The return of the soul of an artistic giant

In the depths of the heart of cultural giant and artistic master Huang Binhong, there are two important places. One is Tielingtou in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, which is his birthplace. His father Huang Dinghua followed his brother to Jinhua for business when he was young, settling down here, getting married and having children. As the eldest son, Huang Binhong enrolled in elementary school in Jinhua and studied the books of sages until the age of 13, when he returned to his hometown to participate in the imperial examination according to the regulations at that time. Of course, there are many memories of his childhood, childhood, and youth here. The book "Huang Binhong and Jinhua" co written with Dr. Luan Xuyao aims to provide a detailed and in-depth reconstruction of Huang Binhong's life in Jinhua, as well as the role of Jinhua in shaping Huang Binhong's thoughts and artistic development.

The other is Shexian County, now under the jurisdiction of Mount Huangshan City, Anhui Province. This place was established as a county as early as the Qin Dynasty, and the Huizhou Prefecture was established in the Song Dynasty. The prefecture and county were located in the same city for 1400 years, and it was the political, economic, and cultural center of ancient Huizhou. This land has a long history and splendid culture, and is known as the "hometown of southeast Zou Lu and Huizhou merchants". It is the birthplace of Huizhou culture, the main birthplace of Anhui Cuisine merchants and Huizhou cuisine, and the main origin of Huizhou ink and She inkstone, the four treasures of the study. During her time living in Jinhua, Huang Binhong often heard her father mention various aspects of her hometown, read books from the ancestors of the Huang family, and received teachings from the local sages. After returning to his hometown, he established a primary school, promoted Yitian, enlightened the people, and even privately minted coins to support the revolution. Studying under the guidance of Wang Zongyi from the neighboring village Xixi and Ziyang Academy, Huang Binhong, who had been influenced by the "Wu School", rose to new heights under the influence of the "Hui School". Shexian County is the pride of Huang Binhong throughout his life. He went to Mount Huangshan nine times in his life and called himself "a person in Mount Huangshan Mountain". In 1930, his hometown friend Xu Chengyao wrote a poem for Huang Binhong's 32nd generation ancestor Huang Fengliu's "Tandu Village Map", in which he wrote: "Bin Hong is now a painter, with a brush as strong as a beam. He can read and write on the Baishan Mountain, and the ancient bamboo slips have been completed. Chong Hong's family learned, and they laughed and laughed at the ancestral banquet." This poem fully demonstrates the profound influence of Huizhou and its ancestors on Huang Binhong.

People often try to explain and grasp the behavioral world full of "inevitability" through "probability", which is the perspective of later generations. Huang Binhong is also constantly being rationalized and shaped. After several separations, her rich personality and life practices have been stripped away to a certain extent, as if she has become a pure moral and artistic idol. Mr. Chen Yinke's concept of "understanding sympathy" is the correct way to understand and open up the thoughts of ancient people. I often use this as a warning to my classmates in teaching, that ancient people were also ordinary people and needed to be understood in conjunction with real life, with a sense of empathy and understanding. Although the writing style of setting up "milestone" can reflect the value of researchers and researchers, and establish a great other for countrymen, real cultural confidence should not be built only because of strength. Every individual's ordinary and unique, weak but meaningful life experience is also worth digging deeply. This brings up another topic, which is the issue of "people" in historical writing. As Taiwanese scholar Wang Fansen once said, "The general public yearns to read history with 'people', while professional historians go against the trend, believing that the less' human 'history there is, the higher the level. History with too many names is' soft' history, and vice versa is' hard 'history. We can only hand over the history of' people 'to popular biographers or historians." If the Huizhou period is removed from Huang Binhong's life, what will his art look like? Huang Binhong's Shanghai, Beijing, and Hangzhou periods were certainly important, but the Jinhua and Huizhou periods were crucial stages for his character development and academic establishment. During this period, he studied the Four Books and Five Classics, participated in the imperial examination, and read the classics, painted, and collected facts, using Neo Confucianism as the foundation of his character. There are numerous studies on Huang Binhong at present, but the Huizhou period has not received the attention it deserves. The book "Huang Binhong and Huizhou" co written with Wang Mengxia projects the focus on this stage, trying to restore Huang Binhong's actions during the Huizhou period and his influence on his later thoughts and art as much as possible.

