Fang Junbi, a female painter in the Republic of China, lived a romantic life.

Art history has always been beautiful, tangible and colorful, and it can also be philosophically speculative. It is a remarkable and intellectually cultivated history, so it has won my love and addiction, and it is my treasure chest.

But sometimes reading history is often a heavy heart. This relatively clean and beautiful art history, because it involves a larger historical background and has more complicated and cruel reasons, seems to be difficult to understand any history-big history and small history.

And because history is a cloud of smoke floating around, many historical figures can be shaped at will and many historical paragraphs can be modified at will. Just for the needs of the current dynasty rulers, they dug traps everywhere and tripped people when stepping on a pit. Therefore, it is not easy to ask the context of history itself.

The heavy sense of history makes it difficult for individuals in it, even outstanding individuals, to show a relaxed texture.

Almost all individuals in art history have similar characteristics.

Fortunately, the scale of dust will loosen with the passage of time, change color with the changes of the times, fade gradually with the unremitting desire for beauty and the excavation of the truth, and restore the original appearance of things.

One hundred years ago, Fang Junbi (1898- 1986), a female painter of the Republic of China, was a beautiful and lovely woman I vaguely saw after sweeping away the dust accumulated in countless times, and found a piece of jade as pure as jade.

What was China like a hundred years ago? What were women like in China a hundred years ago? Is it really only the national condition that men have long braids and women have small feet and are poor and weak for a long time?

Obviously, this is our one-sided misunderstanding of history. If we focus on a noble family in Fuzhou, the capital of the south, we will find that people in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China had a better aristocratic life than us: the family had affection, children could receive higher education and study abroad, women were regarded as independent individuals rather than vassals of men, and family members could give their lives for greater ideals and more people's happiness when necessary.

It is an aristocratic family that publicizes the meaning and value of life, not just rich.

Among the only children, Fang Junbi is the most beloved eleven sisters in the family. The little girl has a strange skeleton since she was a child, with long eyebrows and a slightly stubborn mouth, but her eyes are warm and moist, which is a good appearance of a good family.

Stubborn corners of the mouth often show a person's unyielding character, while warm eyes reflect a person's kindness. These two advantages, one hard and the other soft, played a vital role in Fang Junbi's coping with the ups and downs of life and his painting career.

Natural good temperament seems to have made great preparations for the unknown future.

Jun Bi went to France to study when he was young. At that time, she was only 14 years old, which sounded a little premature.

It turns out that her family has a tradition of studying abroad, located in the southern coast, with convenient transportation, information circulation and broad vision. With the support of her father, her brothers and sisters either learn from the East or the West, or go to Japan or study in Western Europe.

When she arrived, it happened that her sister was going to study in France, and public expenses could cover the living expenses of one or two people, so she took her out.

Together with them, there is also a noble family related to their family. Zeng, a beautiful boy of 16 years old, became a promising young man, later became a doctor of literature, became an official in politics, and became a lover in adulthood.

But this trip abroad with them, there is another important person, that is, Wang Jingwei, who can never wash away the dust and can't see his true face. At that time, Wang Jingwei was a fighter of the revolution of the Republic of China and an intellectual who succeeded in the revolution but had no intention of being an official. He has family ties with Fang family and revolutionary ideals, so he also went abroad to study together.

I have to mention this complicated historical figure, because he is so talented as a person; As a relative, he was one of the two outstanding China teachers when Fang Junbi was in France ── the other was the world-famous Cai Yuanpei; As a failed figure in the later political struggle, as the remorseless Chen Yinque wrote, "It's hard to ask who wins in a thousand years", what he did was not forgiven at all, and it also implicated the nine clans who had nothing to do with him politically. Otherwise, how can the talented Fang Junbi never return to China and have to live in another country? As the first generation female painter of the Republic of China who contributed to modern art in China, how can she always be trapped in the fog of history, and it is difficult to see her clearly?

