Huang Yongyu: The state of mind behind the brush - a profile report by Li Yi on Huang Yongyu after the June 4th Incident in 1989

The author of the following article is Li Yi. The source of the original content (PDF) is the 239th issue of the "Nineties" weekly of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library . After Li Yi passed away in October 2022, Huang Yongyu also passed away in June 2023. Because I respect them very much and feel that this interview is very meaningful, I spent one night OCR recognition + manual proofreading of it, and compiled a plain text version so that more people can read it. (The full text is available below. To respect the original text, it has not been converted to simplified Chinese)

What is particularly meaningful about this report to us today is that we can see how confused Huang Yongyu, who was already in his sixties, was when he decided to live in Hong Kong in 1989. After understanding his state of mind at that time, and then looking at his life in the past thirty years when he was in his twilight years, we can also understand the painstaking efforts behind his outward appearance.

Moreover, this is also the part of the story that will not be written in his autobiographical novel "The Swinger of Wuchou River". After reading it, it will also help us put together the life of "Preface" more completely.

Huang Yongyu: The state of mind under the brush

Li Yi

He is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, and a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. After the June 4th Movement, he painted many paintings with profound political meanings with sadness and anger. "Why do I have such an attitude? What should I do in the future?" Huang Yongyu talked about his feelings today and looked back on the past...

Around the time of June 4th, the famous painter Huang Yongyu, who had settled in Hong Kong last year, published several sad, angry and satirical paintings in newspapers. Later, his emotions turned deeper and he used to paint lotus flowers, which he was good at, to express his thoughts. In the painting "June Night", the lotus dripped with crystal blood. He himself said, "I feel like I am painting a tablet of a god." In the painting "Chrysanthemum Lotus", there is an inscription on the painting saying that he was in "TV program". I saw a reporter interviewing a little girl wearing glasses. Her appearance is delicate, her words are sad and euphemistic, and her power is unstoppable. The solemnity of life can be seen here..." I don't remember much about the TV scene he wrote, but But Huang Yongyu always remembered it. He said that this little girl told reporters, "I am very uneasy. I am afraid of going back to the life I had ten or twenty years ago." She went on a hunger strike for this reason. From this little girl, , how do we see that it is a turmoil and a drastic action to overthrow the Communist Party?

How can I forget it day and night?

In front of these two lotus paintings, I seemed to see the sad face of the painter when he was creating. The other picture, "Sorrow", is even more shocking. Doctor Qu, dressed all in red, is stroking the ground in pain. The scene is extremely touching. The painter respectfully copied the entire text of Qu Yuan's "Sorrow", and I reread the poem word for word: "How could the emperor and heaven be so impure in their destiny that the common people be shocked. The people are separated and lose each other, and it is only in the middle of spring that Move eastward. Go to my hometown and go far away, follow the Jiangxia in exile... Many eyes are still watching here, hoping to see when it will turn back. Birds fly back to their hometown, foxes will die before they die. I believe it is not my sin to abandon you and chase me away. , How can I forget it day and night?"

I believe that "Sorrow" must be the artist's state of mind after the June Fourth Movement.

"When Hu Yaobang was alive, I was in mainland China. Qu Yuan's painting was a small draft written that day, but the ideas, concepts, and emotions were incomplete. After the June 4th Movement, when I was in Hong Kong, I put aside my feelings and felt that I wanted to complete the poem. Copy the following lines, and the painting is completed."

In addition to sadness, Huang Yongyu's paintings during this period were also full of anger and ridicule. He painted several pictures of Zhong Kui, but the Zhong Kui in the new paintings is not a ghost hunter. The title of the painting reads in Cantonese: "People (people) ) Strike, I’ll catch you, what’s the point of catching some little ghosts, but the big ghost (now) is chasing me, I’ve never seen a ghost so (so) evil?” Huang Yongyu said, “I draw Zhong Kui every year, but now I feel bored, and something like this happened What's the point of catching some corruption and doing something about it? Zhong Kui is a professional ghost hunter. Now even Zhong Kui can't spare him. The big ghost is chasing Zhong Kui. I used to draw Zhong Kui with a big knife, but now his The knife is a small knife."

