A brief introduction to the life of Lu, a master of Chinese painting

First, my nickname is Ji, and my scientific name is Lu Tongzu, also known as Di. I don't talk much, and then I change my words. 1909 was born on May 9th of the lunar calendar. Originally from nanxiang town, Jiading County, Jiangsu Province. My father, Lu Yunbo, runs a rice shop. He is the eldest son of my father Shao. Shao was born in poverty and studied business for a long time. Later, he borrowed a facade in Heather, nanxiang town, where he set up a rice stall and started to run the rice industry. Business is booming, so I built a house, expanded the facade, hung the brand of Lu Xinchang, and became a decent rice shop. My father died after living in his forties. He has three sons and a daughter, and my father is the oldest. In this way, the burden of the family falls on the father.

It is said that my father is very smart in reading. He originally wanted to be a scholar and make a name for himself in the imperial examination. He gave up studying business, and some older people felt sorry for him. Although he is a businessman, his literary accomplishment is better than that of ordinary literati, and he writes neatly in small letters. I have a brother born to a different mother, and my mother Oceane zhu is the second wife. She is the eldest daughter. My grandfather's home is in Xie Jing Village, Northwest Township of Nanxiang. This place has fertile soil, abundant fertilizer and water, and lush bamboo forests. This is a big village with hundreds of families. Grandfather's biographies of previous generations, in many fields, have a carving hall, outside the brick carving wall, as well as dry boats, research and other places to rest. But in my grandfather's generation, there were many descendants, each of whom set up a door and destroyed the whole house. When I was a child, I saw tall osmanthus trees and magnolia trees in front of the yard. Later, when there were more rooms, I cut down the magnolia trees and osmanthus trees, built a kitchen in the yard and made a very elegant dry boat, which looked terrible. Under the flower wall, build a chicken house; Next door to the hall, feeding pigs and sheep is not the time for reunion.

My mother got married at the age of 30, which is a good needlework. When I was young, I saw the embroidery life in the summer and autumn sunshine. Although it is a gadget, it is extremely exquisite. My mother gave birth to six children, five boys and one girl. The first few were boys and died at birth. Above me, there is a girl who was born on the ninth day of the fifth lunar month. Less than a year later, she died of a sudden illness. Then I was born, which happened to be the ninth day of May. My parents thought she voted for the wrong baby, so the woman turned and the man went back. Although I know this is a superstition, I miss my dead sister all the time, so I feel nothing to be sad about, so I pretend to be a girl. In the late Qing Dynasty, both men and women wore long hair, while I wore girls' hair and clothes. Sometimes, I wear pierced ears and a ring. I am afraid of running away in pain, so I refuse to wear it. Besides, I almost didn't tie my feet. Take the nickname "Ji", the word is wonderful, and the number is "Xiang". I remember one summer night when I was a teenager, my father mentioned the word "like", saying that it was the name of a goddess in Historical Records. At that time, I was proud to use it as a symbol, and it was true. It can be seen that my family regards me as a daughter at all, and I am at its mercy. In my young mind, I can't help feeling awkward. I didn't change my men's clothes until I was five years old and about to go to school. At that time, a braid was over a foot long. Because I grew up braiding, I got used to it after a long time, so I didn't feel burdensome. Once I cut it off, it felt strange, but my brain was light and fast, and I felt very comfortable. In addition, I recovered my true colors and claimed to be liberated. So I changed the word "Ji" to "Ji" and left out the word "Miao" next to the word "female". A class younger than me called me "Brother Ji", and since then I have forgotten this lovely experience. I am introverted, hesitant, not good at making friends, and I don't have the ambition of my husband to work hard. I can only write, draw and write.

When I was a child, I was very happy to follow my mother to my grandmother's house. My grandfather has three sons, and the second one is Zhu Jiongqian. When he was young, he was admitted to the top prize. Before and after the recovery, he taught in Shanghai Yucai Middle School. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 36, leaving a six-year-old daughter named Zhu. I was eight years old, and my cousin and I were childhood friends. When I was twelve, my grandfather decided to get engaged. My mother-in-law Jiang Meifen is my second aunt. She is young and widowed, quiet and kind, never harsh words and looks, treats people very well, is good at keeping a house, does things step by step, and is not anxious or slow, but always finishes faster than others. I planted more than ten acres of land and fed chickens, ducks and pigs, and my life was good.

