Qu Yuan is one of the sources of the Dragon Boat Festival folklore. The image of Qu Yuan is like a tough cultural thread in the long river of art, connecting the spiritual resonance of different times. From the simple outline of stone carving to the delicate rendering of silk, and then to the magnificent freehand brushwork of ink and wash, the evolution of his artistic image is not only a witness to the development of techniques, but also the precipitation and sublimation of national spiritual symbols.
The earliest record of the Dragon Boat Festival in memory of Qu Yuan can be found in Liang Zongyan's "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji" in the Southern Dynasty: "On May 5, there is a race to commemorate Qu Yuan. This is the day when Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River. People mourned his death, so they ordered boats to rescue him."
When we gaze at Qu Yuan's gaunt back in paintings of past dynasties, or the vast Miluo River in Fu Baoshi's ink paintings, we see not only the evolution of artistic styles, but also how a nation carves its own spiritual totem with its brush. Qu Yuan's thousand-year journey from a historical figure to an artistic symbol, every time an artist depicts Qu Yuan, it is a dialogue with the ancient spirit.
Early stone carvings and paintings: the prototype of Qu Yuan's image
Qu Yuan (about 339 BC - 278 BC), whose name was Ping and courtesy name was Yuan, was a politician and poet of the State of Chu during the Warring States Period. He was the first great patriotic poet in the history of Chinese literature and was known as the "ancestor of Chu Ci" and the "ancestor of Chinese poetry". He was born into a noble family of the State of Chu and served as the left minister of King Huai of Chu and the official of Sanlu. He advocated the selection of virtuous people, the improvement of laws and regulations, and the alliance with Qi to resist Qin. However, he was exiled because he offended the interests of the nobles and was slandered. During his exile, he created immortal poems such as "Li Sao", "Nine Songs", "Heavenly Questions" and "Nine Chapters", creating the literary tradition of "fragrant grass and beautiful women".
In 278 BC, the Qin general Bai Qi conquered the Chu capital Ying. Qu Yuan was filled with grief and indignation. On the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, he committed suicide by bouncing off a stone into the Miluo River and died for his country.
The earliest traceable images of Qu Yuan in Chinese art history began in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Volume 6 of Zhang Yanyuan's Records of Famous Paintings of All Ages in the Tang Dynasty recorded the "Qu Yuan Fisherman" by the Southern Dynasty Liu Song painter Shi Yi, which is the earliest documented painting. Although the painting received average reviews, it pioneered the interpretation of Qu Yuan through visual art. In addition, according to Xiao Yuncong's "Preface to the Chuci Picture" in the late Ming Dynasty, Zhang Sengyou, a great painter of the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties, painted a portrait of Qu Yuan. In fact, the image of Qu Yuan at this time had not yet been finalized, and was mostly attached to the illustrations of "Chuci" or religious murals, with more function than artistry.
▲Qu Yuan in "Portraits of Emperors and Famous Ministers of Successive Dynasties"
Since the Song Dynasty, painters in every dynasty have painted Qu Yuan's portrait. For example, in the Song Dynasty's "Portraits of Emperors and Famous Ministers of Successive Dynasties", there is an image of Qu Yuan. The famous Song Dynasty painter Li Gonglin painted "Nine Songs Scroll", and there is also a portrait of Qu Yuan at the beginning of the scroll. This is also the most widely circulated version. The Yuan Dynasty calligraphers and painters Zhao Mengfu and Zhang Wo have copied it. In the Yuan Dynasty Zhang Wo's copy of Li Gonglin's "Nine Songs", Qu Yuan appeared for the first time as an independent image: wearing a wide robe with long sleeves and a peaceful face, he looks like a loyal and honest elder, but lacks worries, which reflects the "softening" treatment of Qu Yuan's image by the Yuan Dynasty literati's hermit thought.
On the left is a copy of Li Gonglin's "Nine Songs" by Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan Dynasty, and on the right is a copy of the same painting by Yuan Dynasty painter Zhang Wo.
Ming and Qing Dynasties: The Establishment of Standard Images and the Reshaping of Confucianism
The Ming Dynasty was the period when Qu Yuan's image was finalized. In the "Portraits of Ancient People in Successive Dynasties" in the 11th year of Hongzhi, Qu Yuan wore a Confucian scarf on his head and had a gaunt face, accompanied by the words "deeply thinking and holding high the pure and pure loyalty", marking that he was officially included in the genealogy of Confucian loyal ministers. However, the "Qu Yuan Wandering and Singing" by Chen Hongshou in the late Ming Dynasty was the one that truly established the visual paradigm for later generations.
