Valentine's Day, it's the annual old-fashioned love multi-string link.
I want to say something different this year.
Let's start with a small house by the West Lake.
On Double Eleven last year, there were news reports that a property that was being auctioned appeared on the Ali auction platform. Judging from the pictures, the courtyard is deserted, the walls are decadent, the price is staggering - 120 million, and the deposit for being allowed to participate in the auction is 10 million yuan.
Why is a dangerous house so expensive?
A possible answer is given on the auction platform, which is the former residence of Cai Yuanpei's daughter.
Ali auctions the former residence of Cai Yuanpei's daughter
Seeing this title, I was quite sad. The owner of the house, where cai yuanpei is only the daughter, she is a great painter and art worker in China, and she also has an extremely masculine name - William.
William Tsai
This room is famous, known as Maling Mountain House. When I wandered around the West Lake four or five years ago, I searched for Lin Fengmian's former residence without success, and when I mistakenly entered here, I saw the dangerous wall, I could not see that it was inhabited, but I saw a piece of bluestone, indicating the historical buildings of Hangzhou.
Hangzhou Historic Building: Building No. 1 Yuquan Road, former residence of Cai Yuanpei's daughter Cai William and son-in-law Lin Wenzheng, built in the 1930s, including three Western-style buildings.
Maling Mountain House has a history and a story. For me, this house has witnessed the most beautiful love and the saddest thoughts.
Today, the grass is thick and silent.
The name William is of German origin. On June 7, 1904, when William Cai was born in Shanghai, Mr. Cai Yuanpei was visiting Germany, and he admired the Germanic spirit and believed that it could save the country, so he named his daughter after the emperor.
Mr. Weimin's expectations for his eldest daughter can be seen.
Miss William seems to have inherited the talent of her mother, Huang Zhongyu, who was enlightened at the age of two, loved to draw and love novels, especially "Dream of the Red Chamber". When he went to Germany with his parents at the age of seven, he was in the same boat with Wu Zhihui, and life in the boat was boring, Wu took the story in "Dream of the Red Chamber" to test Miss William, and actually "can answer", Cai Yuanpei listened, but he was not happy to throw the book into the sea, the reason was:
"The child is still young, this book is not readable."
William Tsai's Girlhood, photographed in France in 1924
Reading "Dream of the Red Chamber" at the age of seven was indeed a little early.
But William's early wisdom momentum has been hard to resist, in a word, other people's children.
He spoke German in half a year, moved to Paris, and quickly learned French. After returning to China, William studied at the Comte School, ranked first in the examination, and loved to go to the Peking University Library to read ancient books after class. The biggest rest was to paint a portrait of the beauty, and when the mother saw it, she sighed and said, "He deserves to beat me so much!" ”
Her nature is quiet, she does not speak much, and even writes letters and essays, intending to be concise. When her mother died at the age of sixteen, Miss William mourned terribly, and from then on, there were fewer words.
But she was not an emotionless bridesmaid, on the contrary, in her paintings I could see Miss William's sensitive and kind heart.
The first time Shen Congwen saw William Cai's work was at Ding Ling's home:
Around the eighteenth year of the Republic of China, my friend Mr. Hu Yepin and Ms. Ding Ling moved from Shanghai to Hangzhou Geling to temporarily live. Soon after, the two returned to Shanghai, and there was an oil bust of Ms. Ding Ling in their luggage. The color of the painting was dark, like the handwriting of a middle-aged man. When I asked in time, I learned that it was painted by Mr. Cai William, the eldest miss of Mr. Xiaomin.