After our engagement, Zhu Yan and I were older and bound by feudal ethics and rural customs. When they met, they were speechless. She has always avoided seeing me, knowing that I will come to my mother's uncle's house in the summer vacation, and she will also go to her own house. I am also embarrassed to go to my mother's uncle's house often. I remember my teacher, Mr. Feng Chaoran, once asked me about my marriage and knew that I was engaged and didn't touch each other. He said that it was a long time before marriage, and they fell in love and were sweet to the golden age of their lives. It's a pity to be like me Looking back now, it's not bad at all.

My family has a long life for generations. My mother's grandmother lived to be over 90 years old, my grandfather lived to be 79 years old, and his brother was over 80 years old. Other branches also have seventy or eighty old people who live together and live in harmony. My mother-in-law often sends rural local products, pickled chicken and bacon, melon and millet, various cake bait and so on. Every time I read Gui Youguang's A Brief Account of the Past, I talk about his Wujiaqiao and the cake bait caused by the New Year's Eve dinner. I think of my mother-in-law and the old people in Xie Jing village. As it is now, I can't be attached to them. My mother is also a good housekeeper who is diligent and thrifty. She treats people harmoniously and has quick hands and feet, and everyone around her says she is good. When I was a child, I grew up under the care of these two virtuous mothers. Now they are long gone, and I am over seventy years old. Looking back, I can't help sighing.

My hometown is at the southern tip of nanxiang town, less than a mile south, which is the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway. When I was a child, I often went to the railway to play and put copper coins on the rails to roll into cakes. When I was in Tomb-Sweeping Day, I flew kites, plucked needles and caught hedgehogs on the grass beside the railway. More than a mile to the south is Huangjia Garden. I watched my master Huang Bohui build a garden. I know the workers who look after the garden. I can often go in and play, pull out some saplings and take them home to plant. There is a mulberry field next to my home. Mulberry trees are very tall. I often pick mulberries on it. Under the mulberry field, weeds are overgrown and irregular. In summer, I caught cicadas in trees and weaved girls on the grass. In front of my house, there is a city river. I catch small fish on the water bridge. This small fish is only as big as a needle, so I caught it and raised it in a pottery basin to play with. There is no flowerpot for planting flowers at home, so many flowers and plants are planted in a brick yard of less than two square meters at home. I put the pottery basin for fish farming on the surface of the flower tree and leaned over to watch the fish swim around. It was fun to see the big one from the small one. In the middle of the yard, put a jar, plant a lotus flower, catch a tadpole and put it in it, let it swim freely, and often watch it for a long time and tirelessly.

Before I could read and write as a child, I liked to draw people and dogs. There were no models. I took pictures of cigarettes. When I was seven years old, I entered the first grade of Jiading No.4 National Primary School. There is only one class in this school, which is in the taxi temple dozens of meters behind home. The teacher is my eldest mother's uncle named Zhu Wenxiang. He was a county student of the former dynasty and didn't get into the scholar. I had otitis media when I was a child, so that I was deaf and hard of hearing, but I taught it carefully. I read a book, approached the pen and ink stone, and saw the illustrations on the crutches in the textbook. I was very interested, so I followed them. In my previous generation, among my relatives and friends, no one could draw. Nanxiang town is a small place, and there is no decent painter, so my painting is completely spontaneous. When I was a child, I was not stupid. I remembered a fill-in-the-blank class. I want to make sentences with the words "nothing" and "nothing". I filled in "no flowers on the tree can bear fruit" and won the teacher's praise. I have been in poor health. It is said that my mother was ill during pregnancy, so I was born with congenital deficiency and was sickly. After taking some supplements, it didn't get better. Especially weak lungs, frequent colds,

At the age of eleven, I graduated from primary school and went to the second senior primary school in Jiading. I won the first prize in a mental arithmetic competition, which I didn't expect myself. I heard that my father is good at mental arithmetic. He went shopping and bought a lot of things. The clerk hasn't checked out yet. He has worked out the total in his mind. Is there a little heredity in this? But in this respect, I have not developed, only painting, and my hobby has not changed. My mother's grandfather loves painting and calligraphy, and there are some collections at home. My mother is good at embroidery and has some genes in this field, or in my mother's line.

