周锡和Zhou Xihe

——Record of Farmer Calligrapher and Painter Zhou Xihe and His Rural Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum

 

Guo Zhongzhu

 

On the second floor of the Party and Mass Service Center in Jijiabang Village, Lijiaxiang Town, Changxing County, there is a plaque hanging on the lintel that reads "Zhou Xihe Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum". Indoors, in a spacious and bright room of about 80 square meters, neatly arranged glass display cabinets showcase dozens of exquisite calligraphy and painting works. The village run calligraphy and painting art museum is rare both inside and outside the province for villagers and calligraphy and painting enthusiasts to visit, exchange, and learn.

 

The initiator and free provider of the calligraphy and painting art museum is Mr. Zhou Xihe, an octogenarian Communist Party member and well-known farmer calligrapher and painter in northern Zhejiang.

 

Jijiabang Village is a famous and beautiful countryside. In recent years, the village has carried out effective exploration and practice in the construction of village culture. The village fully taps into the resources of local elites and revitalizes rural culture. And the farmer calligrapher and painter Zhou Xihe, who is a talented figure in the village with artistic achievements, successfully opened the "Zhou Xihe Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum" on November 6, 2020 with the support of the village party branch and village committee.

 

The author participated in the opening ceremony of the art museum four years ago. Scenes from that time reappeared before my eyes——

 

On the morning of the opening, the cultural hall of Jijiabang Village in Lijiaxiang Town was attended by a group of talented individuals and young talents. Town leaders, village cadres, representatives of the town's school, members of the Shicheng Calligraphy and Painting Society, famous cultural figures from both inside and outside the county, colleagues in the calligraphy and painting industry, and dozens of local residents gathered together to celebrate a cultural event in the village and Lijiaxiang Town - the opening of the Zhou Xihe Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum.

 

The establishment of rural calligraphy and painting art museums by farmers and calligraphers is a novelty. Town and village leaders, as well as county and town cultural group leaders, delivered speeches to congratulate each other.

 

After the brief yet grand opening ceremony, the attending leaders and masses walked into the Zhou Xihe Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum. Visitors can see that the art museum exhibits more than 30 calligraphy, painting, and copying works by Mr. Zhou. In addition, there are Mr. Zhou's educational certificate, award certificate, newspapers introducing his artistic works, and two precious compositions he wrote when he was 16 years old. The exhibited calligraphy and paintings all embody Mr. Zhou's artistic efforts and demonstrate his outstanding artistic creativity.

 

Reporters from Huzhou Daily, Changxing TV Station, and Changxing Daily were present for interviews and filming, and all later made news reports.

 

In order to understand the exhibition situation since the opening of the art museum and further understand the farmer calligrapher and painter Zhou Xi and his life, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the opening of the art museum, the author interviewed Mr. Zhou.    

 

My hometown has built an art museum for me, which allows my calligraphy and painting works to be exhibited in the museum, providing villagers with another place to relax and gather, and to experience a different artistic charm. This is also my beautiful wish! "Mr. Zhou Xihe said with a relieved smile.

 

Through direct interviews with Mr. Zhou on the same day and previous side visits to leaders and individuals familiar with him, the author gained an understanding of Mr. Zhou's artistic life and his ideal aspiration to contribute to society through calligraphy and painting art——

 

I was born in Wuxi in 1944. I lost my father at a young age and came from a poor family background. During my high school years, I was influenced by good teachers and developed a strong interest in traditional calligraphy and painting, and practiced daily. In 1960, I was admitted to the art class of Nanjing Art Institute Affiliated Middle School. During my studies, I learned from Chinese painting teacher Mr. Chen Bingxin, calligraphy master Mr. Zhang Yisheng, and nationally renowned seal engraver Mr. Luo Shuzi, and received guidance from these masters in calligraphy, painting, and seal carving. This was very helpful for me to start my artistic life. "Mr. Zhou fell into memories and started the topic from this.

 

In the 1960s, I joined the ranks as an educated youth and got married in Jijiabang Village. During this time, I worked in industries such as agriculture, painting, and teaching. I also served as the director of a township clothing factory and the office director of a township enterprise. "Mr. Zhou spoke fluent Changxing dialect," I have been working and living in Changxing for more than 50 years and am an old educated youth in the local area. Lijiaxiang has become my second hometown.

 

Mr. Zhou has made contributions to the local socio-economic development. However, what is commendable is that no matter what profession one engages in, their persistence in art has never been extinguished, their passion for art has not diminished, and they continue to write in their spare time.