Another painting, "Born to Be a Zhang Zhidong", was painted by Huang Yongyu after he knew that his friend Huang Miaozi had left China safely and headed to Australia. This painting was filled with limericks. Huang Yongyu wrote them in letters and revised them as he wrote. …. During this period, he painted a lot of comic-type Chinese paintings.

I pay special attention to the painting "Protect national property and do not break the water tank." This painting is based on the old story of Sima Guang breaking the water tank to save people, but it is used in the opposite direction. In ancient times, Sima Guang broke the water tank to save people. Breaking the water tank, modern China allows people to drown in the water tank in order to protect national property. The artist's irony of reality at this stage is really thought-provoking.

In 1946, I first came to Xiangjiang

At Wong Wing-yuk's home in Xu Hedao, I looked at his paintings and listened to him talk about his relationship with Hong Kong.

He said that the first time he came to Hong Kong was in 1946. At that time, the Anti-Japanese War had just been won and Hong Kong was sparsely populated. He came here to look for a job but could not find one, so he went to Fujian and taught at Nan'an Guoguang Middle School for half a year. Arrived in Shanghai.

Shanghai was in the midst of the "anti-hunger and anti-civil war" student movement, and the wave of democratic progress was surging. Huang Yongyu, a 23-year-old progressive young man, immediately devoted himself to the activities of the National Woodcut Association, which was then the largest organization in China. Led by the underground party of the Communist Party, through woodcut activities, they cooperated with the student movement to oppose the Kuomintang and strive for democracy. The young woodcarvers who join the Woodcarving Association are very poor and often only have one meal every three days. There is an exhibition, and after it is over, everyone says, let’s go have a Western meal. At that time, a Russian meal cost eighty cents. After eating, everyone said they should come back after the next exhibition next year. Later, they couldn’t stay in Shanghai any longer. The reason why I can't stay is not because of the political persecution of the Kuomintang, but because I have no food to eat.

Huang Yongyu described that although he was not a Communist at the time, he thought he was a Communist and thought he was great. He also believed that he would not surrender if captured by the enemy. When he was carving leaflets, the windows were nailed with blankets. "Later, some people from the underground party told me that if you don't tack the blanket, people won't know it. If you tack the blanket, it's like calling the spies to arrest you." Huang Yongyu laughed at his "left-behind and cuteness" when he was young.

The peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party broke down, and every leftist newspaper and periodical in Shanghai was closed down. It was impossible to make a living. Huang Yongyu accepted the invitation of another painter Zhang Zhengyu and went to Hewan to edit a picture album. The monthly remuneration he received was only enough to eat. Finally, Zhang Zhengyu found that the paper he had accumulated to prepare for printing the picture album had increased in price and was worth more if he didn't print it than if he printed it, so he stopped printing it. At this time, Huang Yongyu received a notice that the Kuomintang would come to arrest him, so he immediately took a car to Keelung and then took a boat to Hong Kong. He said that under the Kuomintang, he was regarded as a Communist. Under the Communist Party, he was also regarded as a Kuomintang. In fact, he was nothing.

"Left is cute"

In the early summer of 1948, Huang Yongyu came to Hong Kong again and lived in Kau Wah Path, Lai Chi Kok. At that time, progressive cultural people came to Hong Kong from the south. Those without family caregivers mostly lived in the Portland Street Working Children School, and those with family members went to The translator's house, Shiyi's residence, is located in Jiuhua Trail.

Huang Yongyu initially wrote articles for Ta Kung Pao. Later, when the New Evening News was established, he received a salary from the New Evening News, earning HKD 150 per month. In addition, he received HKD 150 from the "Great Wall Pictorial" edited by Huang Shu. Later, he wrote scripts for Great Wall Film Company and wrote "The Book of Children", which was Shi Hui's first play. "I didn't use my name," Huang Yongyu said. "At that time, I thought I was very left-wing and mysterious and couldn't use my real name, so I used the pen name 'Huang Di', thinking that I should remain anonymous to facilitate my work." He used He talks about his youth in a self-deprecating tone.

