Riding the wind of rebirth

Thinking of the wooden boxes on the upper floor, Zhou Zhi felt that tonight might be the time to unravel the secret of this legendary elder of the Su family.

Climbing up the wooden ladder to the upper floor, Zhou Zhi began to clean and carry the boxes one by one into the living room.

These boxes contain cans, compressed biscuits, tea cakes and red wine, and the rest are books, newspapers, and letters.

There were three relatively large boxes among them. Zhou Zhi opened them, and they were all filled with neatly rolled scrolls and unframed calligraphy and painting manuscripts.

Those books were all publications from the Republic of China period, and the newspapers were all official newspapers of the government at that time, but some places were emphasized by vertical lines drawn with red ink. Judging from the underlined content, they were all analyzes of the current situation. , the government newspapers were full of good words such as "transfer" and "great victory", but when Zhou Zhi compared it according to time, he couldn't stop laughing. It was obviously a whitewash after a huge defeat.

There are also many news that reflect the warlords in central Sichuan, and red lines have been drawn, indicating that newspaper readers take these two types of news very seriously.

The books were some magazines at the time such as "Good Friends"; there were also a few novels, translated French novels with unknown translators and poor translation quality; and novels by domestic writers such as Zhang Henshui and Zhang Ailing.

Zhou Zhi is very disappointed with these things. What are they? They are just things used to kill boring time. Even the things hidden in the secret room are hidden in the secret room. It feels like It has become an instinct in his bones.

I flipped through these things hastily, but found no valuable information, so I placed my hope on those letters.

These letters were all received by Yaowai Zuzu and were exchanged with people from all walks of life at that time, and Zhou Zhi found many famous figures among them.

However, the contents of the letters are mostly trivial matters. Although interesting, they are not particularly important. For example, a reply from Mrs. Sun should be a reply to his entrustment to find the medicine, saying that the medicine had been ordered to a German shop in Shanghai. He was found in the hospital and is already on the way. At the same time, he was asked to take good care of himself.

There are also many replies expressing gratitude. After the fall of the north, many people from the cultural and artistic circles moved to the southwest and encountered some difficulties in life. My ancestors always helped when they could, but these people could not pay back the debts. They would use their own collections to compensate, or directly create paintings and calligraphy as gifts. No matter how big or small they were, this Yaowai Ancestor would accept them all without hesitation.

Zhou Zhi had seen the "circle of friends" of Brother Pao in the Republic of China. He had close friends in politics, business, civil and military affairs all over the world. The letterheads of many big figures in the cultural world could be compared with the letterheads Zhou Zhi inherited from Mr. Wang, and they were valuable in themselves. .

These letters are still of little value in studying why our ancestors secretly helped the revolution. The contents of the letters are all human relations. Although they are hidden in a dark room, there is nothing that cannot be seen.

It seemed that this mystery would never be solved, so Zhou Zhi finally set his sights on the three boxes of paintings and calligraphy.

Because the environment is very closed and dry, with constant temperature and humidity, these three boxes of calligraphy and paintings are very well preserved.

Zhou Zhi took out the scrolls inside and inspected them briefly. He found that they were all scrolls and damasks from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China.

I picked one and opened it, but it was a picture of a white falcon. The top of the picture is a pine tree, the background below is a rock waterfall, and in the upper middle of the picture, a white falcon is grabbing a pine branch and looking to the left, with big black eyes. There is God in addition.

There is also an article explaining birds of prey on the picture, with the white Eastern Falcon as the best in the world. There are more than a dozen large and small seals surrounding the picture.

When Zhou Zhi saw the words "Treasure of the Supreme Emperor" on a seal and the small characters "Book of Chen Weng Fanggang" written after the article, he couldn't help but whistle: "Get rich!" Weng Fanggang was a Jinshi in the 17th year of Qianlong's reign. to Cabinet Bachelor. He studied classics intensively throughout his life, was well-read, and was able to make careful decisions in the study of epigraphy, calligraphy, painting, and chapters. He was known as one of the "four great calligraphers" in the Qing Dynasty, and was also the collection consultant of Emperor Qianlong.

Many legends about his calligraphy are like myths. For example, it is said that he can write seven Chinese characters on a grain of flax.

The "Sikuquanshu" library was opened. Weng Fanggang joined the library and was responsible for the school's collection of books from various provinces. He also did his own private work and wrote "The Epigraphy of the Two Han Dynasties" and other works.

This name will be unfamiliar to many people, but in the circle of calligraphy and painting appreciation and collection, especially in the circle of Qing Dynasty calligraphy and painting appreciation, there is a saying that "if you don't know Weng Fanggang, you dare not call yourself a cultural person."

With these collection clues and the white falcon that absorbed the style of Western oil painting, Zhou Zhi was 80% sure. When the picture was completely opened, the artist's inscription was indeed revealed below.

"On the tenth day of the fifth month in the sixteenth year of Qianlong's reign, the great scholar Zhongyong Gongfu Hengjin ordered the Hercynian Lang Shining to draw a white falcon."

"Hehehe, I saw that right..." Zhou Zhi didn't expect to find the works of Lang Shining, the famous Western missionary painter of the Qianlong Dynasty, here, and he was really elated.

Castiglione is a native of Milan, Italy. During the fifty-fourth year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, he came to China to preach. He was immediately called into the palace and became a court painter of the Qing Dynasty. He painted for more than fifty years during the three dynasties of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong.

He is best at painting horses, portraits, flowers and animals, integrating Western painting techniques with traditional Chinese brush and ink. This special style, which is different from Chinese tradition, was loved by several emperors and greatly influenced the people after Kangxi. Qing palace paintings and aesthetic taste.

His most famous work is undoubtedly "Xin Zhi Ping Tu", which is a portrait scroll of twelve concubines of Emperor Qianlong, now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"White Falcon" was fully opened, and Zhou Zhi discovered that there was also a small note rolled inside: "On June 26, 20th year of the Republic of China, Feng Lanxuan built the Shangqing Palace and asked Xunyu to pledge four hundred silver dollars with this painting and give it to him ”

Zhou Zhi didn't know who Feng Lanxuan and Xun Yu were on the note. He guessed that they were Taoist priests and cultural figures. The Taoist priest took this Lang Shining painting as collateral and borrowed four hundred silver dollars from Su Huaxuan.

Four hundred silver dollars is no longer a decimal. If it is a Sichuan silver dollar, forty can be exchanged for one acre of high-quality paddy field on the Shuchuan Plain. This is the price of ten acres of good land in Shuchuan during the Republic of China.

Calligraphy and painting were cheap in troubled times. This painting was worth at most one hundred silver dollars at that time, and Yaowai Zuzu obviously gave him more.

Opening other scrolls, works by many important figures appeared, including Ding Yu and Zhan Xi who were admitted to the Palace Painting Academy in the fourth year of Yongzheng's reign; Jin Kun, Sun Hu, and Ding Guanpeng who were admitted in the sixth year of Qianlong's reign; and Zhang Zongcang who was admitted in the sixteenth year of Qianlong's reign. , Xu Yang et al.

Zhou Zhi collected many paintings by Qing Dynasty painters, most of which were inherited from Mr. Wang, and there were more than 30 paintings from more than ten families. But even with Mr. Wang's expertise in collecting, most of the paintings from the Qing Dynasty in his collection, in addition to the more recent Yangzhou School and Shanghai School, are mostly in the second echelon of painters from the third generation.

But this batch of paintings is different. Many of them are the works of three generations of court painters, representing the highest level at that time, and were called "court paintings". (End of chapter)