On talent, Fang Junbi is a jade that can be cut; In terms of environment and conditions, who could match her at that time? After arriving in Paris, I immediately studied French at school, went home at weekends to study Chinese under the guidance of two great teachers, Cai Yuanpei and Wang Jingwei, and then entered the general art school for three years, and then was directly admitted to the National Paris Academy of Fine Arts with excellent results.

This art academy is one of the three most influential art academies in the world so far, and it has the deepest relationship with artists in China. In the early days, we went to the West to study oil painting. Today, the famous artists we know, such as Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian and Wu Guanzhong, are all international students who have come out of this painting academy.

Fang Junbi and Xu Beihong were classmates for one year. That year, Mr. Xu Beihong, who also went to Paris to study, was only an auditor of the Academy of Fine Arts because his French was not enough for the time being.

Therefore, when Fang Junbi grew up, her artistic level not only reached the top of the few female students in China at that time, but also she was fluent in Chinese and French, and she could write poems and lyrics at will, and she could write a good hand and become a real my fair lady.

From 1922, that is, the photo of her marriage at the age of 24, we can see that she was really young and dazzling, with elegant manners, black hair tied into two buns around her ears, smooth forehead, long eyebrows as usual, long legs, but not arrogant and conceited in temperament, and a quiet and gentle home.

In fact, most of the China women depicted in her works are refined and similar to her own temperament. Two years after her marriage, she was selected as a "piper girl" in the Paris Spring Salon Exhibition. Her fresh and clever brushwork depicts all the charm of an oriental woman: short black hair, eyes, a flute and a China jacket with a purple and green background with Chinese knots hanging on it, all of which reproduce the original oriental elements. Once this painting was exhibited, it caused quite a stir in the western art world. The mainstream media in Paris reacted quickly to this. Paris Journal of Fine Arts immediately selected The Piper Girl as the cover of the new magazine, and the reputation of "Outstanding Oriental Female Painter" crowned her.

Here, Fang Junbi created two firsts in the history of China fine arts. She is not only the first China female student admitted to the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, but also the first China female painter to attend the Paris Spring Salon.

Personally, I'm afraid the joy of pure painting is more than the reputation and affirmation abroad, but for the history of modern art in China, the "first" of these two single paintings is of great significance, which indicates that China women who have never lacked social status can fully open their great potential as long as they have the opportunity to learn and see, instead of being a "goddess of family affairs" at home. At the same time, this oil painting is an unavoidable milestone for the narrator, whether watching Fang Junbi's personal art, talking about China's female art or writing China's modern art.

If life is peaceful, we have no reason not to believe that Fang Junbi, who was born in a noble family, received a good education, and had a loving husband and wife, could not live a good life. Her artistic talent and inner quality, coupled with her background, are so unique that such a person should have a suitable life so as not to live up to God's good pleasure.

After her stunning appearance at the Paris Spring Salon, Fang Junbi lived a very peaceful and comfortable life for the next seven or eight years. Emotionally, he and Zeng complemented each other, strengthened his determination to forge ahead in art, and went all the way to the maturity of his own art.

On the one hand, she sent her good works to the Spring and Autumn Salon in Paris year after year, which attracted frequent admiration from westerners. On the other hand, she did not refuse a short exchange opportunity to return to China, and made several turns back between France and China. In the second year of Paris Spring Salon, Fang Junbi accepted the invitation of Guangzhou University to return to China to teach for one year. For such a talented woman, the first female professor to bring fresh western paintings back to China, not only the school attaches great importance to it, but also social organizations. For example, the Guangzhou Recreation Party hosted by Gao Qifeng, the founder of Lingnan Painting School, invited her to take out her works and participate in the exhibition. At that time, she took a photo of Lu Fangweng's poems, which was bought by the National Government at that time and hung in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, showing her extraordinary talent and appreciation. Indeed, a close reading of her paintings during this time has made me feel confused. The accuracy of her writing, the mutual look of colors and the expression in her chest are all extremely beautiful, which is quite different from the frivolous feeling of many people who studied western painting later.