What is even more "cute" is that in the 1950s, a professor of English literature at the University of Hong Kong who could speak Chinese would approach Huang Yongyu and tell him that Harvard University had a batch of Chinese folk New Year paintings that no one understood, and wanted to hire Huang Yongyu to work at Harvard. Huang Yongyu thought this was a test of his political stance. He replied, "First, I don't understand English. Second, now that we are resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea, we are going to fight the American devils. Why should I work for you?" the old gentleman said politely. "That's another thing." Thinking about it now, Huang Yongyu felt that his idea at that time was too simple and extremely left-wing. "Actually, don't curse people if you don't go!" he said.

Return to the motherland

You are engaged in leftist cultural work in Hong Kong and you are doing well. Why did you go back to the mainland? When did you go back?

1953. Huang Yongyu said that at that time, he thought that if he did not go back, he would have no future in art.

Two people wrote letters urging him to go back, which made him determined.

One is the sculptor Zheng Ke. He lived in France for more than ten years and worked as a factory manager in Hong Kong after the war. He had a good career foundation, but he returned to the mainland in 1951. The other person is the famous writer Shen Congwen. The letter Shen Congwen wrote to Huang Yongyu actually complained about it, but at the same time he said, I am suffering, and it doesn’t matter. We have never seen the Chinese Communist Party and the new society without ourselves. It's so good, so efficient, so clean, so simple, so good. He also said that he has hundreds of thousands of cultural relics at hand, which are worthy of his investment in research.

Shen Congwen is Huang Yongyu's cousin. He wrote to Huang Yongyu on the eve of the change of hands in Peking and said that he was going to the gallows with a smile. Now he wrote such a letter to Huang Yongyu and got rid of himself to see the problem. Huang Yongyu thought, it must be very... It's objective.

After returning to Beijing, I went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The president, Xu Beihong, had seen many of Huang Yongyu's woodcuts and paintings, so he thought he was in his fifties. When he saw him, he said, "Why are you so young? He is only twenty-eight years old. I'll give it to you." Be a lecturer. Shen Congwen was very happy about this. He thought Huang Yongyu should be given the title of professor or associate professor. Huang Yongyu said, being a lecturer is already great for me, how can I be a lecturer?

Plunging headlong into the art work of New China, Huang Yongyu worked very actively and carved the famous "Statue of Gorky".

Two years later, someone asked him to join the party. Have you joined the party? Huang Yongyu said that he wrote an application to join the party, but people found it funny when they read it. His application for joining the party stated that he had been working with the party in the past and had made many contributions to the cause of the party. "Why am I not a member of the Communist Party? I should have been a long time ago." Write such a letter, "Jian Zhi is a joke!" Therefore, joining the party was impossible. A year or two later, Xia Yan told the party organization of the Academy of Fine Arts why Huang Yongyu had not joined the party. The deputy secretary of the party told Huang Yongyu, "I heard that I was gearing up to join the party, but in the end I turned against the right. This deputy party committee member The secretary became a rightist, so the matter of joining the party came to nothing." Huang Yongyu said.

Anti-rightist, that was 1957. Four years after returning to the mainland, how does Huang Yongyu feel about joining the party?

"During the Great Leap Forward, I had to have a heart-to-heart talk and asked about my motivations for joining the party. At that time, I had a new understanding and no longer thought that I should have been a member of the Communist Party for a long time. Frankly speaking, my motivation was that once I joined the party, I would not be subject to Bullied. I feel life is terrible. I will feel safe if I join the party." Huang Yongyu was criticized of course for saying this: Do you think the Communist Party bullies people? Did you join the party to bully others without being bullied? Huang Yongyu quickly explained, "That's not what I mean. I feel safe after joining the party and I am not afraid anymore. Normally I am really scared."

Of course, Huang Yongyu has rejected this idea now, because at that time he saw that everyone was watching party members speak every time during a meeting, so he felt that party members were always swearing, but he had no idea that party members were also abused in branch meetings. scold.

