Almighty painter

Chapter 169
Dongxia culture and art pays most attention to the four characters of "mind, spirit and ability", and believes that the spirit, charm and spirit of a person's life will be pinned on the objects he carries.

So from ancient times to the present,
Aristocrats like to raise jade pendants, tea ceremony masters like to warm and raise purple clay pots, and even the old men in alleys like to play with beeswax, bracelets, walnuts and so on.

The brush is where the spirit of a painter rests.

A bamboo pen is passed on from father to son, and from son to grandson. It is endless and has a long history.

Brushes, like famous inks, can last hundreds or even thousands of years. Some well-preserved antique brushes from the Song and Yuan dynasties unearthed can even be used for writing and painting without maintenance.

Even if the nib of the wolf hair or sheep hair is easy to wear and tear, it is not troublesome to ask a master craftsman to mend it.

"When my father handed this mahogany box to me, he told me that there are three kinds of Chinese painting brushes, the Wenwan jade brush with suet white jade or jadeite as the body, and the bamboo wood brush with wood or bamboo as the body. brush."

"For the scriptures, which one do you guess is the best?" Gu Tongxiang raised his brows and asked.

Gu Weijing knows that there is a deep way in the brush of Chinese painting.

However, children don't need very good pens.

The brushes he usually uses are all [-] kyats a piece, and the modern brushes that are bald and thrown into the trash can are not so particular.

At this time, he glanced at the bamboo brush in the box in front of him, hesitated for a moment, and tentatively guessed: "Maybe it's a bamboo brush?"

"Hmph, being dishonest and being clever."

Seeing his grandson's eyes, the old man patted the back of Gu Weijing's head and blew on his beard: "This is really ignorant of conscience. How can a bamboo pen be more expensive 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 more honest than you, and I thought the jade pen was the best."

"And then?" Gu Weijing was curious.

"And then..."

The old man recalled the past, and he slowly laughed.

Gu Tongxiang looked at the painting box in front of him, and said softly: "Then I was knocked up by your grandpa, and I sighed that my family was unlucky, and my body was full of copper stench. Alas, the poor at that time were almost begging for food, and the old man was sick in bed. He is dying, but still has the sour look of the old literati, he deserves to be poor all his life."

The old man clearly said something sarcastic about his elders, but his expression was filled with incomparable nostalgia and warmth, and there were even tears in his eyes.

The scene where the old-fashioned Fangzheng father handed over the mahogany painting box to Gu Tongxiang, who was still a young man, is still vivid in my mind, 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 handful of small loess tombstones, even their grandsons are so big.

The old man shook his head lightly and looked at Gu Weijing.

"Actually, you answered very well. I just wanted to take a picture of you to remind you of the preciousness of this set of brushes."

"Remember, when you hand over the mahogany box to your child in the future, you should tell him the same thing. Among Chinese painting brushes, jade brushes are the most expensive, but bamboo brushes are the best."

Gu Tongxiang recalled the scene when his father handed over the set of brushes to him, and said eloquently: "Most of the brushes made of jade are made by the Royal Household Office and other yamen, and the specially made imperial brushes are hard in nature and smooth on the surface. It's got a bumpy pattern, which is pretty, but it's actually not comfortable to hold."

Jade pens are usually the most expensive category in the antique brush auction market.

Most of the imperial pens that can be heard in storytelling stories, such as "proclaimed by the imperial pen" or "sealed by the imperial pen", are mostly made of jadeite.

In the trading market in the past two years, royal jade writing brushes engraved with dragon patterns from the Yongzheng or Qianlong period can cost millions of yuan.

But the jade pen holder is not elastic,
When this type of brush is used, it lacks a sense of communication with the paper, and its ritual symbolic attributes are greater than its practical attributes. Emperor Qianlong did not use jade pens for his daily poems and odes.

It is completely a collection of cultural relics,
Buyers of this kind of pens will lock them in the safe and wait for the value to increase. I have never heard of any collector taking them home to write and paint.

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 vivid as bamboo brushes. The material of bamboo brushes is Fugong Longzhu from the old Wudi. A 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 where the most precious part of this set of pens is?"

Mr. Gu gently picked up a medium-sized brush that was as thick as an adult's index finger, and showed it to his grandson.

