In a once-resplendent sitting room, artist Xu Yuanzhang recalls the past grandeur of his childhood home -- a compound of five houses and a lush garden on Baoqing Road. Born into one of old Shanghai's wealthy families, Xu still delights in listening to the music and painting the architecture of a bygone age.
To see him sitting in this grand old mansion, one might be tempted to draw a comparison between Xu Yuanzhang and F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby. Both men live in mansions, enjoy hosting parties, and are obsessed with something of beauty -- Gatsby with Daisy Buchanan, Xu with the old houses of Shanghai.
But that is where the similarities end, for unlike Gatsby, Xu is neither out to reinvent himself, nor is he driven to succeed.
Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Xu explains that he was awakened by a convention of birds -- thrushes and crested mynahs that regularly visit his overgrown garden -- as he walks to his sitting room and studio in an adjoining annex.
Moving about the Concession-era structure at a leisurely mid-morning pace, the 58-year-old painter sips a cup of coffee and puts on a specially mixed tape of music. He sinks into a soft, worn sofa, gazing out a pair of French windows -- imperturbable and seemingly oblivious to the riot of traffic outside.
Xu paints what he knows best -- the old houses of Shanghai. And like the buildings he paints, he seems to possess a certain dignity that puts him on equal footing with his subjects. "I never force myself to do anything," he says. Indeed, the pace of life in this Concession-era house on Baoqing Road bought by his maternal grandfather in 1936 seems intimately connected with the man who resides here -- nothing is rushed, and the background music is adjusted to his every mood. Outside, on nearby commercial streets, everyone is running from shop to shop, workplace to home, while Xu, like the elegant watercolors he creates, travels to his own clock, totally removed from the "vulgar retail galaxy" surrounding him.
Xu is so enamored of his life in this mansion, his childhood home, that he says he turned down an offer of 200 million yuan (US$24 million) from real estate developers. He says that his life "would become ordinary if not for the house."
In his way of life, and in his paintings, Xu is preserving the past. Some of the buildings he has painted are no longer standing. They live on, however, in his colorful renderings.
Xu's mother was a painter as well, and the artist recalls that it was with her blessing that, as a child, he studied under master painter Zhang Chongren. Xu's gravitation toward architectural painting was by no means preordained. "It was strange that from the time I first picked up a brush I loved painting buildings," says Xu. "And even after learning that this was one of the least commercially viable forms of painting, I clung to it."
Xu sketches old houses based on antique black-and-white photographs, adding color from his imagination. The structures in his works are either fully bathed in bright sunlight, or captured in early afternoon shadows. He has produced more than 200 paintings of old buildings, covering a range of architectural styles.
Xu donated some of his paintings to the municipal government. His philanthropy has earned him several distinguished positions including vice president of the Society of Literary, Painting and Calligraphy of China.
His childhood home is a compound of five houses and a large garden, covering 4,800 square meters. It was left to him by his maternal grandfather, Zhou Zongliang, a paint and pigment retailer in early 20th-century Shanghai. Xu's grandfather was also the general agent for German companies operating here before moved to Hong Kong in 1946.
The European-style compound is showing its age -- oddly adding an intangible element to its grandeur.
"In the old days, the fireplace was decorated with intricate ironworks, and the ceiling looked like an ice-cream cake with complicated patterns," says Xu. "In that era, everything was meticulously maintained." Though the opulence of the past is gone, the manor has the grace of a silent screen star.
Unlike Gatsby, who invented a life that would eventually kill him, Xu has this legacy that continues to define who he is and what he does.
Like Gatsby, however, on Sundays and holidays, Xu hosts parties. Finely dressed guests come to dance waltzes as Xu plays classic selections that hark back to a different age. "My life has no pressures at all," says Xu. "I am a man of the past."
(eastday.com January 30, 2003)