How majestic the wind is

When I returned to China in 1953, the first was the suppression of counterrevolutionaries, then the Hu Feng incident and the anti-rightist movement. None of the series of movements seemed to have touched this liberal painter until the Cultural Revolution. What was the reason?

When Huang Yongyu was asked this question by his friends in recent years, he said, "You are too stupid, I am cunning." In addition, he believed that the reasons for escaping from disasters were firstly chance, and secondly, the care given to him when he returned from overseas. How cunning? Huang Yongyu said, for example, the anti-rightist movement has begun to show its signs, but during the meeting, everyone is still asked to express their opinions on the party. Huang Yongyu said, I have strong opinions and have long wanted to express them. Many of the trees in our Academy of Fine Arts are bitten by insects. Why don't we use some disinfectant to irrigate it and protect the tree? After he finished speaking, he took his students to Feng Forest to paint, so he neither had the chance to "put poison" nor was he criticized.

Huang Yongyu was fine with several political movements before the Cultural Revolution, but as an artist, he was also upset because he had to go to meetings. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I had to lie all the time, saying I wasn't feeling well, pretending to be sick, but actually I was reading at home. So whenever there was exercise, he would read at home, and read systematically, reading a batch of big books at one stage, about natural science, geology, zoology, everything. He said, "Now you have to I teach geology and zoology, I can really teach people." Then it was painting, painting some paintings that he himself had explained and criticized in meetings and conferences.

During the Cultural Revolution, he could not escape. He was beaten, walked through the streets, locked in a room and fought, and went to the cadre school to plant rice for three years. He suffered all kinds of hardships and suffered all kinds of humiliation. Then everyone was fine. He There is another matter - the black painting incident. Huang Yongyu was listed at the top of the list. His "Owl" with one eye open and the other closed was accused by Jiang Qing of having "ulterior motives". In a "black painting exhibition", it was excluded. In the first place, later people called Huang Yongyu the "Black Number One Scholar".

The "Black Painting Exhibition" has reached the end of the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong had instructions on this and therefore asked the Gang of Four to spare Huang Yongyu. Mao's instructions said: How can the ink painting not be black? What a splash of ink! To me, an owl has one eye open and one eye closed. This painter understands this situation.

Regarding the good or bad experiences of the Cultural Revolution, Huang Yongyu said, "It's really hard to say." For example, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he was exposed and criticized for writing animal fables, which was of course a bad thing. But if he is not criticized, he will join a fighting team, "and that will be it." For another example, Jiang Qing criticized his owl as a "black painting". Maybe it was his luck, because what would happen to him if Jiang Qing fell in love with his painting? He will be happy, he will have the opportunity to draw, he will feel safe, and the child will not be unlucky. If Jiang Qing wanted him to be the Deputy Minister of Culture, he would have no choice but to do it, but in the end he would probably be dismissed by Jiang Qing, because he is a humane person and is always cruel to others.

"One time when we were having dinner, Liao Chengzhi asked me, tell me how you fought against the Gang of Four?" Huang Yongyu said, "I said that I still dared to fight against them. At most, I just didn't ask for mercy." Liao Chengzhi said, "I won't do anything if I don't ask for mercy." Simple, I say that’s the minimum.”

I think of his large painting "Song of the Gale". The inscription on the painting is, "People in the world often curse the grass on the wall but dare not delve into the root cause of the grass swaying in the strong wind. How majestic the strong wind is." There is also a plant in this painting. The lotus that does not fall. However, what Huang Yongyu, who is full of humanity, expresses in this painting is not that we should not curse the grass on the wall, but that we should dare to curse the majestic wind.

"The wind is really too strong, there's nothing we can do about it," Huang Yongyu shook his head with emotion, "Li Yi, there's nothing we can do about it."

Mao Tang’s big painting: I just want to finish it quickly

After the fall of the Gang of Four, Huang Yongyu was selected to paint the large painting "Chairman Mao Memorial Hall". At that time, many people wanted to paint, but Huang Yongyu himself said that he actually did not want to paint. One night, various painters were asked to submit manuscripts. Some painted plum blossoms, and some painted pine trees. Huang Yongyu drew an arc on a long piece of paper to express the earth, and then the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. "My idea was to be more conceptual, but the Politburo Standing Committee elected it."