——Shen Congwen, Remembering Ms. William Cai
Ding Ling in 1929, just published the masterpiece "The Diary of Ms. Sha Fei", when I read Ms. Sha Fei, I thought that Ms. Ding was mostly a feminine beauty (the same was true of the photos she took at that time), but William Cai saw at a glance the fortitude in Ding Ling's personality, so she drew Ding Ling, some rough boyishness, women look at women, it is indeed more accurate -
William Cai made a portrait of Ding Ling
Drawing others is like this, and so is painting yourself. In 1929, at the first National Art Exhibition, William Cai used to exhibit a self-portrait. Compared with Pan Yuliang's magnificence, William boldly chose black and white gray, a strong structure, a quiet expression, from the picture, she understands herself, by no means an ordinary beauty, the intention is to express the inner fortitude, and a little like the arrogance of the pearl fairy, the "Dream of the Red Chamber" thrown into the sea by her father may still affect her so small.
William Tsai self-portrait
I found the female painters who were exhibiting at that time in the seventh issue of the fifteenth volume of the Women's Magazine, and these names are not unfamiliar to readers of the young years: Pan Yuliang, Chen Xiaocui, Li Qiujun, Wu Qingxia...
Participating female painters: Chen Xiaocui, Pan Yuliang, Wu Qingxia, Fang Junbi
The two most acclaimed female painters are Pan Yuliang and William Cai, and critics have compared her work to Lin Fengmian.
"Any tourist who has visited the Western Painting Department of the Art Exhibition probably can't forget Mr. Lin Fengmian's portraits and a few portraits of Ms. Cai William." Mr. Lin's figure composition has long been recognized as a masterpiece of East Asian new art, and there is no need to repeat it, but Ms. Cai's portraits are a blockbuster. ”
In the Women's Magazine, critics compared William Cai's work to Lin Fengmian
At first glance, William Cai's paintings are as Shen Congwen said that "the color is dark" does not arouse interest, she does not like to use those exaggerated lines, bright colors to attract you, but as long as you stop in front of her paintings, look at a few seconds, and then look at a few seconds, you will appreciate her good intentions, what she wants to pursue, what she wants to show, is the soul of the character she paints - her body taste for the person opposite, art is subjective, she would rather choose a remote and lonely road, not pleasing, not kitsch, and perhaps some lonely self-satisfaction, But she was not afraid.
This is the point that she has always emphasized to Wu Guanzhong and others from Da Vinci -
"A painter should depict two main things: man and man's ideological intentions."
Works by William Tsai
What kind of husband will Ms. William Cai, who has such a personality, choose?
Many years later, at Maling Mountain House, the elderly Lin Wenzheng told visitors that he was able to marry Ms. Cai because he had the blue eyes of his father-in-law, Cai Yuanpei.
Relevant records in "An Old Man in Maling Mountain House - Visiting Professor Lin Wenzheng, Son-in-Law of Cai Yuanpei"
The years are too long, or perhaps the world is too vicissitudes, Lin Wenzheng has forgotten it, and it is precisely Cai William who looks at himself. The boyfriend cai yuanpei originally chose for his daughter William Cai was Chinese psychologist Chen Jianyi (Bao'e).
At the beginning, Chen Jianyi's advantages were quite obvious, and he was recognized by William's parents early. He had a period of studying in France, and Cai Yuanpei wrote to him, suggesting that he would take more care of William Cai, who was studying painting in France. However, Cai Yuanpei, like Liang Qichao, supports the freedom of love for his children, although he values Chen Jianyi, he cherishes his daughter's heart more, so he only creates an opportunity for Xiao Chen to meet with William, hoping that they can naturally fall in love - such a good intention is worth learning from all parents.
But a problem arises – William is introverted, and Little Chen is also introverted:
Mr. Jian Yihao, although he knows one of the good intentions of the Cai couple, although he also has love for Miss Cai, he is always loyal and honest, not in love. The love letter of tears cannot be written; the soft expression cannot be done.
—William Cai does not marry Chen Jianyi, Shenjiang Daily, 1932-11-27
Until Cai William returned to China, the relationship between the two did not progress at all, and what was worse was that when Cai William sensed that his stepmother was satisfied with Xiao Chen, he actually had a rebellious psychology, indicating that he had no interest in Xiao Chen, so that Xiao Chen Sanzhen was out.