 

He recalled, "When I first joined the team, I practiced calligraphy on square bricks due to a lack of paper and ink. In the autumn of 1965, I was transferred by the county propaganda department to participate in the preparation of the chart creation work for the Changxing County Agricultural Exhibition Hall. During this period, I was able to meet and learn from Changxing calligraphy and painting masters such as Wang Jianqiu, Lei Qunyi, and Zhu Zhixiang who participated in this work together. Later, I was fortunate enough to receive face-to-face guidance from Li Zihou, a well-known figure painter who graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and was assigned to work in Changxing. While practicing calligraphy and painting, I never missed any opportunity to seek advice from famous masters, so my calligraphy skills improved rapidly

 

Mr. Zhou told me, 'In my early years, I set my sights on using my calligraphy and painting skills to serve the grassroots and the villagers.'“

 

For this reason, his down-to-earth grassroots calligraphy and painting works are deeply loved by villagers; He has spared no effort in painting cultural walls for villages and towns for many years, and has been enthusiastic about beautifying the flower beds, painting stoves, writing Spring Festival couplets and festive couplets for the villagers. He has been highly praised by the villagers. In order to further enhance the artistic literacy of calligraphy, I went to Beijing in October 2007 at the age of over 60 to participate in the calligraphy creation training course of the China Book Association. I received guidance from experts and successfully graduated.

 

The author also learned that Mr. Zhou has devoted himself wholeheartedly and worked hard in the field of calligraphy and painting art. He is a fellow practitioner of calligraphy and painting, with profound artistic attainments and innovative calligraphy. He excels in both cursive and seal script, and his writing style is unique; In terms of painting, I am skilled in flowers, birds, landscapes, and figures. Both calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting, influenced by local landscapes and culture, have a strong rural life atmosphere and are praised by villagers as "farmer calligraphers and painters". He has been in the arts for decades and has achieved great success. In October 2012, when I went to Hefei to participate in the 5th China Chongyang Painting and Calligraphy Competition, I won the gold medal and Chongyang Painting and Calligraphy Award in the on-site competition. Afterwards, he won multiple awards in national calligraphy and painting competitions. In 2018, it won the gold medal in the "Four Seas Cup" National Calligraphy and Painting Competition. In 2019, he was awarded the honorary title of "Commending Outstanding Artists of the New Era" by the Beijing Century International Cultural Development Center. His artistic achievements in calligraphy and painting have been recognized by society. He is a member of the Zhejiang Elderly Calligraphy and Painting Research Association, a member of the Huzhou Calligraphy Association, the vice president of the Changxing Shicheng Calligraphy and Painting Society, and a contracted calligrapher and painter for the Calligraphy Daily. In 2019, his paintings were collected by the Huzhou City Library. In the same year, the collection of calligraphy and painting works by Zhou Xihe was published by China Modern Literature and Art Publishing House.

 

Ding Hankang, the president of Changxing Shicheng Calligraphy and Painting Society, told me: "Mr. Zhou actively participated in the local cultural public welfare activities organized by Changxing Shicheng Calligraphy and Painting Society, sending calligraphy and painting to schools, villages, enterprises, and the military... He has made outstanding contributions in inheriting and promoting traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting culture, promoting local cultural development, and foreign cultural exchanges.

 

In the summer of 2019, a group of more than 20 teachers from Nantou County, Taiwan visited the Changxing Shicheng Calligraphy and Painting Society. In the society's calligraphy and painting activity room, guests eagerly watched a long scroll of the slowly unfolding copied painting "Along the River during Qingming Festival". They all admired the superb painting skills, tenacious perseverance, and patient and meticulous craftsmanship of the imitators. The hundreds of characters on the screen are vivid and lifelike, the animals are in their own form, and the scenery is delicate and lifelike... This painting resembles the original work - no one could have imagined that the above-mentioned "Along the River during Qingming Festival" was completed by Mr. Zhou, who is over seventy years old, during his rehabilitation period at the Lijiaxiang Rehabilitation Center after suffering from a cerebral infarction. After suffering from a cerebral infarction, he was once unable to hold a pen due to shaking hands. However, with his persistent pursuit of art, he first practiced calligraphy with a marker pen and then with a soft pen, finally overcoming the obstacle of shaking hands and completing the replication of this huge work. The painting "Along the River during Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan of the Northern Song Dynasty is currently housed in the Palace Museum. The original painting is 25 centimeters high and 450 centimeters long. He copied four drafts of the original painting in a 1:1 ratio, each lasting about a month. This scroll received unanimous praise when it was exhibited at the Changxing Art Museum in 2019. In addition, he also copied the Tang Dynasty painting saint Wu Daozi's "Eighty Seven Immortals Scroll" and created a 10 meter long scroll of "Shiquan Village History" in small regular script for the ancient village of Shiquan in Changxing. It is currently exhibited at the Ancient Village Cultural Hall; He created a 10 meter long scroll of Lu Yu's "Classic of Tea" in small Kai script, which is now exhibited at the Shuikou Guzhu Tea Culture Museum, a holy site of tea culture in Changxing.

