Ye gonghaogu

Ye gongchuo’s collection anecdotes

｜ Dong Yannan ｜

I am a practical and detached person. Ordinary people are stubborn and unwilling to give up everything they focus on. On the contrary, they don’t take everything seriously. And I have never neglected the slightest thing about everything, but I have never been stubborn at all. I just try my best to do it. When I have to, I will give up and abandon all, and have no nostalgia. This is probably due to some moral and philosophical cultivation.

——Ye Gong’s Autobiography

1、 Three generations in his life, several “everyone”

Ye gongchuo is a politician who “is willing to follow the strong men to cut off the Dragon mirage and make Tianjiao know the Phoenix Lin”; He is an educator of “the Yellow Dragon, the great light shining on the country, the sweet dew, the sweet spring and the plaster at the right time”; He is a calligrapher of “after the Bixiao music, the rosy clouds move, and the mangrove flowers welcome the opening of the morning dew”; He is a scholar who “wrote books in Yanping city and learned from Yang Ziju”; Moreover, he is also a collector of “banknote to secret book coral class, fine correction of true niche industry map”.

Ye gongchuo, whose ancestral home is Panyu, Guangdong, was born in Beijing. He was born in a scholarly family. In his early years, he graduated from the official school of the Capital University. His grandfather ye Yanlan (Lantai) was famous for his epigraphy, calligraphy and painting. Father ye Pei is good at poetry, books and literature. He once served as the chief transportation officer of the Beiyang government and has visited France, North Korea, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom for many times to promote Chinese culture.

In 1912, ye gongchuo met Sun Yat Sen. since then, he has followed Sun Yat Sen’s revolution and focused on the construction of transportation and the development of post and telecommunications. He has successively served as the Minister of finance of Sun Yat Sen’s headquarters, the director general of transportation of Beiyang government and the Minister of transportation of Nanjing National Government. He has made many contributions to transportation, post and telecommunications, finance and education.

In 1941, ye gongchuo, 61, avoided Hong Kong. Faced with the coercion and inducement of the traitors, he would rather die than obey, selling calligraphy and paintings to maintain his family.

After the founding of new China, ye gongchuo returned to the mainland from Hong Kong and served as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese people’s Political Consultative Conference, deputy curator of the central cultural center, and President of the Beijing Academy of Chinese painting (now Beijing Academy of painting).

In his life, ye gongchuo experienced the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China and new China, and made great achievements in many fields. Due to the limitation of space, this paper can not show all its achievements to the readers one by one, but only a few collection anecdotes and cultural protection stories, in order to take the readers to gradually appreciate everyone’s style.

The color setting of silk is 53.9 cm vertically and 127 cm horizontally

Ye gongchuo’s old collection, Beijing Palace Museum

2、 Playthings don’t lose heart, collection is research

Ye gongchuo devoted his whole life to collecting ancient books and cultural relics. He spent a lot of money and energy, but also took great risks. He compiled 120 paintings and calligraphy from the Wei, Jin and Ming Dynasties, from the monument of Cao E by Wang Xizhi, from the pill of duck head by Wang Xianzhi of the Jin Dynasty to the night talk picture of neem Pavilion by Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty. In addition to calligraphy and painting, township chronicles, Qing CI collections, Qing biographies, famous monks and calligraphy, and cultural relics atlas are all in his collection. There are more than 5000 Qing CI collections alone. In 1943, he donated a long-term collection of local chronicles, mountain chronicles, Academy chronicles, temple chronicles, historic sites chronicles, and letters and pictures about literature archaeology, a total of 906 kinds and 3245 copies, all to Hezhong Library (now Shanghai Library). Other collected cultural relics are also donated or sold and collected by cultural institutions in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Chengdu and other places. In 1961, ye gongchuo was 80 years old. He donated a large number of rare ancient calligraphy and paintings to the country free of charge.

“Ya tou Wan tie” is a short note written by Wang Xianzhi, a calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, to a friend. It is titled “Ya tou Wan is not good, so it should be collected in the Ming Dynasty and meet with you”. As a kind of traditional Chinese medicine pill, Yatou pill is recorded in Wang Tao’s “secret essentials of waitai” in the Tang Dynasty and Li Shizhen’s “compendium of Materia Medica” in the Ming Dynasty. It is a kind of medicine for diuresis and detumescence. This post has the collection marks of Xuanhe of Emperor Gaozong of Song Dynasty and Tianli house of Shaoxing Yuan Dynasty, and the praise of Emperor Gaozong of Song Dynasty. Later, it flows out of the palace. After several dynasties, there are inscriptions and postscripts for generations, and it turns to ye gongchuo’s hand. The material of Yatou pill calligraphy is recorded in detail in the secret record of the Qing Dynasty in Ya’an. For example, the material of the introduction and the painting center are indicated, and the handwriting and seal of the autograph are examined and identified. The scraped seal is also recorded in detail, and the situation of the words printed is also recorded. The line feed format of the original calligraphy work is kept consistent with the original as far as possible in his records. This shows the importance of this post.

Since the founding of new China, all kinds of waste are waiting for prosperity. Ye gongchuo often sells his personal collections to make up for his family. Xu Senyu, director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission for the preservation of cultural relics, once entrusted Xie zhiliu to inquire about the nationalization of the “duck head pill post”. It is said that during the negotiation, the price is extremely valuable, so it is really difficult to set a price. Later, ye gongchuo thought of the ancients’ saying that “a word is a thousand gold”. The “duck head pill post” had two lines and 15 words, so he paid 15000 Jin Gu for it. This is also a good story in the book world. “Yatou pill calligraphy” is now stored in Shanghai Museum and has become a treasure of the town museum.

3、 Return the monument of Cao E, with thousands of pairs of tears

Ye gongchuo and Zhang Daqian are close friends. Ye gongchuo’s residence in Shanghai is Yiyuan on Jianguo West Road. He also bought a garden in nearby Suzhou to stay and travel at any time. His first temporary residence in Suzhou was the Internet master’s garden. This famous garden was purchased by Zhang xiluan in 1919. In the 1930s, ye gongchuo, Zhang Daqian and Zhang Shanbi rented it to Zhang xiluan’s descendants. At that time, Zhang Daqian and his family lived in the Linlang hall next to the osmanthus hall. Zhang Shanbi and his family lived in the peony garden and ye gongchuo lived in the backyard. The three families lived in one garden for nearly four years. Zhang Daqian and ye gongchuo once rented and lived in Suzhou webmaster park. They got along day and night, stroked old things and discussed art and technology. Ye gongchuo’s friendship with Zhang Daqian has been discussed by many people. For example, Bao Limin once dedicated a section “Zhang Daqian and ye gongchuo” in Zhang Daqian art circle. However, due to the fact that Zhang Daqian’s diary is rarely kept, and there is not much singing and harmony about ye gongchuo in his poems, it is impossible to find out the specific relationship between the two. In fact, there should be a lot of relevant involvement in living together for four years. In 1975, ye Gongchao published the selected works of Mr. Ye Ya’an’s calligraphy and painting in Taiwan, which was signed by Zhang Daqian, preceded by Zhang Daqian’s preface. The preface talks about his achievements in figure painting. At first, he was influenced by Mr. Ye gongchuo, saying that he “urged him to abandon landscapes, flowers and bamboos, specialize in figures, and shake up this decadent trend. Later, he went west to quicksand, slept in two stone chambers in Mogao and Yulin for nearly three years, and copied 300 wall paintings of Wei, Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties, all of which were inspired by Mr. Ye”.

The anecdote most talked about by people is that Zhang Daqian negotiated with ye gongchuo and bought “Han Xizai’s banquet picture” to