Han Qing's vest
20 15-02- 18
"Guoyun Building" is a famous private library in the south of the Yangtze River, located in Ganjiang Road, Suzhou City. Known as "the collection of Jiangnan is the best in the world, and Guo Yunlou is the first in the collection of Jiangnan". Now it is a cultural relic protection unit in Suzhou. After six generations 150 years' inheritance, its collection includes more than 800 kinds of ancient bamboo slips of Song and Yuan Dynasties, fine texts, fine engravings of Ming and Qing Dynasties and inscriptions. In the 1993 Ganjiang Road construction project, the original appearance of Guo Yun Building was completely restored. The courtyard in front of the building is not only piled with rockery flower beds, but also planted with precious flowers and trees, maintaining the architectural style of hard hills with double eaves, simple doors and windows and fine carving.
Guoyun Building is famous for its collection of precious paintings and calligraphy, and enjoys the reputation of "the first in the south of the Yangtze River". However, Gu kept the rare books at home secret. Why this happened, people don't know. But it is such a family rule that most of Gu's books have been handed down to this day. From this point of view, Gu Jia's book collection is lucky.
The most interesting thing is that during the Republic of China, Gu's friend Mr. Fu Zengxiang asked to borrow books, and the owner agreed to read books in the building out of kindness, but with a very harsh condition, he could not copy books with paper and inkstone. Therefore, Fu Shi read several kinds of books every day, remembered his bibliography, wrote Gu Shu Cang, and published it in the sixth issue of the fifth volume of the Journal of the National Beiping Library. Legend has it that there is a secret room in Yunlou, which contains Gu Jia's rare books of ancient books.
Gu's rare books are extremely well preserved and clean as new. Song's paper is white and the words are big and pleasing to the eye. It is indeed an artistic treasure and an important cultural heritage. At the Guardian National Rare Books Auction in the spring of 2005, nearly 500 well-preserved and precious ancient books collected by Guo Yun Mansion, including 40 rare solo "Splendid Flower Valley" engraved with 800 years, were bought by a mysterious buyer for 2.365438 billion yuan. Suzhou Library once conceived to let these ancient books return to Suzhou, but it was difficult to raise funds in the end, so it had to give up.
Suzhou's private collections are impermanent, but they spread orderly. As the saying goes, "when things gather, they will disperse, and when they are long, they will gather." That is, after the books of several bibliophiles were scattered, they were obtained by a local bibliophile. Most of the ancient books collected by Gu family come from books published by Suzhou bibliophiles. Mr. xie guozhen, an expert in edition bibliography in 1970s, has seen some rare books of Mr. Gu, and he thinks that a considerable number of books in the building come from other books. At the same time, according to the research on the seal cutting of Gu's existing books, the collections of Wu Pingzhai, Pan, Shen Shuyong, Liu and Shi Rongzhuang are scattered and accepted by Gu in batches and included in Cloud House Collection.
The investigation of Gu's collection of books should be traced back to. Gu Wenbin is an elegant collector of calligraphy and painting, and he likes to collect rural literature. In his "Yunta Painting and Calligraphy", the manuscript of Zhu Zhishan's "Zheng Dexing Ning County Records" in Ming Dynasty and the handwriting of five gentlemen in Lindong were recorded. He hopes that these old instincts collected at home will "benefit the learning of future generations" and "how to choose classics for future generations". Successive generations have been collecting, and the wind has not stopped, and it has been carried forward to the ancient times. Wuxian annals is said to be "the study of rare books", "the old manuscripts of Song and Yuan Dynasties and the legacy of the older generation, and I am interested in seeking them."
1872, Gu Wenbin asked his son Gu Chenghua to buy the Preface to Lanting copied by Sui Liang, a calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty. He told his son Gu Cheng to "buy boldly" and never let the wind out. "Assuming that Li Hongyi (another big collector in Suzhou) knows about it, he also spelled out a heavy price. If the two are rushing to buy it, the seller will be more curious." He also proudly said that "Shi Zhiyong is really a thousand words" and "Preface to Chu Lanting" are in hand at the same time, which is well-deserved in Jiangnan.
1873, Gu Wenbin, who was then Shaodaotai in Ning, Zhejiang, took a fancy to a site in Shangshu Lane and built Guoyun Building. 1875, Gu Wenbin resigned and returned to his hometown to concentrate on collecting famous paintings. At that time, the cloud-crossing building should be called "Tibetan Painting Building". Gu Jia originally collected some calligraphy and painting. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, many private collections in the south of the Yangtze River were scattered all over the place, and Gu Wenbin bought them in large quantities, which greatly enriched the collection of Guoyun Building, including many famous works. The name of the building is "over the clouds", which means "over the clouds" and "I don't care about eternity, I only care about owning it".
Although it is light, Gu Wenbin cherishes the collections in the building. He formulated that 14 should not be hung on the threshold of "crossing the cloud floor": foggy days; Filthy; Under the lamp; Wine side; Copy; Strong borrowing; Manual seal; Any hand problems; Be loyal to your name; Re-painting light books; Modifications due to the loss of old concepts; Misdiagnosis of counterfeit products; A layman accustomed to drilling; Pick up the evil thing with defects. This is also a book collection rule that Gu Jia has memorized for generations.
After Gong, his grandfather Gu Qishi (1865- 1930) inherited one third of the Tibetan paintings left by Gu, the third descendant of Gong, and further expanded them. Gong Zu Kistler himself is an artist who is proficient in calligraphy and painting, especially his landscape paintings are elegant and rich, and his name is more important than the world. With rich artistic accomplishment and keen vision, he collected a wide range of paintings and calligraphy works, and collected more than a thousand paintings, reaching the peak of the painting collection of Yunlou. Qi Shigong's efforts and success in collection can be seen in the compilation of "The Story of Continued Painting and Calligraphy in Guoyunlou".
