just want to slap you to make you remember and know how precious this set of brushes is."
"Remember, when you hand the mahogany box to your child in the future, you must also tell him that among the brushes for Chinese painting, jade brushes are the most expensive, but bamboo brushes are the best."
Gu Tongxiang recalled the scene when his father handed the set of brushes to him, and said: "Most of the jade brushes are made by yamen such as the Royal Household Department of the Interior. The specially made imperial brushes are hard in nature and have a smooth surface." It has an uneven pattern and is very beautiful, but it’s actually not comfortable to hold.”
Jade pens are usually the most expensive category in the antique brush auction market.
You can hear it all the time in storytelling stories. Most of the imperial pens used in the expressions such as "the emperor personally mentioned it" or "the emperor personally sealed it" are made of jade.
In the trading market in the past two years, royal jade brushes engraved with dragon patterns from the Yongzheng or Qianlong periods can easily reach millions of yuan.
But the jade penholder has no elasticity.
When writing with this type of brush, there is a lack of communication with the paper, and the ritual symbolic properties are greater than the practical properties. Emperor Qianlong did not use jade brushes when composing poems and poems in his daily life.
It is completely a collection of cultural relics.
Buyers of this kind of pen will lock them in a safe and wait for them to increase in value. I have never heard of a collector taking them home to write and draw.
The rest are wooden pens and bamboo pens.
"Some calligraphers like to use wooden brushes, but court painters believe that wooden brushes are dry and not as expressive as bamboo brushes. The best material for bamboo brushes is Fugong dragon bamboo from the old Wu land. The five in front of you are Every pen is made from this."
Gu Tongxiang stared at the set of brushes in the painting box, as if looking at some peerless beauty.
"Weijing, do you know the most precious part of this set of pens?"
Mr. Gu gently picked up a medium-sized brush the thickness of an adult's index finger and showed it to his grandson.
"This is called Qinyu color. According to our jargon, this set of pens has been cultivated and has a spirit."
This writing brush is straight all over.
The first half of the pen body, where it comes into contact with the artist's fingers more often, turns out to be green. It is obviously a bamboo pen, but it has a bright luster like emerald, and it has completely turned into jade.
"This is the tip of an old brush, which is very rare. When the Fugong dragon bamboo was cut down, it was originally ginger-yellow, but it is said that the painter used this kind of brush to paint, and after years of hard work, it will have a touch like this The green color emerges from the pen barrel, and the longer the time passes, the darker the green color becomes."
Gu Tongxiang smiled.
Scientifically, this phenomenon is explained as the chemical effect produced by the plant fibers of old bamboo over a long period of time between the moisturizing of human skin oils and the oxidation of air.
but,
Court painters were more romantic.
"My father told me that this jade color is where the essence of ancestors from generation to generation resides. Every time they draw a picture, the dark ink and paint will slowly flow up the penholder, dizzying the yellow bamboo penholder. It is dyed into jade, so 'qin jade color' is often called 'mo jade color' or 'heart-blood color' in the mouth of old painters."
Gu Weijing glanced at the mahogany painting box.
In the box, a delicate outline pen as thick as a baby's little finger and two small brushes have been completely turned into a bright emerald color. The medium-sized paintbrush in the old man's hand is almost entirely green.
Only the largest brush used for freehand splash-ink landscape paintings still showed an obvious yellow earth color, but one third of it also showed the characteristics of jade.
"A painter can only produce spots as big as a grain of rice in spring, summer, autumn and winter all year round. A piece of jade color the size of a fingernail will take ten years. To develop the look you see, there are no two I kept writing for three years without even thinking about it.”
"In the past there was an old bamboo pen, known as a hundred taels of snowflake silver."
When it comes to the brushes passed down from his family, the old man sounded a little proud.
"It doesn't matter how expensive the things are, but antique pens are common in the market now, but these old used pens are almost extinct. It is true that Mr. Cao Xuan is the leading master of Taishan Beidou painting, but he is probably also very It’s rare to have such a set of old pens passed down from family.”
"Mr. Cao is probably envious."
Gu Weijing knew that although his grandfather's words contained the element of Wang Po selling melons and bragging about herself, they were at least 70% true.
People can support pens, and pens can also support people.
In fact, a paintbrush is very much like a musical instrument.
There may not be much difference in timbre between an antique violin made by the legendary violin maker Stradivarius worth US$10 million and a handmade violin made by the top contemporary violin maker worth US$100,000.
At least it's not as exaggerated as the $9.9 million price difference.
But any world-class violinist will always only choose antique violins to play. The first violin of some symphony orchestras can be passed down from generation to generation from 1750 to the present.
When you hold a famous piano in your hand, your mentality is different.
The same goes for paintbrushes.
Both Chinese and foreign, with a purchasing power of about one hundred dollars, you can easily buy a very easy-to-use paintbrush in a stationery store that has an absolutely above-average craftsmanship.
The reason why painters buy painting tools that are more than ten times or even hundreds of times more expensive is not because there is any essential difference between the paintings, but because the emotional state of holding a $100 pen and a $10,000 pen is different.
Just like there was once a Japanese oil painter who used to only use a certain brand of expensive natural mineral pigments, there was also a well-known illustrator who claimed to only use German Pelikan to give him customized platinum pen illustrations.