"This is called Qinyuse. According to our jargon, this set of pens has been cultivated, and it has a god."

This brush is straight throughout,

The part of the first half of the brush body that is more in contact with the painter's fingers is actually emerald green. It is obviously a bamboo tube brush, but it has a bright luster like jade, and it has completely turned into jade.

"This is the heart 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 took this kind of brush and painted with painstaking efforts. Over time, there will be a touch of this color. The green color oozes out from the pen barrel, and the longer the time, the deeper the green color will be."

Gu Tongxiang smiled.

This phenomenon is scientifically explained as the chemical effect produced by the plant fiber of old bamboo in the long time between the warmth of human skin oil and the oxidation of air.

but,

The court painters were even more romantic.

"My father told me that this jade color is the place where the spirits of ancestors from generation to generation are. Every time they draw a picture, the dark ink and ink will slowly come up along the pen holder, dizzying the yellow bamboo pen holder. It was dyed into emerald jade, so the 'jade color' is often called 'dark green color' or 'heart-blood color' in the words of old painters."

Gu Weijing glanced over the mahogany painting box.

In the box, the delicate liner pen as thick as a baby's little finger and two small brushes have been completely painted a bright green color, and the medium-sized paintbrush in the old man's hand is almost green all over.

Only the largest brush, which is used for freehand splash-ink landscape paintings, still has a distinct loess color, but one-third of them also show the characteristics of jade.

"A painter, in spring, summer, autumn and winter, can only grow color spots the size of a grain of rice all year round. It takes ten years for a piece of jade color the size of a fingernail. It takes no more than two years to develop the look you see. The three Jiazi have been working hard without stopping, without even thinking about it."

"In the past, there was an old bamboo pen, which was called a hundred taels of snowflake silver."

When it comes to the brushes inherited from the family, the old man's tone is a little complacent.

"I don't say how expensive things are, but antique pens are common in the market now, and this kind of old pens that have been used are almost extinct. It is true that Mr. Cao Xuan is the leading master of Taishan Beidou painting, but he is probably very It’s hard to have such an old family pen to use.”

"Elder Cao is probably envious."

Gu Weijing knew that although Grandpa's words were part of Wang Po selling melons and boasting about herself, at least [-]% of them were true.

People can support pens, and pens can also support people.

In fact, a paintbrush is like a musical instrument.

There may not be much difference in tone between the antique violin made by the legendary violin maker Stradivari worth $1000 million and the handmade violin made by the top contemporary luthier worth $[-].

At least not as exaggerated as the price difference of 90 million US dollars.

But any world-class violinist will always choose antique violins to play.Some symphony orchestra concertmasters have been passed down from generation to generation since 1750.

You hold a famous piano in your hand, and your mentality is different.

The same goes for brushes.

Both Chinese and foreign, with a purchasing power of about one hundred dollars, you can easily buy brushes with a workmanship that is definitely above the average level in stationery stores and are very useful.

The reason why painters buy painting tools that are more than ten times or even hundreds of times the price is not that there is any essential difference in the painting, but that the emotional state of holding a pen worth $[-] and a pen worth $[-] is different.

Just like a Japanese oil painter used to only use a certain brand of expensive natural mineral pigments, there was also a well-known illustrator who declared that he only used German Pelikan (Pelikan) to customize his illustrations with platinum pens.

Either this is because they have a private agency agreement with the painter, or this is what they are after, this feeling, this tune.

You can even understand it as vanity, but positive vanity.

Expensive paintings have an emotional bonus brought by wealth, and holding a pen makes you feel more powerful.

The promotional selling point of all luxury painting manufacturers is often not craftsmanship, but stories.

For example, Lao Yang gave Lukes, a master painting utensils manufacturer, to Gu Weijing. The slogan on their official website is always that Van Gogh likes to use our painting utensils.

The company's main focus is the emotional value of "buy our painting tools, you will be closer to great artists", to attract art students who are not short of money to buy.

Make a rational judgment, what good painting tools can you afford based on Van Gogh's financial situation back then.

For Chinese painters,
Holding a set of old pens in his hand is the calm and stable power that can be brought to his heart naturally, as if he has some kind of blessing buff.

Masters of traditional Chinese painting who grew up in oriental culture may be able to regard money as dung and gold, silver and jewelry as nothing.

