A promise in ink

Making a promise can take a moment, but keeping it can take a lifetime. In 1973, painter and writer Feng Zikai (1898-1975) finally fulfilled a pledge he had made with his mentor Li Shutong (1880-1942) over four decades earlier — completing Husheng Huaji (Painting Albums for the Protection of Living Beings), a six-volume collection created to encourage people to embrace benevolence and live in harmony with nature.

Feng completed the first volume, comprising 50 paintings, in 1929, when he was young, ambitious and energetic. He finished the drawings for the last volume two years before his death, when his health deteriorated, and he was often bedridden.

The last volume of 100 paintings was published in 1979, four years after Feng passed away.

The 450 works exemplify Feng's highly personal style, using smooth, abbreviated lines to depict scenes from ordinary life and convey simple yet deeply human narratives. Rendered in monochromatic ink, the works quietly touch viewers with their beauty and their celebration of many forms of life.

"Protecting life is to protect the heart," says Liu Wanming, an ink artist who heads the China National Academy of Painting in Beijing.

"Feng's collection is like a spring that refreshes the soul. Its rich and diverse stories can soothe our hearts when we feel unsettled."

For this reason, Liu and his team collaborated with Feng's family and the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou, where the original drawings of Husheng Huaji have been housed since 1985, to present them at an ongoing exhibition at the China National Academy of Painting.

Titled To Perceive Paintings Is to Behold the Soul, the exhibition runs through Oct 20 and brings together the entire collection, reflecting the 46-year creative journey behind the project. The academy has added several drawings by Feng from its own collection.

Born in Tongxiang, Zhejiang province, Feng was trained to become a teacher. In the early 1920s, he briefly studied Western painting in Japan for about a year. Throughout his life, he devoted himself to art, literature and education, establishing himself as a prolific ink painter, essayist and translator.