Gu ren jinshi shuhua pu ("Guren's Antiquarian Manual of Calligraphy and Painting").: Di er ce ("Part Two").

China: no publisher,, [c.1980]. An early album by "Guren" (Person of the Valley), the alias of the contemporary artist Xiao Huirong, themed after two poems by the famed Tang dynasty literatus Li Bai: "Setting Off Early from Baidi City" and "Admiring a Waterfall on Mount Lu". Today, Xiao is a leading flower painter, and his works have sold for up to half a million US dollars at auction. Li Bai (702-762, also known as Li Po) was born into a wealthy family in the golden years of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Rejecting the traditional literati career path - spending years studying for the imperial examination - he spent his time travelling, before eventually gaining an official position through the recommendation of an acquaintance. Later dismissed for an unknown indiscretion, he became a Daoist and wandering recluse, devoting his time to more travelling, meeting people, drinking copiously - his love of wine was legendary - and writing poetry. Renowned in his lifetime, by the time he died Li was known as the "Banished Immortal", as if sent down from heaven to the human world as a punishment for his affable misbehaviour. In the Song dynasty, his poems were already established at the apex of the Chinese poetical canon, never to be supplanted. His poetry, including the two works celebrated in this album, "has helped provide the healing of escape to his countrymen for twelve centuries; sometimes making them forget their problems in unthinking gaiety, but still more by making them feel... that there is infinitely more in the Universe than what is worrying them, or that they can see directly and understand" (Cooper, p. 4-5). From the 19th century onward, Li also gained Western admirers and translators: Ezra Pound's rendition of "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" "has been included in many textbooks and anthologies as a masterpiece of modern poetry" (Ha, p. i). Xiao, also known as Sui Fai Wing, was born in 1946 in China's Guangdong Province. In 1981, he moved to Hong Kong and cultivated a reputation as a specialist painter of flowers, landscapes, and figures. His art has been featured in the National Art Exhibition of the People's Republic of China seven consecutive times, and he has held over 50 solo exhibitions in China and abroad in locations such as the United Nations headquarters. Large octavo, concertina-style. Original decorative silk brocade bevelled boards, manuscript calligraphic title label with red seals, silver-speckled endpapers. Original laid down illustrations including calligraphy, landscape paintings, and seal impressions. Contemporary red inscription on rear free endpaper, bookseller's ticket on front pastedown. Brocade bright, title label browned and faintly stained, neatly repaired 80 mm closed tear not affecting contents, unobtrusive foxing internally. A very good example. Arthur Cooper, Li Po and Tu Fu, 2015; Ha Jin, The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai (Li Po), 2019.