Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1758 Data Retrieval

The Four Masters of the Early Tang Dynasty are also known as the Four Masters of the Six Dynasties. Gu Kaizhi was from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Lu Tanwei was from the Liu Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties, Zhang Sengyou was from Wu during the Former Liang Dynasty, and Cao Buxing was from the Eastern Wu Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period.

Therefore, not only the four great masters of the Six Dynasties before the Tang Dynasty, they were all from Wu.

Considering Li Erkang's background in Xiling Seal Society, the three people in the room understood a little bit that this was definitely a topic that someone was interested in collecting.

In the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting, there are four famous painters, namely Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Lu Tanwei of the Southern Dynasties, Zhang Sengyou, and Wu Daozi of the Tang Dynasty.

Gu Kaizhi, needless to say, is known as the ancestor of painting, with his works such as Biographies of Women of Benevolence and Wisdom, Goddess of the Luo River, and Admonitions of Female Historian handed down from generation to generation.

  Lu Tanwei is the founder of "dense style painting" and the first person to introduce calligraphy into painting. He took his style from the calligraphy treatise "Bizhentu" written by Wei Shuo in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The work explains the methods of holding and using the brush and lists seven basic strokes. At the same time, he also followed the path of Zhang Zhi's "one-stroke writing" in cursive script. He can be regarded as the originator of literati painting and is known as "Gu Lu" together with Gu Kaizhi.

Some people may not know Zhang Sengyou, but the idiom "painting the dragon's eyes" is a household name; he also incorporated calligraphy into painting, imitating the brushwork of Lady Wei, but his painting style changed the "dense style" of Gu and Lu, which was later inherited by Wu Daozi, and the two were collectively known as "sparse style".

Zhang Huaiguan and the other two commented: "Zhang got the flesh, Lu got the bones, and Gu got the spirit. They all understand the spirit and are in harmony with the spirit."

There is no need to mention Wu Daozi, who is listed as the "Saint of Painting" in history textbooks.

Wu's belt flutters in the wind, Cao's clothes emerge from the water.

There was a period in history when “Cao Yi Chu Shui” was mistakenly thought to be the creation of Cao Buxing. In fact, the Cao here should be another person named Cao Zhongda, a foreigner who came from the Western Regions and was good at painting Buddha statues.

But Cao Buxing was no simple man either. According to legend, Kang Senghui traveled to Wu with a Buddha statue, and Sun Quan built the Jianchu Temple for him and ordered him to set up the statue and perform rituals. Cao Buxing saw the Buddha statue in the West and painted it accordingly. After that, the Buddha statue became famous throughout the world.

He was best at painting large figures, and once joined together a fifty-foot piece of silk to paint a portrait of a person. His mind was clear and his hands were quick, and he painted the portrait in one stroke, with no mistakes in the figure's head, face, hands, feet, chest, abdomen, shoulders and back.

He is the earliest well-known Buddhist painter recorded in historical documents, earlier than Cao Zhongda, and is therefore called the "ancestor of Buddhist painting."

There is a legend about Zhang Sengyou painting the dragon's eyes, and there is also the story of Cao Buxing "adding ink and turning it into flies".

Pei Songzhi's Records of the Three Kingdoms - Records of Wu states: "Cao Xing was not good at painting, so Quan asked him to paint a folding screen. He accidentally made a dot on white, and then he drew a fly. When it was presented to the emperor, Quan thought it was a live fly and flicked it with his hand."

In history, none of the paintings by Lu Tanwei and Cao Buxing have survived, and the only extant work of Zhang Sengyou is the copy of "The Gods and Shapes of the Five Stars and the Twenty-Eight Mansions" by Liang Lingzan from Shu during the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty.

"Diagram of the Gods and Forms of the Five Stars and the Twenty-Eight Constellations" originally consisted of two volumes, but now only the five stars and twelve constellations in the upper volume remain. It is collected in the Osaka City Museum of Art, and Zhou Zhi has visited it in person.

That was also a unique copy. Now three of them appeared in front of him at once, plus the previous "Biography of Virtuous Women, Volume 2", even the usually calm and composed fourth cousin could not remain calm.

