Memories of a master

In an article written to commemorate the death of Lin Fengmian (1900-91), painter Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) recounted the events of a trip to Hong Kong in 1989, when he attempted to call the former teacher.

Lin had been Wu's headmaster at the Hangzhou National College of Art, today's China Academy of Art, in Zhejiang province.

Lin didn't answer, so Wu left a message with the number of where he was staying, and then waited and waited for the rest of the day.

"At midnight, the telephone rang. I asked who it was. At the other end of the line was a voice, saying, 'Fengming'. I didn't recognize the name until the man continued. 'This is Lin Fengmian.' I was surprised and delighted.

"My former teacher said he had spent the day in the suburbs. Fearing that I would leave the following day, he called as soon as he returned home and heard my message. My tears wet the telephone."

It was Lin's use of his given name in the phone call, an indication in Chinese culture of the closeness that he felt for Wu, that had touched the latter's heart so deeply, moving him to tears. Also, they hadn't seen for years, and each experienced turbulences in life.

Wu sorrowfully recounted this meeting with Lin in an article written on Aug 13, 1991, a day after his former teacher died, at 91, in Hong Kong.

At the end of it, Wu wrote, "I was sleepless last night (after hearing about Lin's death). As I'm writing now, it is early in the morning. I'm in the woods and sitting on a stone. Birds are singing on the trees. May all the birds make their singing be heard by the world!"

The last sentence included a homophonic play on Lin's birth name, fengming, which means "the chirping of a phoenix".

The original manuscript of this touching tribute is currently on display at The Road to China Modern Art, an exhibition of paintings, photos and documents running until Jan 3 at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. It juxtaposes the lives and careers of Lin and Wu, who are recognized as courageous, experimental and dedicated leading figures in modern Chinese art, and celebrates a lifelong attachment despite the distance between them, Lin having moved to Hong Kong in 1977 and Wu living in Beijing.

Their bond was born in 1936 when Wu enrolled at the school where Lin was teaching.

Wu, born in Yixing, Jiangsu province, studied electrical engineering for a year at a school that has now become part of Zhejiang University before meeting Chu Teh-chun, one of Lin's students, during a campus activity in one summer vacation. A visit to Chu's college changed Wu's life. He discovered a passion for fine arts, quit engineering against his family's will, and re-enrolled as an art student at the college where Lin was teaching.