But in my opinion, Fang Junbi's early work was extraordinary. Her artistic feeling is not the kind of artist who moves from naivety to maturity, but the person who cheers as soon as she reads it. If there is any mature change in her works, it is because she is trying to communicate and integrate western painting and Chinese painting alone, trying to draw the ethereal charm that the orientals are most particular about and cannot express in words with the realistic brushwork of western painting. The self-exploration of this technique has been seen in her early work "As Clear as Plum Blossom".

Fang Junbi is a pure artistic person. She loves painting so much that painting is her life, not a pursuit or just a hobby as people say. The continuation of painting is the continuation of life, and the texture of life is the texture of painting.

Her people have nothing to do with politics, but two important people around her, lover Zeng and younger brother's relative Wang Jingwei, have gone into politics. These talented literati who didn't want to be officials left their footprints in history, asking them to walk in the forefront of governing the country and return to China for such a mission. However, political disputes are a matter of life and death. In an accidental assassination, her husband took countless bullets for Wang Jingwei. In the prime of life, Zhong Ming, a great genius, left his beloved wife and three charming children to die, and acted as a sinner because of the changes of current events.

Finally, politics, like a whirling vortex, involved Bi Jun who devoted herself to art, breaking her integrity since birth and rewriting her life. It should be noted that her love with Zeng is much higher than that of ordinary couples in life. The two children knew when they were young and went abroad together. In poetry and songs, you want to be with me, purely for love. You are friends in spirit and soul. The sky were to fall, and Junbi's half-life was gone.

She was injured at the same time. A bullet could have saved her life, but a tenacious perseverance kept her alive. She also has three children with Zhong Mingsheng, as well as her art and the love left by Zhong Ming. Although her emotional savings in the first half of her life passed away in a flash, they can be used as spiritual food to support her in the second half of her life.

Perhaps, people who come out of this noble family still have a value far beyond this world. Whether active or passive, as long as they don't give up their lives for personal grievances, that is a kind of "righteousness" and greater value. For example, Fang Shengdong, Jun Bi's brother, gave his precious life for the Revolution of 1911.

Here, Jun Bi's temperament of combining hardness with softness stood up in the crisis, straightened her back, and let her art and her life continue to move forward as always.

The dull pain of passing away accompanied the rest of my life. She refused to remarry. The love embedded in her bones made her unable to accept anyone else. She put her heart and feelings, together with her outstanding talent, into the painting without reservation.

Fang Junbi was luckier than most French painters who returned from France in the same period. She not only has the freedom to paint, but also can publish a picture album and hold a solo exhibition when the opportunity comes. During the ups and downs from1940s to1970s, she held solo exhibitions all over the world, including in Chinese mainland. After the lifting of the ban, China Art Museum even held a large-scale exhibition for her, which was her gesture of seeking great harmony as a country, and the freezing period of China art has not been completely thawed.

Fang Junbi was the female painter who held the most solo exhibitions in that era. Don't underestimate the common things we see today. It can only be an extraordinary honor for Fang Junbi. At that time, after a long period of national and people's disasters, the people of China entered the conceptual "New China" in the early 1950s, and another morbid era under high-handed rule had begun. Art has become evil, just a simple tool for political propaganda, and artists have naturally become evil people, suffering from all kinds of inhuman logging and carbon coating.

In order to avoid being humiliated and convicted, many painters who could have achieved great things quietly put down their brushes.

At this time, due to past political reasons, Fang Junbi could not and would not stay at home, but could paint quietly in the sunshine of other countries. Wrong, seemingly unfair fate, actually blessed her in another way.

Although in a larger essence, it is the country that has been abandoning her. But counting the recent history of nearly a hundred years, especially the history of nearly half a century, the ideology of more than 10 million people has been impacted and abandoned. Therefore, in the face of Fang Junbi's displacement, we can only grieve for her, and at the same time give the greatest respect to her tenacious will to life and her brilliant art.