At the age of twelve, I transferred to Xianggong Primary School in front of Nanxiang Temple. I am more than a mile away from home, so I can go to school. But my father asked me to stay at school, let me exercise and prepare to send me to Shanghai to study after graduation. I go home on Saturday night and go to school on Monday morning. Passing by the pavilion, there is an old painter named Shen next door. His studio is near the street, and there is a big glass on the window. I dare not go in and watch him draw through the glass. In fact, his paintings are extremely vulgar, but I read them with relish. I don't know anything about this, and I don't know how to draw landscapes, figures and flowers.

When I was thirteen, my neighbor's boss gave me a mustard garden, which opened my eyes. This "Mustard Seed Garden" is not an original woodcut watermark, but a copy of Shi Yinben outside the nest, but I think it's wonderful and I'm eager to study it. I learned some painting methods and the origin of tradition. And I don't know anything, and I don't have the opportunity to contact some books about painting. It's really pathetic.

I graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and went to Shanghai Chengzhong Middle School to study. Some extracurricular organizations such as calligraphy, painting and epigraphy have been established in the school. At that time, the middle school painting class generally taught western painting, and the middle school in the city taught Chinese painting, which was held by an old gentleman named Gao Xiaoshan. I remember a demonstration in which I drew a piece of cut pork, which was thin and fat. He dipped his pen in water, dipped his pen in red, put it down, and separated the skin, fat meat and lean meat in one stroke. I feel very fresh and realize the truth of using water, color and ink. In the school library, there is a collection of China's famous paintings published by Zhengshu Publishing House, which is only for browsing and cannot be borrowed. So I took a pen and inkstone and copied it in the library, so as to understand the origin, factions and ink use of Chinese painting. These paintings can't be seen in real works, but this kind of reduced print with Kolo version, although a little vague, can finally see some mental outlook. So I said that the level of landscape painting has rebounded in recent decades, which is better than the previous period. The appearance of Kolo version is a credit. Of course, some people copied Koro's version, but they didn't do it in place and were dying. The so-called Koro version (homophonic) is another matter. This collection of China's famous paintings is well selected, and there are not many fakes, which makes me know the faces of those schools and famous artists, which is much more useful than just reading written records and scratching my head. More than 30 volumes of China's famous paintings are worth tens of yuan. I can't afford it. I often borrow it from the library. The reason why I can have a general outline of Chinese painting is because this book is very enlightening. Besides painting, I also study printmaking. There is a copy of Ten Rooms in Zhongshan in the library, which is not the original rubbings, but a reprint by the Commercial Press. I can't afford a copy for 20 yuan. Actually, my roommate Wu Yifeng also carved seals. He couldn't afford the book, so he copied it on copy paper and painted it with cinnabar. I also copied his paintings and accumulated them into a thick stack. There are no lithographs. On Sunday, I went to the small world of Chenghuang Temple and bought a stone seal engraved on a dime or a few cents. I walked back and forth 10 to 20 miles from Tangshan Road in Hongkou to the Town God Temple in Heather. I had to walk all afternoon before I got back to the school gate. Four coppers ate a bowl of small wonton. I don't have any hobbies, but I have a good time. My seal cutting is mainly about Qin, Han, India and various schools in Qing Dynasty. I have a keen interest in it. As for calligraphy, I get up at four o'clock in the morning to practice calligraphy. Wei Lingzang and Heshi were first learned from Longmen stone carvings, and later Zhang Menglong's tablet and Zhu Junshan's epitaph were written. In a calligraphy selection, it was well received. There was no desk in the dormitory, so I put an old suitcase on the square stool as a desk and sat on the edge of the bed to write.

A year later, my classmates Wu Yifeng and Jia Zhenting, who love art as much as me, both transferred to Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. I was envious and wanted to go, but my father refused. He said that even if I want to learn painting, I should read more books, but I can't learn painting too early, so I will continue to study in the middle school in the city. The headmaster of this school, Cao, advocates reading classics in a retro way. In order to run a school, he fought a pen and ink lawsuit with Yang Xianjiang, editor-in-chief of New Youth magazine. Yang thinks it will poison students' national heritage. President Cao ignored it and appointed students to teach themselves an ancient book every year. I remember studying the Analects of Confucius and Hanshu? Art and literature, etc. Take the Chinese exam at the end of the semester and invite celebrities outside the school to read it. The first prize will be awarded. On one occasion, Feng, a famous person in eastern Zhejiang, was invited to write a paper, and I did well in the exam, and got a book "Collection" and "Collection sequel".