Lin Wenzheng was a good friend of Lin Fengmian (the same village and window studied together, I once thought they were relatives), in the spring of 1928, Lin Fengmian was invited by Cai Yuanpei to organize the president of the West Lake National Academy of Arts, and Lin Wenzheng served as provost. William Cai was impressed by Lin Wenzheng's French level and artistic theory, and took the lead in throwing an olive branch to Kobayashi. Their daughter Lin Zhengming said that the love between the two sprouted, perhaps the mother was more active, because Lin Wenzheng felt that she was a child of poor overseas Chinese, and the door was not a good match, and did not dare to climb high.
Interestingly, William Cai told her children that she could not forget the tie that Lin Wenzheng played when the two first met, "The tie is very bright, and it is a good match for his suit." She said to Lin Wenzheng: "As soon as I look at your tie, I know that you are different from others." Lin Wenzheng said that although William Cai is not the most beautiful, he is "the most personable."
On November 3, 1928, William Cai and Lin Wenzheng got married at the East Asia Hostel of Xianshi Company, I consulted the "Application", there was a live report of "Cai Lin's Wedding Record", the wedding was quite spectacular, more than 150 people were invited, Yang Xingfo sent a picture of Xilian "Even Gong Danqing became a family, Mei Xue was originally a family", the witnesses in addition to the old father Cai Yuanpei, there are Jiang Menglin.
"Declaration" Cai Lin wedding report
To digress, as a melon-eating mass, I am standing Xiao Chen in my heart, from the perspective of personality, Xiao Chen is more gentle, older and more aware of hurting people, of course, more importantly, in terms of appearance, I may eat Xiao Chen a little more:
Left: Lin Wenzheng, Right: Chen Jianyi
Probably because of regret, Cai Yuanpei soon introduced Xu Xilin's niece Xu Xuehan to Xiao Chen, and participated in Xiao Chen's wedding as an introducer.
Chen Jianyi married
Cai Gong practiced frugality throughout his life, but for Cai William, he was always favored. He took out a few thousand pieces to build a small Western-style building for Lin Wenzheng and his wife by the West Lake, and personally inscribed it "Maling Mountain House". The designer of the house is William Cai, which is her whole fantasy of married life, and she is eager to decorate the ideal home for an artistic family.
On the day of William Cai's wedding, when other brides were full of emotions, William Cai made a surprising move, one morning, she sat there painting, painting her father (a self-portrait), William Cai said that she was going to get married, hoping that the portrait she painted could replace herself to accompany her father.
Of course, she could not finish the painting in the morning, and she once asked her stepmother to continue to create this painting, and her stepmother probably felt that it was inappropriate and kept the unfinished work at home.
No one expected that this painting, forever there, would never be completed.
William Cai's "Still Life" published by "Good Friend" magazine
When you tell the story of Teng Gu before, you already know that in 1938, Hangzhou Art College and National Beiping Art College merged, and after the merger, the infighting was a mess, and the first to be affected was Lin Fengmian. He ran away overnight, leaving a letter for Lin Wenzheng to read to all the teachers and students of the school. After Teng Gu took office as principal, Lin Wenzheng, as a member of Lin Fengmian's family, of course, could not continue to teach, but no one could imagine that even William Cai, who had always taught honestly, was dismissed, although the school was founded by her father.
Lin Fengmian, Lin Wenzheng (center) and Wu Dayu
Students for Cai William, is always respected, Wu Guanzhong recalled, Cai William after seeing a student painting exhibition, proposed to use their own oil paintings for their own pair of watercolor, which made the young Wu Guanzhong greatly encouraged, you know, they do not know -
She hadn't taught me in the classroom, she didn't know each other, I just looked at her with respect from afar. She was a young woman, often dressed in black, with a graceful posture and few words, appearing exceptionally quiet and introverted.
——Wu Guanzhong
She was still so silent, but her classmates remembered that she said word for word in class: "Don't draw nonsense."