 

Mr. Zhou lives in Jijiabang Village, which has a profound cultural heritage. From the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Liang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the Bao family had produced four Jinshi scholars, and the village also produced two prestigious families, Xu and Zhou. In recent years, Mr. Zhou has witnessed the rapid and gratifying changes in his hometown, and has listened to the call of the villagers for cultural life after the improvement of their material life. While others are enthusiastic about holding personal calligraphy and painting exhibitions in the city, Mr. Zhou is concerned about his hometown and turns his gaze to the countryside, paying attention to the cultural construction of the countryside. In order to inherit the long-standing cultural heritage of the village from generation to generation, to create a cultural atmosphere and enrich the cultural life of the villagers, and to provide subtle influence in cultural and artistic aspects for the younger generation, after achieving remarkable artistic achievements, Mr. Zhou's early aspirations remain unchanged. He never forgets his original intention and has the idea of founding the village's "Zhou Xihe Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum". Now, his dream has come true.    

           

The author also visited the village leaders on that day. Village leaders have reported that after the completion of the Zhou Xihe Calligraphy and Painting Art Museum, visitors have been coming in a continuous stream. Although Mr. Zhou has limited mobility, he always goes with a cane and warmly introduces his works to visitors. Visitors come here in admiration and return satisfied. The art museum has become a platform for promoting rural cultural development and a window for cultural exchange with the outside world. Visitors have left their impressions on the guestbook, praising Mr. Zhou Xihe as a farmer calligrapher and painter who cares about rural culture.

 

The village leaders stated that in the future, Jijiabang Village will make good use of this cultural construction site, improve its operating mechanism, carry out educational training, learning and visiting activities, and give full play to its artistic cultivation function, providing villagers with enjoyable cultural and artistic services, and striving to build Jijiabang Village into a culturally strong village.

 

When leaving Jijiabang Village, Mr. Zhou Xihe saw me off. He stated that in recent years, he will create more calligraphy and painting works to replace the original exhibits in the village art museum and provide villagers with new spiritual and cultural enjoyment. His heartfelt passion for the development of rural culture deeply moved me!

 

——Appreciation of Zhou Xihe's Calligraphy and Painting Art

 

Huang Jinliang (Editor in Chief of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Guide)

 

The painting "Along the River during Qingming Festival" is one of the famous paintings passed down in China. It is painted on silk and is a rare surviving masterpiece by the Northern Song Dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan. It is a national treasure level cultural relic and is currently housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing. The work, in the form of a long scroll and using the scattered perspective composition method, vividly records the urban appearance of the capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty in China in the 12th century, Dongjing (also known as Bianjing, now Kaifeng, Henan), and the living conditions of people from all walks of life at that time. It is a witness to the prosperity of the capital city of Bianjing during the Northern Song Dynasty and a portrayal of the economic situation of the city.

 

In the five meter long scroll, a large number of various characters, livestock such as cows, mules, donkeys, carts, sedan chairs, boats of different sizes, houses, bridges, city towers, etc. are depicted, reflecting the characteristics of Song Dynasty architecture and possessing high historical and artistic value. Feng Zhonglian, a famous female painter and ancient painting imitator at the Palace Museum, once spent 18 years copying the painting "Along the River during the Qingming Festival", which caused a sensation in the cultural relics and art circles at that time. Today, I had the privilege of witnessing Mr. Zhou Xihe, a calligrapher and painter, painting the silk version of "Along the River during Qingming Festival". My heart was filled with excitement, and no language could express the surging emotions at this moment. Technically speaking, enjoying the painting 'Along the River during Qingming Festival' is not an easy task. This requires painters to have superhuman endurance and keen observation skills, as well as excellent manual dexterity - a foundation in various subjects such as landscape, characters, flowers, and birds. Chinese painting is not like Western painting. If there are flaws in Western painting, they can be scraped off and redone, while Chinese painting needs to be completed in one go and cannot tolerate smudging or modification.

 

Mr. Zhou Xihe's landscape, flower and bird works inherit the traditional Chinese painting brush and ink language, while boldly decomposing and reconstructing the composition form. He is well versed in the beauty of Sheikh's "Six Laws", but he does not simply follow them step by step. With his understanding and perception of natural objects, he indulges in sketching on paper, using strokes of thickness, dryness, wetness, and intensity. The use of these strokes outlines the withered and flourishing state of all things and the soaring momentum, while giving the work a vivid life and presenting a profound and distant artistic conception, giving people a sense of emptiness and tranquility.

 

If a painter has a score of ten, then seven out of ten should be in calligraphy. Mr. Zhou Xihe not only works hard in calligraphy, but also puts his heart into it. His cursive works often seek interest through ink, retain charm through emotions, and create their own natural charm through flowing clouds and water. In terms of font structure, it is not exaggerated, with a focus on the center and a fixed focus on the side. The light and heavy strokes are abrupt and gradual, with a dry and moist tone. At times, it reveals the simplicity of cliff carvings, while at other times it blends with the charm of Hanli, with a smooth and lively atmosphere.