Ren Renfa’s Two Horse Scroll

[Ren Renfa’s Two Horses Painting Volume]

The Two Horses Painting Volume, Yuan Dynasty, Ren Renfa’s attack, silk, colored, 28.8 cm in length and 142.7 cm in width
Ren Renfa’s “The Painting of Two Horses” in the Yuan Dynasty is a painting with clear satirical content, and the meaning is very sharp. Next interview will explain the picture one or two
The picture is very simple. In front of the picture is a strong, fat and fleshy flower horse, with its head held high, its tail fluttering, and it looks comfortable and proud. Next to the horse was a scrawny horse with clear ribs. It lowered its head, hobbled, and its tail curled, showing a state of fatigue. The painter painted the outline of the horse with extremely realistic means and sketched strokes. The lines are very expressive, and then endowed with color, which is quite a tradition of horse painting in the Tang Dynasty
If only from the picture, the painting depicts only two horses, we don’t seem to feel that it is a satirical painting, but combining with the author’s own inscription at the back of the painting, it actually put forward a strong criticism on the corruption and darkness of the officialdom and even the society at that time. It just uses metaphor and personification to show the painter’s attitude and view in a tortuous way. This is probably determined by the era of the painter, because at that time, apart from the author himself, there were not many people who could see such works as “The Painting of Two Horses”. Such painting activities can only be regarded as personal behavior, not like the current comic works that can be published in the press, with a wide range of influence and become a social behavior
This volume of “Two Horses” without any other background and props seems simple, but it has profound implications. The key of the content lies in a paragraph written by Ren Renfa himself behind the painting. In his postscript, he first described the fat and thin horses he painted: “The fat ones have strange bones, and they linger on a steep slope. Although they are tired of the glory of filling the beans, they would rather not suffer from the collapse of the sheep’s intestines. The poor ones have their fur peeled off, and they bite the withered grass to form the wind and frost. Although they have the appearance of lifelong rejection, they do not have to work in the morning and night.” After writing the comments on the two horses, the author turned his pen, He further argued: “Scholars and bureaucrats in the world are different from each other in terms of honesty and abuse, but what is the difference between wealth and inferiority. It is cheap to be able to enrich a country without losing its integrity; it is not shameful to be able to enrich a country without losing its integrity.” After reading this postscript, we suddenly realized that Ren Renfa used two horses to comment on the advantages and disadvantages of officialdom. He likened the fat horse in the painting to corrupt officials who were dishonest. They were fat because they ate the cream of the people; The thin horse in the painting is also compared to an honest and diligent official who is so tired and skinny because he is busy with government affairs. Then the author states that the former should be the model and the latter should be the model. After understanding the intention of Ren Renfa’s painting of the fat and thin horses, we can observe carefully that the author also arranged a less noticeable detail in the painting. The fat horse’s head was tied to the bridle, but the bridle was loose and dragged on the ground. The thin horse not only had the bridle, but also had the bridle tied to the horse’s neck. One is a runaway horse without restraint. If it loses control, it will be lawless and will feed the people. The other is a restrained horse with a bridle. With restraint, we can do our best and work hard and frugally. Here Ren Renfa seems to have further elaborated his views on the management of officials, and his intentions are very good. Its profound meaning is that if a society lacks some mechanism of supervision and restriction, corruption will breed.