Of course, these pictures cannot be the originals. After all, they are too old and are still copies from the Song Dynasty. However, judging from the parts that can still be seen, these three paintings are no less exquisite than the one in "The Biographies of Virtuous and Wise Women, Volume 2".

Xie He, a painter and painting theorist during the Southern and Northern Dynasties of China, had profound attainments in the practice and theory of Chinese painting. His "Catalogue of Ancient Paintings" is now the oldest monograph on painting in Chinese history. The "Six Laws of Chinese Painting" proposed in it have had a profound influence on later painters and critics.

Zhang Yanyuan, an art theorist in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in "Records of Famous Paintings of All Ages": "Xie He once said: There are six methods in painting: one is vivid spirit and charm, two is the use of brush with bone method, three is to depict the shape of the object, four is to color according to the type, five is to arrange the position, and six is ​​to copy and imitate." This was a review of the greatest painters of the time by the greatest painting theorist of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which represented that Chinese painting had truly reached a considerable artistic peak and officially possessed a philosophical system.

Some scholars have also suggested that the theory of six laws may not have been created by Xie He, but had already existed in painting theories before Xie He, such as Gu Kaizhi's "On Painting" in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which already contained the prototype of the six laws. In any case, the theory of six laws is the foundation of learning Chinese painting.

But it is easier said than done. As the saying goes, "Although there are six principles of painting, few people can master them all. From ancient times to the present, everyone is good at one aspect."

According to Xie He's standards, a truly first-class masterpiece must have a meaning that goes far beyond the perfection of the external form of the work and directly grasps the inner essence of art. The so-called "exhausting the principles and nature, and transcending the words and images" means being able to exhaust the inner spiritual temperament of the object and reach a superior ideal state, rather than being limited to superficial description and portrayal.

In this regard, Xie He took Lu Tanwei as a benchmark, "the first person of the first rank", and Cao Buxiu as "the second person of the first rank".

Although they are only copies, they still faithfully convey these aspects of the paintings. Based on the information currently available, Zhou Zhi, his fourth cousin, and his fourth aunt all believe that the four scrolls are undoubtedly copies of authentic Song Dynasty works.

After Cao Buxing's "Image of Ruyilun Bodhisattva", a postscript further confirmed the identity of the painting, which was created by Mi Fu, a famous calligrapher in the Song Dynasty.

The Wish-fulfilling Wheel Bodhisattva is actually Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, the Wish-fulfilling Wheel Avalokitesvara, the reward body of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, or what is commonly known as the true body of the Bodhisattva. Countless kalpas ago, he was the prince of the Chakravartin King Wujingnian.

The Guanyin Bodhisattva during the Northern and Southern Dynasties was different from that of later generations. It was a statue of a rough and strong man, just as the "Avatamsaka Sutra" said: "The brave and fierce man Guanyin."

In his postscript, Mi Fu said that this painting was a family collection. In addition to the "Image of Ruyilun Bodhisattva", Cao Buxing also had another painting called "Picture of Military Talisman" which was later preserved in the Forbidden City. Mi Fu was quite proud of his family's collection and believed that this painting should not be worse than "Picture of Military Talisman".

This postscript immediately reminded Zhou Zhi: "How about we search in the database?"

"What are you searching for?"

"I'll demonstrate it to you two and you'll understand." Zhou Zhi rummaged through his schoolbag, took out the notebook and moden he had prepared for work, connected the phone line to his fourth cousin's house, and then started to turn on the computer. He entered the number on a software and heard a series of chattering from the moden, and the dialing handshake process began.

After a while, the green light of moden came on and the software also prompted that the connection was complete. Zhou Zhi opened the Clover browser, entered an address, and after pressing Enter, an extremely simple screen appeared.

Zhou Zhi first tried to input the two words "Mi Fu" and "Ruyi Wheel" above. After pressing Enter and waiting for a while, words began to pop up in the text box below.

A lot of it is useless information, but one paragraph has attracted everyone's attention:

Mi Fu: History of Painting

  Version: Qing Wuying Palace Collection

Classification: Sub-section>Pulu category>Plants, trees, birds, animals, insects, and fish

  Whereabouts: Summary of the General Catalogue of the Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature

Related to Ruyi Wheel: Paragraph 73, starting from word 763: My family received a scroll of Ruyi Wheel from Cao Buxing.