In William Cai's world, there is no factional struggle, no Chen Lifu and Cai Yuanpei, no Lin Fengmian school and Zhao Taiyou Changshuhong school, art is pure, it does not tolerate a little impurity.
William Cai, who was kicked out of school, was not so sad, she said that the job of a painter is to paint, not to teach, can paint better.
But the economy was so embarrassed, they had five children, Lin Wenzheng later went to the Southwest United University to teach, a person's salary to support a family of eight (Lin Mu also lived with them), of course, a drop in the bucket. William Cai needs to face all the housework alone, and at this time, she is already pregnant with Liujia.
Laundry in the cold stream, firewood under the smoky stove, noisy children, the girl who was favored by her father still silently accepted. She was nursing and sewing, and under the trivial chores that could not be dealt with, she tried to find a gap for herself, she worked harder than ever, and she still hoped to find a little time to create, even a little.
The house is so small, the courtyard is so messy, it is impossible to paint quietly. As usual, the local employer who had just come to hire him did not fit the pattern, and after not doing it for three days and then leaving, the housewife had to cook for the family of eight. Although the five children are very well-behaved, the eldest is a girl, and the housework can also help a little, carrying water, adding pine wool to the stove, mixing porridge, and the busiest nature is still the housewife. And the baby in the womb has obviously grown up and will soon give birth in April and May. I have to pass by their kitchen downstairs in my house, and when the children see me, they will say hello, and I will answer them one by one. It is often seen that this mother, wearing a wide printed cloth robe, with her back outward, is busy at the small pot and small table. When I heard my child say hello, I turned around and smiled at me, and I always felt very painful in my heart. Life is too heavy on this person, and smiling is a helpless expression. I wanted to use a smile to remove the pain of my friends and myself, but I couldn't do it.
The walls are plastered with small and exquisite sketches she made for the children, and during this period, William Cai's works seem to have become warmer and softer than before, just like her state of mind.
William Cai, "Portrait of a Girl" (in Art Wind, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1934)
Sometimes, she would think of Maling Mountain House, and the two works she had left there, "Wu Song Killing the Enemy" and "The National Army Triumphant Song into Shenyang", those two works were hung by her in the studio, she had completed the oil painting manuscript, waiting to be enlarged on the canvas.
She told her husband, Lin Wenzheng, that she always believed that the final victory belonged to Chinese.
But she couldn't wait for the day of victory.
William Tsai and the children
In the early hours of May 3, 1939, she gave birth to a girl. She painted her daughter on the wall, and everyone felt that the mother and daughter were safe, and quietly sighed, but saw that the pregnant woman wrote four words on the wall: "The country is difficult and the family is difficult."
This seemed to be an ominous sign, and on the afternoon of May 4, she was sweating profusely, and the next day she called a doctor and found it to be puerperal fever.
At nine o'clock in the evening, the 35-year-old talented painter, the mother of 6 children, died at home because she did not have money to go to the hospital to give birth.
I come in and out every morning and evening, still greeting the children. Occasionally, he called the third black and fat lady of his family a "big man" and asked her how her parents were, and she couldn't go out to play. The child still smiled and agreed to "very good". However, two days ago, I heard from my family that I learned that the child's mother had given birth to a small hair at home and had been dead for three days.
The direct cause of death was puerperal fever, but the indirect cause was no education, no income, afraid that the cost could not be borne, could not be admitted to the hospital to give birth, and finally died. The man died, leaving a pile of paintings, six children.
Lin Wenzheng photo
Lin Wenzheng's world collapsed.
They hadn't been apart for a single day since the day they were married. Lin Wenzheng sometimes went to Shanghai to run errands, and William Cai also had to follow. On the way to escape, they encountered bandits, and they told each other that if they died, they would also die together.
In Lin Wenzheng's place, his wife, William Cai, is not silent at all, and they have endless words every day.
Even on the day of childbirth, William Cai must accompany Lin Wenzheng and hold his hand, as if this is the only way to resist the pain of production.