In the preface of Fang Junbi's Collection of Traditional Chinese Paintings published by 1968, she wrote: "Where is the solitary root, this piece of red residue?" These words are the words she used to chant rose petals, her feelings about Zhong Ming's love, and her deep lament for herself after years of Sino-Japanese War and World War II, loss of relatives and friends at home or death, and exile in a foreign country.

However, the cruel fate she experienced has gradually disappeared and subsided in a distant time for such a distant descendant. All she can see in front of her eyes is the works that shine with the light of life.

Judging from the general pattern of art history, the oil painting in the Republic of China is not a towering tree, but a tender flower. It is an artistic ideal that a few cutting-edge painters see the western painting language and want to bring it back to China to carry forward. It died almost before it touched the soil. Fortunately, some solid seeds always fall to the ground and germinate. Xu Beihong's National Beiping Art College, Liu Haisu's Shanghai China Painting Academy and Lin Fengmian's Hangzhou National Academy of Fine Arts are all fruits of several excellent seeds.

Fang Junbi is a complete personal achievement, and the life she alluded to in the residual red film has become a flower full of eyes in her works.

Looking at Fang Junbi's paintings is a kind of mood: if you want to exercise restraint when doing other things, you don't have to suppress surging emotions when looking at her works, you can indulge in it at once. But after getting drunk, her works have their own momentum and peace, which makes people finally calm down.

What burns people's passion is the bright colors, gold and pink in her paintings. What finally calms people's feelings is the clarity revealed after her brush strokes. Yes, her paintings are clean. Her upbringing and life are all in it, which is the feelings of love and beauty left after filtering the sadness of fate.

Surprisingly, Jun Bi, who has lived abroad for a long time, has never seen western women in his figure paintings. They are all gentle China women with fine features and some Buddhist images. They are elegant and beautiful, wearing long skirts with small collars and a shallow smile on their lips.

Her deep memory of home can almost be said to be fixed in China of the Republic of China before she went to France. Although she went back and forth to China several times from abroad or made a short stay, China after the great changes is no longer the country she understood, nor is it her home. She is just a guest in the end. Her eternal homesickness can only be reproduced in her paintings.

It is this oriental painting that makes the French fall in love with Jun Bi. In her early years, Rene Grossette, an academician of Paris College and president of Oriental Art College, wrote an article praising her art, saying that her paintings "show the lovely personalities of artists and humanists". In her later years, namely 1984, two years before her death, the Paris Museum held a "60-year retrospective exhibition of Fang Junbi's paintings" for her, which gave her the greatest appreciation and recognition of Jun Bi's art and her life. Perhaps, this is also their spiritual soothing hand to this gentle but tenacious oriental woman.

What could be happier than this ending for a woman who never leaves her fingers and regards painting as her life?

Junbi herself, from young to old, has always been very beautiful, and her eyebrows have not changed much. He still has a clear temperament, but his eyes are deeper than when he was young, and all the joys and sorrows are sleeping in it.

She likes painting plum blossoms, flowers and mountains and rivers representing China. She spent less than half her life taking them out, trying to understand China's paintings with endless artistic conception, and carefully drawing the relationship between paper and ink. Her ink painting is as clear as oil painting, which is better than many people who only study ink painting.

From the beautiful woman wearing a red robe and holding plum blossoms when she was young to herself sitting in front of Bai Mei with white hair when she was old, all these show her spiritual consciousness and cleanliness, and she has a good Iraqi tolerance!

Today, the Iraqis are gone, and her history is still out of touch, so it is impossible to make up for it out of thin air. Fortunately, time is like water, the times have changed, political demands and those in power have passed, the monarch's pen is still the monarch's pen, and the paintings are still those paintings-this is the most crucial point, and the paintings cannot be changed-this is the most three-dimensional Fang Junbi.