It has been difficult to start a business since ancient times, and it is even harder to keep it. There have also been many great collectors who looked down on their generation in history, such as Ming Xiangzi Jing, Qing 'an Yizhou and Liang Qingbiao. Its wealth was once brilliant. However, due to the extravagant winds of later generations, disputes over property, social unrest, changes of the times, or disasters of fire and water, they could not live together from generation to generation, causing losses and damage, which made them suffer from the sufferings of their ancestors.
It is also because of Gu's vigorous collection and purchase that Lou really became a library. Gu's grandson Gu still lives in Suzhou. He has heard the story of his grandfather's book collection. The situation in the late Qing Dynasty was turbulent. At that time, the books of famous bibliophiles Yang Yizeng, Pan Zuyin were destroyed and a large number of books flowed out. At that time, the descendants of bibliophiles issued a large number of books, and the family was rich in assets at that time. Gu took the opportunity to buy all of them, about three or four thousand copies, including many ancient books of Song and Yuan Dynasties, which became the main source of Yunlou's books. This transaction also made Gu quite proud. At the same time, according to the seal cutting research of Gu's existing books, the collections of bibliophiles such as Wu Pingzhai, Pan and Shen Shuyong were scattered and accepted by Gu in batches.
The collection of books in Yunta is often regarded as "secret". Gu denied this statement (Gu 1928 was born in Zhujiayuan. At that time, the collection passing through Yunlou had been moved to Xijin Mountain Villa in Vinegar Lane due to separation. Later, Gu's four sons separated again, and Gu also divided the collection, bronzes, calligraphy and painting, and ancient books to Gu Gongshuo, Gu's father. Gu said that Fu Zengxiang, a famous bibliophile, went upstairs to read a book, for example, and stayed overnight because of the courtesy at that time. It was only later that Fu Zengxiang copied the bibliography privately and published it without Gu's consent that Gu "had some ideas".
Gu Jia also received some arty dignitaries because of his kindness, but he had a special set of calligraphy and painting to deal with. The quality of this set of paintings and calligraphy is average, but the colors are bright and beautiful. There are still some people whose families "don't welcome them" despite their knowledge and reputation. Gu recalled that Kang Youwei wanted to go upstairs to have a look, but Gu declined because he was "a lofty scholar and didn't want to get involved in politics." Gu still remembers that there was a man named Sun who was in charge of managing the collection and receiving guests, and later became a collector.
Although The Ancient Collection of Books published by Fu Zengxiang, guin has been criticized, it is a good thing for the researchers of edition bibliography to know the Collection of Books in Cloud Tower. According to its records, there were 50 kinds of Song Yuan rafters in Guoyun Building at that time, including 539 kinds of old manuscripts 165 kinds, Ming board books 149 kinds, and fine printed books 175 kinds in Qing Dynasty, totaling more than 5,000 copies. Together with ordinary thread-bound books that are not catalogued, the collection of Yunlou should be more than 10 thousand volumes.
In fact, the collection of Guo Yun Lou won not by quantity, but by Song and Yuan editions. There is a saying in the collection circle that "one page of the Song edition is worth one or two pieces of gold", and the Song edition is the "highest pursuit" of ancient book collectors. There are as many as 50 versions of the Song and Yuan Dynasties passing through the Cloud Tower, which are now "national first-class cultural relics", especially the Jinxiu Flower Valley, which is quite famous in the book collection field. It is a complete Song edition book with 40 volumes. Even Chen Xianxing, a senior researcher at the Historical Literature Research Center of Shanghai Library, said: "There are no fewer than 200 kinds of Song editions collected in Shanghai Library, but there are only relatively complete Song engravings like this.
From the late Qing Dynasty to the end of the Cultural Revolution, it was the most turbulent period in China's modern history. During this period, many libraries were overthrown overnight and no longer existed. It is really commendable that a large number of old babies who have passed through Yunlou have been passed down to the present relatively completely.
After the Cultural Revolution, Gu Gongshuo's family came back with the copied materials, but there were still many shortcomings. 1992, Nanjing Library purchased 54 books1species from Gu Jia, with a collection of more than 3,000 books, and Gu Jia accepted more than 300,000 books, and proposed to set up a special library for Yunlou in the library, but it was later abandoned. At that time, some members of the Gu family did not agree to sell these books, and some of them were left behind, which is the origin of the books collected in Yunlou in this auction. There are 179 kinds of these ancient books, among which, Song edition 1 kind, Yuan edition 4 kinds. In addition, more than 80 pieces of old cultural relics of ancient tribute meat are now temporarily stored in Suzhou Museum.
After more than a hundred years of turmoil, today's pattern of crossing the cloud floor still exists, but people have already gone to the building. The main building is now used by Suzhou Underground Pipeline Management Office, and a row of office bungalows in front of the building used to be Gu Wenbin's study. Opposite the north wall of Yunlou is Gu's private garden, Yiyuan Garden, which was originally connected. Later, because it was converted into a comprehensive building after liberation, it was separated by a wall.
Although most of Gu's descendants moved overseas, Gu stayed in Suzhou, devoted himself to Kunqu opera, and lived in seclusion in Jiangnan, becoming the last celebrity. But what makes him "a little uneasy" is that Guo Yun Building is "a little wasteful" as an office space for tricycle management companies. Today, "Guo Yunlou Exhibition Hall" may be Gu's last thought of Lou.