Now, it was she who had let go.
The two in the middle are Lin Wenzheng and William Cai
Another man in pain was Cai Yuanpei.
At that time, Cai Yuanpei was in Hong Kong, and the family planned to hide from the old man. In the letter to the old man, Lin Wenzheng always did not forget to add "William attached a pen to please be safe" at the end. Cai Yuanpei was worried about the name of the newborn, and he wrote down in his diary: "For his son Zhengming (from the perspective of being born in Kunming) and Liu Ru (from the perspective of the sixth line), he asked him to choose." ”
Two months later, he read in the newspaper about William Tsai's death.
"Declaration" William Cai death news
Cai Yuanpei was greatly mournful and wrote "Lamenting the Elder Daughter William Wen":
"In the past two months, in the letters from friends, there have occasionally been people who have reported the news of William's misfortune, but I have noticed when reading the newspaper, but I have not seen them, and Wen Zheng's letters are all written by William to ask for peace, and I suspect that the reports and errors described by the friends are also wrong. Reading the "Yishi Bao" sent from Kunming on the twenty-sixth day, there was a memorial service news of the female painter Cai William yesterday, and on the twenty-seventh day, there was a news of the exhibition of the female painter's posthumous works, so I knew that William Guo was no longer alive, mourning! It is urgent to tell his adoptive friend (referring to William Cai's stepmother Zhou Yanghao) that his adoptive friend has already received this evil news, and has telegraphed four hundred french dollars to Wen Zheng for funeral use, drinking and crying for several nights, but I am afraid that I will be sad, and the secret of the appointment will not let me know. ...... William gave birth to four women and a man, and since the Yuanling Dynasty moved to Kunming, he has given birth to another daughter. Within a few days, he died of postpartum illness, mourning! ”
More than half a year later, on January 11, 1940, Cai Yuanpei went to Wang Yunwu's house to visit the New Year, and saw that Wang Yunwu's second daughter was painting, and the old man was very happy, and on March 2, he wrote for the girl:
"Plums are born with swallows to protect the chicks, and the new leaves around the eaves are sparsely green. Asahina was overjoyed and bought a fishing boat with double mandarin fish. ”
At this time, Cai Yuanpei remembered the scene when Cai William learned to paint when he was a child, and the unfinished portrait, carried with him, had become a wordless pain. Three days later, Cai Yuanpei's condition suddenly worsened and he died. His youngest son said that on his deathbed, his father murmured and listened carefully, repeating only two words:
William, William.
In 1911, Cai Yuanpei and his wife Huang Zhongyu brought their eldest daughter Cai William and third son Cai Boling in Europe
After losing his wife, Lin Wenzheng published most of his works were mourning works.
Poetry manuscript of Cang Mang Lou
He once reorganized the family but ultimately failed, and his second wife, after he was imprisoned, was forced to divorce and died two years later after suffering schizophrenia.
He converted to the "Red Religion" of Tibetan Buddhism, and flowers were placed on the table, in addition to the Buddha statue, but also the portrait of his wife.
Lin Wenzheng converted to Buddhism
In the 1980s, Lin Wenzheng returned to Maling Mountain House alone, he wanted to follow the footsteps of William Cai, where the scenery was still the same, but people went to the empty building, and the yellow crane was unexpected. Here, with his dream of love, he began to complete the translation of the French version of Balzac's Complete Works.
A junior came to visit him and found the room empty, with William Cai's urn on the table.
He told Zheng Chao, a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts who came to visit him (the picture above is wrong, it should be Zheng Chao), that the two of us (Lin Wenzheng and William Cai) were two drops of water on a lotus leaf, which naturally came together and could never be separated again, even if it was death.
The youngest daughter, Lin Zhengming, said that her father had always believed that his mother's soul had always accompanied him and never left.
In 1989, at the age of 86, Lin Wenzheng left the world, and before he died, like his father-in-law, he repeated only two words in his mouth:
The house of Maling Hill House, at the last moment of the end of the auction, found a new owner.
A mystery buyer bid $120 million to buy the house.
On the Ali auction platform, the auction hammer of the old villa located on the west lake side of Hangzhou , Yuquan Road No. 1 property (that is, the former residence of Cai Yuanpei's daughter Cai William) fell to the hammer, 1 person registered, and finally sold at a starting price of 120 million yuan
Who would have thought that the owner of this house would have died because he could not afford to pay for the hospital delivery.
In 1929, at the National Art Exhibition, William Cai and Pan Yuliang were equally divided. And now, the price of the two works at auction is not the same -
Auction price of Pan Yuliang and William Cai paintings
For an artist, how important is it to create life. William Cai only has a short 35-year-old life, just imagine, if she can take more time from the hard work of her family and children to create art, what kind of artistic achievements will she achieve?
We are not qualified to make a choice for William Cai, perhaps, for her, having Lin Wenzheng's love has made up for all the hardships, and it is her willingness to die young in exchange for a love that is too thick to be dissolved.
But I still regret, regret her talent, regret her short life, regret her, and regret all the women who struggle between family and career.
Such a struggle is not only Cai William, but also Lin Huiyin. That's why she said in her letter to Hu Shi:
"Now my health is not good, and the burden of home is also heavy, I am really afraid of living in mediocrity from now on, and living a life as a wife and a child!" I couldn't help but get sad. ”
How to balance career and family? Is it to try to realize yourself, or to contribute to yourself and be a good wife and mother? This is the conundrum of William Tsai, and this conundrum is still being discussed to this day.
Every time I write an article on love-related topics, there will always be readers who leave a message saying "no marriage and no childbirth to ensure peace". This sentence is not just talk, the "13th Five-Year Plan" period of 20-34 years old fertility period of women decreased by an average of 3.4 million per year, 2021 compared with 2020 4.73 million. The average number of children intended for women of childbearing age was 1.76 in 2017, 1.73 in 2019, and 1.64 in 2021. In the new era, professional women who no longer need to rely on marriage to obtain survival resources, how can they be willing to get married and have children? I think this is a topic that needs the serious attention and serious discussion of the whole society, and the impact of childbirth on women's work (employment, promotion) and other aspects deserves the attention of the whole society, at least, it is not by intervening in unmarried women to terminate pregnancy once and for all.
At the end of the text, I suddenly remembered a small episode. In 2003, I had the privilege of having a relationship with William Choi's half-sister, Tsai Xiao-ang. This gentle-spoken old lady has been living in Cai Yuanpei's former residence on Huashan Road, and she is very warm to guests, saying a few words to let us eat snacks and help everyone peel oranges. She appears to be Pengam's introduction to the party (I can't remember much about her age). Cai died in 2012 at the age of 85, and she never married.
1. Ye Zhaoyan, William Cai: It is important for artists to live long, China Culture Daily, 2014-02-18
2. Yao Tortoise, Self-Portrait: William Cai and Her Paintings, Reading 2010-02-15
3. Zheng Chao, the star who died early - female oil painting professor Cai William, New Art1984-04-01
4. Qingshan has the honor to bury loyal bones - Mr. Cai Yuanpei in his later years in Hong Kong and his death, the three principals of the Republic of China, Yuelu Book Club, 2015
5. Hang Jie, an old man in Maling Mountain House - Visiting Professor Lin Wenzheng, son-in-law of Cai Yuanpei, China Today (Chinese Edition) 1985-09-28
6. Lin Wenzheng - William Cai "100 Years of Marriage (Episode 56)", Sunshine TV
7. Looking back at the National Art College The National Hangzhou Art College 1928-1949 Alumni Collection Photo Exhibition, Letter Digest, 2000
8. The former residence of Cai Yuanpei's daughter starts from 120 million yuan: the dangerous house in the West Lake Scenic Area is a historical building, The Paper2021-09-22
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