Do you like this painting yourself?

"It took me a year to paint a painting that is nine meters high and 27 meters long. I liked it at first, but then I got tired of it. I just wanted it to be finished quickly." Huang Yongyu said, "Because I have to paint it every Tuesday. When it is sent to the central government for review, any leader who expresses an opinion will have to change it from scratch. How can this be a problem when you paint by yourself and be your own master? So in the end, you feel tired, lose your appetite, and have no pleasure in creating at all. "

Then, Huang Yongyu told a very interesting story. After the large painting was completed, a reporter from a newspaper visited him and asked him, "What were you thinking about when you painted such a large painting?" Huang said, "I didn't think about it. What, I want to finish it quickly." The reporter asked, "Think about it again, do you have passion? Where does your passion end?" Huang said, "The end point is color, and the brushstrokes are to paint it. Finished the painting." The reporter said: "No, no, think about it again..." Huang said: "Don't ask me, you want me to say that I am thinking about Chairman Mao, right? There is no such thing at all, I was thinking about it. Can he still draw on the side?"

At this point, Huang Yongyu said that for thirty years, he had to shout "Long live Chairman Mao", but he blushed every time and was really embarrassed. He thought, why bother? In fact, it would be better not to do this! People can't be so simple. How can they be satisfied with the people's simple "Long Live You" slogan?

"I originally thought that they all understood Marxism-Leninism very well, and Marxism-Leninism is so profound that I will never learn it in my life, so I believed everything they said. Later I found out that they actually didn't understand much about it, and they didn't read Marxism-Leninism either. I thought They have something, but it turns out that they are not good at it and have nothing. This realization made me pay attention to many things. Many people say that an artist has already seen many things clearly, and they also say that I have foresight, but in fact, I have no such thing. It’s impossible. I actually learned a little bit about politics very late.”

When you kill someone, your nature changes.

Returning to Hong Kong to settle down last year, Huang Yongyu did not give up his home in Beijing. He is still a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, and a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In his residence in Beijing, he still has many paintings, his own and those of other famous painters. With the money he saved over the years, he even bought a house full of antiques. He has participated in the political life and cultural activities of mainland China. In April this year, he went to Beijing to hold a meeting of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. When he returned, the "June 4th" incident occurred. So the painter kept painting with a sad mood. Why paint these paintings with such deep political connotations?

"People start from the concept of right and wrong and often make judgments only in an instant, because right and wrong are too clear and simple." Huang Yongyu said, "If you carefully consider your own interests, it cannot be decided in an instant. It takes several days to think about it. , often I can’t make up my mind to do it.”

As a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, he has a good relationship with some leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, and has been active in China's cultural circles for more than 30 years. Why did Huang Yongyu paint these paintings after the "June Fourth Movement" because of this momentary concept of right and wrong? Coming?

"I often ask myself at night," Huang Yongyu said, "Why do I have such an attitude towards such a sudden incident? Based on my political sense? Based on my political tendency? I don't think so. From the perspective of my life, I don't seem to take politics seriously. Put it first. After all, I have been living in mainland China for more than 30 years, and I have good relations with some leaders, and the people in mainland China are also very good to me. I think my starting point is emotion and conscience."

Huang Yongyu said that when he was in mainland China in April and May, he had two views on the student demonstrations. One was that it didn't matter, and the student demonstrations had nothing to do with it. The other was that the students were doing it so much that Gorbachev would come. It's still not good to do this. Regarding some problems, such as corruption and corruption, he said that he also hated it, but he could slowly correct it. It was much better now than it was during the Gang of Four, but it was just not good enough. Therefore, Huang Yongyu admits that he is not entirely on the side of the students. He still respects some leaders of the older generation.

