Unpublished Paintings by Feng Zikai

I ran into Feng Yiying in April 2007 when attending an opening ceremony for a museum in Wuzhen， a river town in northern Zhejiang Province. Feng Yiyang is a daughter of Master Feng Zikai (1898-1975)， a famous painter and essayist in the 20th century. Standing by a river near the museum， we chatted. I mentioned some paintings created by the master in the 1930s had never been reprinted. She was so intrigued that she asked if I could let her take a look at these paintings. She jotted down her email address on a piece of paper and handed it to me. The next day I received her short message from Shanghai that she had got the email address wrong. She gave me the right email address.

As a matter of fact， I had had her email address six months before. We had talked on the phone. I published a memoir in 2006. After reading an essay on her father in the memoir， she wrote me a letter by the care of the publisher. In the letter she mentioned some of her father’s poems， essays and paintings had got lost in history. I have been paying attention to the master’s artworks for more than a decade. Whenever I run into a painting by Feng Zikai， I check it against “A Complete Collection of Cartoons by Feng Zikai” to see whether it is listed there.

In my collections are two books of poems by a poet named Lu Jiye. The first collection titled Spring Rain， published in 1926， has illustrations by Feng Zikai. Eight years later， Feng Zikai created illustrations for the poet’s second collection of poems titled Green Screen. I copied these illustrations and sent them to Feng Yiying. She later wrote me a letter expressing her appreciation. I proposed for reprinting these paintings not in the collections of his works of art.

I admire Feng Zikai for his virtue and his art of painting and essay writing. His inspirational paintings have been put together and published in nine collections. I like all the paintings in these collections. Feng was highly appreciated by his contemporaries in the 1930s. The illustrations by Feng Zikai for the poetry collections by Lu Jiye are equally delightful. They are more valuable because modern readers have not yet got an opportunity to view them.

Though little known now， Lu Jiye was a preeminent poet in the first half of the 20th century. He began to write new-styled poems in 1919 when the May Fourth Movement was sweeping across the country. That year he was only 14. He found some so called new poems utterly tasteless. Some of his poems were popular in his time and they were highly appreciated by heavy-weight literary masters of his days. These fresh poems are celebrated for melodious rhythm and rich connotations. They play an influential part in the history of Chinese modern literature. Moreover， Lu also committed himself to collecting and publishing folk ballads. He published more than 30 collections of folk ballads.

Lu Jiye and Feng Zikai have something in common. Both divulge and portray the unspoiled joy and poetic beauty of everyday life. That is probably why Feng Zikai illustrated the poet’s two poetry books published years apart.

In the preface to his Green Screen， the poet said he had had a hard time since the publication of his first poetry. His father had passed away and he worked very hard to be a provider for a family of eight. He had written nothing for five years. Where was the inspiration he once had for these poems in Spring Rain? He found his heart as dried as a deserted well. During these hard moments， the poet kept writing about an ideal life. The illustration by Feng Zikai for a poem titled “Appreciating Yellow Flowers Silently by Green Screen” presents a green screen in the background， a flight of three stone steps， and potted flowers in luxurious bloom， and a folded fan left behind on a step.

Lu’s poems and Feng’s illustrations portray an ideal life lost forever for many intellectuals of those years who yearned for peace and a dignified life of books. That is probably why the poems and illustrations were so popular with them.□