There are three meals a day with light tea and light food, and there are plenty of masters in coarse linen, but I have never heard of anyone who is willing to take the initiative to use poor quality pens, inks, papers and inkstones.

Mr. Cao knows this kind of old pen handed down from his family, and he may indeed be envious of it.

And not just because of the age and quaintness of the old paintbrush.

The emotional link and soul twist brought about by this bloodline inheritance have an impact on the mood of a painter, which is completely incomparable to the stimulation of vanity brought by the high-end painting tools inlaid with gold and silver introduced by Western-style luxury companies of.

Not an order of magnitude at all.

Ancestor is a god in Eastern Xia culture who protects future generations.

Even just looking at this set of brushes, Gu Weijing can feel a kind of religious solemnity and solemnity.

Like a darker and brighter moon, I suddenly heard the bell ringing in the middle of the night, and the sound of an old monk singing scriptures came from afar, carrying a kind of peaceful power.

Let's just put it that way.

Drawing with this set of pens, as long as it is not the reason of the painting itself, it may be difficult to take the initiative to get a perfunctory evaluation.

This is the peaceful power of the mind.

"Look, your great-grandfather, my great-grandfather... All the ancestors are looking at this generation of Gu's heirs."

Gu Tongxiang turned off the spotlights in the room, and took out the candlesticks from the cabinet.

The power supply in Myanmar is not very stable. Not only is the Lucky Orphanage not connected to the power grid, but the bustling tourist area where Gu’s Painting and Calligraphy Shop is located occasionally suffers power outages. Every family has candlesticks and candles.

The old man lit the candle with a lighter.

Gu Tongxiang pinched the body of the pen 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 finger into a dark green like a deep pool.

The surface of Fugong Longzhu has natural eye-like patterns.
Maybe it's an illusion, when the lights are flickering,
It is really like the ancestors of the past hundred years, watching the descendants of the Gu family through this small brush.

"They are yours, take them to paint."

"This... is too precious."

Gu Weijing even dared not take the pen from his grandfather.

He doesn't care how much it's worth,

The painting utensils given by Lao Yang are easy for Gu Weijing to use on a daily basis without any pressure. If it is just a luxury, it is better to have it, and it is the same thing if it is not.

Really lost, laughing and passing away,
Just buy it if you have the money.

Things passed down from ancestors, if he makes a mistake in his daily life, it is really a sin that cannot be made up for by gold and silver mountains.

"There is no need to be stressed. The earthen pot will inevitably break. Even if it is broken while painting, it is a better home for the brush than ashes in the safe. The ancestors will not blame you."

Mr. Gu first offered a word of comfort.

He thought for a while, then turned his head uneasy and warned: "Of course, that's what it said. If I find out that you don't love it, or bump it, see if I smack you."

"By the way, the official talisman of the first-class painter is just a memory. But you can also use the seal on your own calligraphy and painting. You don't have your own private seal yet, and it's time to officially use the seal gone."

Oil paintings talk about signatures, while traditional Chinese paintings talk about seals.

The seal is the most important personal mark of Dongxia culture.

Until now, personal seals are more important than autographs in Dongying, and almost everyone has their own seals.

In calligraphy and painting,

It is divided into the "leading chapter" at the head of the work, the "blocking chapter" that determines the boundary of the drawing paper to gather energy, and the "presser foot chapter" that represents the status symbol, or also called the "signature chapter".

There are also finer year stamps, solar term stamps, etc. These are stamped as you want, and you don’t stamp them if you don’t want to.

The three mutton fat white jade chapters have gathered the basic types of seals.

Once this set is covered on traditional Chinese painting rice paper or silk, it will be stamped with Gu's personal seal.

In modern times, traditional Chinese painting painters have not paid so much attention, and the rules have become a lot simpler. If it is troublesome, it is okay to just write a chapter.

"When I was young, I only used the badge [Diligence and Self-Reliance], and the remaining badges [Master of Gu's] and [Writing with God], I feel that putting them on my works has insulted the meaning of these two badges. So I have never touched it before. I hope that one day, Gu Weijing, you will feel that you can put these three squares on your works without blush or heartbeat, and you are worthy of your ancestors." Mr. Gu said.

(End of this chapter)