But, someone was killed! Huang Yongyu said that a "character change" occurred in his mind. For China's older generation of leaders, their entire lives were entrusted to them, and all their emotions were entrusted to this regime. Suffering with these leaders during the Cultural Revolution is often compared to being a bird of the same fate as them. When Huang Yongyu went to the United States seven or eight years ago, someone asked him to stay. He said, "We can't be friends just because we are poor. Leaders like Deng, Hu, and Zhao and I share the same destiny, and we share the same destiny. Yes, it took a lot of effort to get the situation like this, how could I not go back?"

"A good man is someone who is entrusted with his life, and this is the case now." "A gentleman has a lifetime of worries, but no one-day troubles." Huang Yongyu once placed his trust in the Chinese Communist regime for his whole life, but today he has "lifelong worries."

"If you kill someone, there will be more problems in the world. How can I guess you now? What happened to you? If I were Li Peng, not only would I not kill anyone, but I could also easily drive Wuer away. I hope you can deal with it with those few words. It's very ordinary, why are you angry? If Premier Zhou, Ye Jianying, and Chen Yi were alive, would these three old people do this? Of course not."

I don’t want to go to a foreign country, I don’t want to go back to my motherland

What impact did "June 4th" have on Huang Yongyu's life? Where will he live in the future?

"After killing someone, I don't know what to do?" Huang Yongyu said.

He is now a resident of Hong Kong, but if he wants to go abroad, he can go to many countries. In fact, several countries have invited him to go. "But, indeed, I have to ask myself: Why should I go? I have left my country, land, and people. What is the point of living? In a foreign country, my spiritual life is not good, and my material life is not good. No, who knows you? What should I do? I am over sixty years old, can I still work hard and adapt like young people?"

Is it okay to use Hong Kong as a place of residence, but often return to the mainland, as we have done in the past year, and use the mainland as the stage for our activities? Huang Yongyu said: "When I go back now, every friend I see is so scared and nervous. What should I do when I go back? As said in "Sorrow", the people are so miserable and the motherland is so lovely, but how can I go back? I am a foreigner. If I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go back to my motherland, so I will go there?”

Therefore, Huang Yongyu decided to stay in Hong Kong and wait for seven years to see if China would turn around before 1997.

At this point, both of us fell silent. I didn't know what else to ask him, and he didn't know what else to talk about. We all fell silent because of the phrase "I will go there soon."

***

Huang Yongyu was born in 1924. He is a Tujia nationality in Fenghuang County, western Hunan. In his early years, he was famous for his woodblock prints. Later, he worked in various professions, and his unique style is traditional Chinese painting and comics. In 1986, he was awarded the "Knight Medal" by the Italian government for his achievements in painting art. In addition to painting, Huang Yongyu often writes poetry and prose. His poetry collection "There Was a Time Like That" won the first prize of the "Outstanding New Poetry Award" in 1983. He recently published a collection of essays "Wu Shimang Forum". Huang Yongyu is fond of pipe smoking, raising dogs, reading books, and listening to music. His paintings often include satirical works that entertain himself but are not intended for publication. Huang Jian is funny and knowledgeable. Chatting with him is a real pleasure.

"Nineties" Monthly , Issue 239, 1989

A little additional information:

I found this article first because I saw the "Sorrow" that he created in his hometown when Hu Yaobang passed away in 1989 in a documentary about Huang Yongyu filmed by Radio Television Hong Kong in 1997. I was deeply impressed at the time, but found that this work could hardly be seen online. It was only mentioned in a memory article about Huang Yongyu published by Li Yi in 2022. Later, in another article I found by Li Yi, I saw that he mentioned this work again and mentioned that it had been published in the "90s" weekly.

So I looked for a back issue of "The Nineties" where this piece of work was originally published. I was very lucky to find that the library of the Chinese University of Hong Kong is open for electronic access, and not only does this work exist, Li Yi also wrote such an in-depth character report! After reading it after more than thirty years, it is still very sad, and it is also worth reading by more people. The PDF version is definitely not conducive to dissemination and retrieval, so I took the liberty to organize the text version. However, due to my limited personal ability, I am afraid there are still some typos and omissions in the text version. Please forgive me and correct me.

Huang Yongyu’s related documentaries can also be seen on YouTube: