After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Mongol Yuan regime, after the fragmentation and reshaping of the social class, completely disrupted the original coordinate system.
The cultural genes of the Yuan Dynasty on horseback advocating force were innate, resulting in the intellectual class of the early Yuan Dynasty in an extremely awkward position, and compared with the golden age of the literati of the Zhao and Song Dynasties, their fate under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty had completely fallen into the bottomless abyss. In such a social and cultural atmosphere, a group of relict intellectuals had no choice but to live in anonymity and exile, remembering their homeland in the reality of displacement in the midst of broken mountains and rivers.
Zheng Sixiao is one of them.
Speaking of Zheng Sixiao, I have to mention "Mo Lan Tu", a representative work of the remnant painting. Orchid, a seemingly weak plant that has been given personality charm by the literati of all generations, has a unique meaning since ancient times, confucius once said: "Zhilan was born in the deep forest, not to no one but not to be fang; a gentleman cultivates morality and does not change for the sake of poverty." It is under the nourishment of this culture that the orchid has become the best metaphor for the literati to express their own integrity and character.
Zheng Sixiao's "Mo Lan Tu" is 25.7 cm in length and 42.4 cm in width, in the collection of the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Japan
As far as Zheng Sixiao's work is concerned, it obviously has a richer and more complex meaning, and is also a metaphor for his own fate and character, and at the same time contains a deep sense of home and country. This work is the most reliable of Zheng Sixiao's surviving works, in which orchids suddenly emerge and bloom alone. Judging from the layout in the picture, the two orchids are slightly symmetrical, and a quietly blooming orchid in the middle breaks this dull and boring composition, which in principle has a finishing touch from the composition of the painting aesthetic. This work is made in the typical way of painting in books, and the painter deliberately does not use the often visible blue stone drawing, which is a composition mode, and the whole picture is only those clean and neat lines that seem to be drawn with the pen, which has a very obscure meaning. Judging from the records in the history of painting, after the death of the Song Dynasty, Zheng Sixiao's orchid works were written using the composition mode of this rootless flower, "Painting orchids does not paint soil, and people inquire about it, then they know: "The land was taken by the Fan people, and Ru did not know yes? Judging from such records, Zheng Sixiao's intentional orchid work is only to express the hidden pain and resentment of losing his homeland in his heart, so "when it is painted, it is destroyed, and it is not vain to be with people." ”
On the right side of this "Mo Lan Tu", Zheng Sixiao inscribed a poem and inscribed it "Sonam Weng":
He always bowed down and asked Emperor Xi, who is Ru who came to this village?
Nostrils are opened before the painting, and the sky is full of ancient fragrances.
Zheng Sixiao's inscription poem on "Mo Lan Tu"
This inscription poem expresses the feelings of the homeland in his heart in the whimsical borrowing of lyrical borrowing. From a literal point of view, in this poem, the Xi Emperor is also the ancestor of the Fu Xi clan to make the Chinese nation, and the author here borrows to ask who came here to ask the Xi Huang orchid? The last two sentences are written about the fragrance of the orchids in the painting, no one has ever opened his nostrils to appreciate the painting before the painting, and the orchids in the painting make the sky full of ancient fragrance or the fragrance of the former Song Dynasty. Comparing this poem with the inscription poem of Chen Shen (1259-1329), a relic of the Southern Song Dynasty on the left, we can better understand the meaning of Zheng Sixiao's inscription. Chen Shen's inscription poem:
The fragrance is nowhere to be found, and the dream is separated from the wind and rain of the Xiang River.
Weng is idle Chu Hua, and I am also Weng Chu Dance.
Chen Shen's inscription poem on "Mo Lan Tu"
Judging from Chen Shen's inscription poem, he should be Zheng Sixiao's good friend. In his inscription poem, he further interprets the meaning of Zheng Sixiao's inscription poem, the fragrance of the orchid is ethereal and nowhere to be found, just like a dream across the wind and rain of the Xiang River, So Nan Weng xian painted a Picture of Chu Hua, I danced chu dance for him. There is a sharp mind between the two, and the words Xiangjiang wind and rain, Chu Hua, and Chu Wu in Chen Shen's inscription poem actually metaphorically refer to Qu Yuan's story, and qu Yuan's "Leaving sorrow" often appears in vanilla, implying a self-expectation for his own noble gentleman's conduct. In this way, it has a good annotatory effect on the meaning of Zheng Sixiao's "Mo Lan Tu" and his inscription poem, Zheng Sixiao's "Ru" originally means orchid, but it also contains the rich intention of the vanilla in Qu Yuan's "Leaving sorrow".
The great yuan dynasty painter Ni Zhan once wrote a poem "Titled Zheng So Nanlan", which further elaborated on the meaning of Zheng Sixiao's rootless orchid:
The autumn wind lan hui turned into thatch, and the desolate atmosphere of the southern country had disappeared.
Only sonam's heart did not change, and the fountain of tears and ink were written away.
Let's look at the left inscription in Zheng Sixiao's "Mo Lan Tu": This volume was made on the fifteenth day of the first month of the first month of the first month. The year was 1306 AD, 27 years after the fall of the Song Dynasty. And below the blue leaf on the left side of the lower right corner of this painting, Zheng Sixiao has a yin wen lishu chapter on it, and its text reads:
Ask for no, do not ask or with. The old eyes are empty, and the breeze is eternal.
On the "Mo Lan Tu", Zheng Sixiao's inscription and a yin script seal on the plutonium are written
Perhaps, when making this painting, Zheng Sixiao, who has passed the age of flower armor, looks back on the past and remembers it vividly. In the face of the tragic scene that today's things are not empty, the complex that the homeland cannot look back on and that there are many storms in life has always lingered.
The first half of his life experience resonated with the national fortunes of the turbulent Southern Song Dynasty. He only won the title of a talent in the meritorious scientific examination, and in the first half of his life, his life has been very "mournful": he lost his father at the age of 22 in 1262, his mother at the age of 36 in 1276, and the country at the age of 39 in 1279. Since then, Zheng Sixiao has completely lost everything, after the death of the Song Dynasty, Zheng Sixiao, who is nearly confused, ushered in the second half of his life, he changed his name from Zheng Zhiyin to Zheng Sixiao, and "Xiao" is part of the word "Zhao", implying the nostalgia for the Zhao and Song Dynasties. At the same time, such a metaphorical act became a distinctive symbol in him, such as the character Yi Weng to show that he did not forget his homeland, the south of the trumpet meant to turn back to the south (the Yuan Dynasty invaded from the north and destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty), the plaque of his residence was titled "Ben Cave World", and the word "Ben Cave" alluded to "Great Song". Since then, his orchids have never been painted with soil, becoming a flower without soil and roots, implying the hatred of losing their homeland. He even wrote in one of his portraits with hatred: "Disloyality can be blamed, filial piety can be beheaded, but this head can be hung on the table of the flood and famine, thinking that it is an example of infidelity and filial piety." ”
All this is still useless, the homeland is gone, and he seems to have become a "man in a trap", and he is unwilling to go out of his "home world" from then on.
He repeatedly showed his sad love-hate in his works. For example, in the poem "Han Ju", it is written: "It is better to die with incense on the branches, and He once blew down in the north wind." For example, in the "Second Song of the Second Year of Deyou", he wrote such verses as "One Heart Chinese Dream, Everlasting Spring Poems", "Worshiping Toward the South, Wishing to See the Han Jing Banner", "Here temporarily Huma, only Song Min for life" and so on. In the face of those who safely accepted the rule of the Yuan Dynasty after the fall of the Song Dynasty, he rebuked it even more mercilessly, for example, in the "Six Songs of Bitter Sorrow", he was angry and helpless to write: "Today's people are really small, and their words are still stupid." If you do not distinguish between kinship and hatred, it is better to have food. Knowing the hearts of parents, Ru Su hurts the arms! It is difficult to repay the three springs, and the grass is all over the place. "The waves are gushing, and the rivers are decadent." Jing envied Lü Wanggui and owed Bo Yi to death. Little En Shang Si report, great righteousness and forget shame. The country has been three hundred years, why should it lose to Er? And in the face of Shi Yuan's Zhao Mengfu, he was even more ashamed of this and angrily broke off his friendship from then on.
Zheng Sixiao's "Qiulan Tu", yale University Art Museum collection
Poetry and painting express the voice of the heart. Zheng Sixiao's rootless flower, "The fragrance of a country, the death of a country, the king of Huai Pihuai, Yu Chu youguang." "Pure gentleman, no villain, deep in the mountains, with the sky as spring." However, this arrogant and resolute posture, with a mutilated tragic image, has uniquely enriched the depth and breadth of the spirit of the relics of the early Yuan Dynasty embodied in the simple picture, and interpreted the homeland feelings full of love and longing contained in it in a silent way.