In this print, Qu Yuan is "haggard and withered", wearing a wide robe, with a long sword on his waist, walking alone by the desolate river. The figure is as thin as a solitary bamboo, and the folds of his clothes are like carved metal and stone. "Qu Yuan Wandering" shows the image of Qu Yuan being exiled to the south of the Yangtze River, wandering in worry. In the picture, Qu Yuan is alone, walking slowly with a difficult step and a worried look, which is quite similar to the image described in "The Fisherman" as "wandering in the river, chanting by the lake, with a haggard face and a withered face". The picture clearly shows the high crown and the long sword worn diagonally at the waist, which is more consistent with the self-description in "Crossing the River" as "wearing a long sword and a crown that cuts through the clouds".
This image of Qu Yuan is called by some scholars "the prototype for Qu Yuan's later works" and has even influenced popular media such as comic strips and sculptures.
Chen Hongshou: Qu Yuan Wandering and Chanting
In addition, there are more vivid paintings such as "Qu Yuan Wandering" by Zhang Ruoai of Tongcheng, Anhui Province in the Qing Dynasty. There are countless images of Qu Yuan in ancient books.
Portrait of Qu Yuan (Ming Dynasty) Tianran wrote an inscription. The inscription of the Portraits of Ancient People in Successive Dynasties was re-engraved in the 11th year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty.
Modern and Contemporary: Fu Baoshi's Spiritual Projection and Wartime Reconstruction
In the 20th century, facing China's reality and history, Fu Baoshi used his life to recast Qu Yuan's artistic height. During the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, he collaborated with Guo Moruo to transform Qu Yuan into a torch of national spirit.
In the 1942 painting "Qu Yuan", Qu Yuan stands by the Miluo River with his hair loose, his eyes slightly closed, and his clothes rippled like waves. The blank space in the background seems endless, a metaphor for the loneliness of "the whole world is turbid, but I am the only one who is clear". In the 1944 painting "Qu Yuan Wandering", Qu Yuan's right hand tightly grasps the hilt of the sword, his hair is messy like a halberd, and the violent wind and waves created by the "Baoshi Cun" technique become a metaphor for the national crisis.
Fu Baoshi created at least seven portraits of Qu Yuan in his lifetime. From the one in the Nanjing Museum to the one in the Palace Museum called "Qu Yuan Wandering", the Qu Yuan he portrayed was either sorrowful or resolute, which was actually the painter's self-confession of the integrity of an intellectual during the war.
"Qu Yuan Wandering" by Fu Baoshi
Although Fu Baoshi's use of brush and lines to depict Qu Yuan's figure has been inspired by Gu Kaizhi's "high-ancient silk-line drawing", his brushwork is smooth and coherent, and the modeling is high-ancient and elegant, with both ink and color rendering and line outlines, just like a grand symphony, expressing the character's spiritual temperament and inner emotions and thoughts vividly. This work is not only one of Fu Baoshi's representative works, but also an important work in the history of modern Chinese art.
In addition, Xu Beihong's Qu Yuan, who combined Western realistic techniques with traditional Chinese writing, became a spiritual totem at a time of national crisis. His representative work "Qu Yuan and the Fisherman" (1938) directly hit the loneliness of "everyone is drunk but I am sober" with dramatic scenes.
The diverse interpretations of Qu Yuan's image in modern and contemporary times
In the 1960s and 1970s, the image of Qu Yuan became popular and secular. Liu Danzhai's comic strip "Qu Yuan" reproduced his political career in a realistic way, bringing Qu Yuan from the palace to the classroom. In March 1955, "Qu Yuan" was published by Shanghai Fine Arts Publishing House. "Qu Yuan" has a compact script, simple composition, and full characters. Whether it is Qu Yuan's "worrying about the country and the people" and "elegant and extraordinary" character image, or the treacherous faces of Zi Lan, Zheng Xiu and others, they all deeply attracted readers and had a huge impact after publication.
Comic strip "Qu Yuan"
In the mural "Qu Yuan's Journey" in the Qu Yuan Temple in Zigui in 2009, Qu Yuan's sleeves fluttered in the clouds and danced with the gods in "Nine Songs", presenting the romance of the gods and witches in Chu culture. Zhu Naizheng, a well-known oil painter and a student of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, also painted "National Soul - Ode to Qu Yuan" (1984), rewriting Qu Yuan's spirit in the language of oil painting.
Zhu Naizheng's "Soul of the Nation - Ode to Qu Yuan"
In addition, modern artists such as Huang Yongyu and Shen Zicheng have also created many works based on the image of Qu Yuan.
Qu Yuan by Shen Zicheng
Throughout the thousand-year history of images, Qu Yuan's artistic image has always revolved around three core characteristics: the first is the symbolization of appearance: "withered", "long sword" and "scattered hair" have become visual labels that transcend the times, derived from the literary genes of "The Fisherman"; the second is the Confucianization of spirit, from the demeanor of celebrities in the Southern Dynasties to the symbol of "loyalty" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and finally sublimated into a symbol of national integrity in the War of Resistance; in addition, the magnificence of the Chu murals, the bravery of the Hunanese, and the arrogance of the literati (Fu Baoshi) are all constantly integrated into it.