Since this book is a biography of Huang Binhong and her hometown of Huizhou, it naturally covers many interesting events, while also not abandoning academia, striving to achieve a balance between the two. In the process of writing, in addition to reading a large number of literature related to Huang Binhong, we also conducted in-depth discussions on the historical background, academic context, Huang clan, Huizhou customs, and teacher-student interactions. On the one hand, although Huang Binhong was born in Jinhua, the culture of Huizhou has always lingered around him. Starting from 1876, he went like a catfish for six consecutive years along the Xin'an River to his ancestral home of Shexian to take exams. On the other hand, Huang Binhong's social experiences in Huaiyang were closely related to the development of the Huang family in Huaiyang. His years of experience after returning to Shexian from Huaiyang were also closely related to the reformist ideas he received during the Huaiyang period. Therefore, we consider these two regions as extensions of the Huizhou region. It can be said that ancestral roots are like a firm kite string, with one end connected to Huang Binhong who travels to Jinhua, Huaiyang, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Sichuan, Beijing, Hangzhou and other places, and the other end always connected to her hometown of Huizhou. No matter which period Huang Binhong lived in, it was inseparable from the foundation of Huizhou. The high walls here failed to restrain Huang Binhong's steady steps towards the world, but they held onto her longing for her hometown.

During the writing process, we deeply felt the lack of materials in Huang Binhong's early stage. The reasons for this situation are both related to the long history and deliberate concealment. At that time, China was undergoing a great transformation unseen in a thousand years. What was the mentality of intellectuals at that time? How did they face this era of transformation? How can local scholars obtain external information and bring in mainstream ideas from outside to drive the local people? The scarcity of information is an objective reality. Even if we search through Huang Binhong's collection of writings, we can only find fragments of information about Huizhou, especially during the Huaiyang period. Our writing principle is not to fully recount Huang Binhong's first half of life, but to acknowledge that these fragmented and pieced together memory fragments are also a true portrayal of his early life. Using these seemingly brief and scarce memories as a "reference point," we indirectly depict the scene of that era and examine it within the ideological and academic context of the entire era. We believe that exploring the interaction between Huang Binhong and the place and era is extremely meaningful and has great potential for development, which helps us to explore his hidden inner world. For many years, I have always believed that every period of history does not develop in a single line. Various forces are intertwined, competing, and competing with each other, forming a rich and complex historical phenomenon. Human life is also complex, intertwined with natural and acquired forces, with many inevitability and many contingency. Many people appear in our lives, leaving deep or shallow imprints. Wang Zongyi, Xu Chengyao, Wang Luben, Wang Fuxi and others were all important teachers and friends of Huang Binhong, especially Xu Chengyao and Wang Fuxi, who were both listeners of Huang Binhong's hardships and leaders on his revolutionary path. And these materials are relatively abundant, which can be explored in depth. Through these materials, we can also glimpse Huang Binhong's various works.

Here, I quote John Dewey's (1859-1952) introduction to William James' (1842-1910) doctrine: 'Knowledge contains desires and wills, which influence his' will to believe'. '. When sketching the life world of Huang Binhong and Huizhou, we will realize the importance of personal, spiritual, emotional, and other aspects of the world. During the writing of this book, we visited Shexian County multiple times, revisiting the ancient city of Shexian, Huang Binhong's former residence, Wang Zongyi Buyuan, Wang Caibai's former residence, and many other rural ancient houses in Shexian. This has been very helpful for us to get closer to Huang Binhong.

Huang Binhong has practiced the noble aspiration of "Tao and art are both here to stay" with his practical actions, and has become an "outstanding painter of the Chinese people" with "no number of generations", standing as an unshakable eternal peak in the history of Chinese art. Today, we deeply understand that Huang Binhong is not only China's Huang Binhong, but also the world's Huang Binhong. The respect and praise of Huizhou people for him far exceed any other place. They are deeply proud that Huang Binhong has lived in Huizhou for a long time, and they are proud that he is from Huizhou. Huang Binhong is indeed inseparable from Huizhou.

Now, when we set foot in Huang Binhong's hometown, tasting stinky mandarin fish and hairy tofu, selecting She inkstone and Hui ink, and appreciating memorial archway and ancient buildings, we may inadvertently hear the words "Huang Binhong, Huang Binhong" from the local population of Huizhou. That voice was filled with arrogance and admiration.