Either they have a private agency agreement with the painting equipment dealer, or else this is the feeling and tone they are pursuing.
You can even understand it as vanity, but positive vanity.
Expensive paintings have an emotional bonus brought by wealth. Holding the pen makes you feel even more awesome.
The selling point of all luxury painting equipment dealers is often not craftsmanship, but stories.
For example, Lukes, a master-class painting tools manufacturer that Lao Yang gave to Gu Weijing, always has a slogan on its official website that Van Gogh liked to use our painting tools the most.
The company's main focus is the emotional value of "if you buy our painting equipment, you will be closer to a great artist" to attract art students who are not short of money to buy.
Make a rational judgment and determine what good painting tools Van Gogh could afford given his financial status at the time.
For Chinese painting painters,
Holding a set of old pens in his hands can naturally bring calm and stable power to his heart, as if he has received some kind of blessing buff.
Masters of traditional Chinese painting who grew up in Eastern culture may regard money as dirt and gold, silver and jewelry as nothing.
There are many masters who have three light meals a day and wear coarse linen and linen clothes, but I have never heard of anyone willing to take the initiative to use pens, inks, paper and inkstones of poor quality.
Mr. Cao knows this kind of old pen passed down from his family, and indeed may even envy it.
Not just because of the age and quaintness of the old paintbrush.
The emotional connection and soul twisting brought about by this kind of bloodline inheritance have an impact on a painter's emotions, which is completely incomparable to the stimulation of vanity brought by those high-end painting tools inlaid with gold and silver introduced by Western luxury goods companies. of.
Not on the same scale at all.
Ancestors are gods in Eastern Xia culture who protect descendants.
Even just looking at this set of brushes, Gu Weijing can feel a kind of religious solemnity and solemnity.
Like the bright moon at night, I suddenly heard the bell ringing in the middle of the night, and the sound of old monks singing sutras came from the distance, which brought a kind of peaceful power.
Let's put it that way.
If you draw with this set of strokes, it may be difficult to take the initiative to get a perfunctory evaluation unless it is due to the painting method itself.
This is the quiet power of the spirit.
"Look, your great-great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather...all the ancestors are looking at this generation of Gu family descendants."
Gu Tongxiang turned off the spotlight in the room and took out the candlestick from the cabinet.
The power supply in Myanmar is not very stable. Not only is the Good Luck Orphanage not connected to the power grid, but the prosperous tourist area where Gu's calligraphy and painting shop is located occasionally has power outages, and every household is equipped with candlesticks and candles.
The old man lit the candle with a lighter.
Gu Tongxiang held the pen body with his fingertips and carefully approached the candle lamp on the side. The flames jumped and the bamboo pen was like jade, reflecting the old man's entire fingers into a deep pool of deep green.
Fugong dragon bamboo has natural eye-like patterns on its surface.
Maybe it's an illusion, as the lights flicker,
It is really like the ancestors of the past hundred years, looking at the descendants of the Gu family of this generation through this small paintbrush.
"They're yours, take them and paint."
"This... is too expensive."
Gu Weijing even dared not take the pen from his grandfather's hand.
He doesn't care how much it's worth,
The painting tools given by Lao Yang were easy for Gu Wei to use on a daily basis without any pressure. If they were just luxuries, it would be better to have them, but it would be the same thing if they didn't have them.
It’s really lost, and the smile will pass.
Just buy it if you have money.
The things passed down by ancestors, if he makes a mistake in his daily life, it will really be a sin that cannot be made up for by gold and silver.
"There's no need to be stressed. Earthen pots are bound to break. Even if they break while painting, the paintbrush will be in a better home than gathering ashes in a safe. The ancestors won't blame you."
Mr. Gu first comforted him.
He thought for a while, then turned his head uneasy and warned: "Of course, that's what I said. If I find you don't care for it, or you bumped it, see if I can slap you."
"By the way, the first-class painter's official talisman is just a souvenir. But you can also use the seal for your own paintings and calligraphy. You don't have your own private seal yet, so it's time to officially use the seal. ”
Oil painting is about signatures, while traditional Chinese painting is about seals.
Seal is the most important personal mark of Eastern Xia culture.
Until now, a personal seal is more important than an autograph in Japan, and almost everyone has his or her own seal.
In calligraphy and painting works,
It is divided into the "introduction stamp" at the head of the work, the "bianbian stamp" that determines the boundary of the drawing paper and the "presser stamp" that represents the status symbol, or also called the "signing stamp".
There are also more detailed annual seals, solar terms seals, etc. These can be stamped if you want to, but not stamped if you don't want to.
Three mutton-fat white jade seals have completed the basic seal types.
Put this set on traditional Chinese painting rice paper or silk, and you will have Gu's personal stamp.
In modern times, traditional Chinese painting painters have not paid so much attention, and the rules have become much more streamlined. If it is too troublesome, you can just stamp it with a stamp.
"When I was young, I only used the seal "Diligence and Self-reliance". The remaining two seals were "Master of the Gu Family" and "Written with Spirit". I feel that putting them on my works insults the meaning of these two seals. So I have never touched it. I hope that one day you, Gu Weijing, will feel able to put these three seals on your works without blushing or heartbeat, so that you will be worthy of your ancestors." Mr. Gu said.
(End of chapter)
