The House that Huang Yongyu Built

By Meg Maggio

The lake at Wan He Tang

The new home of the 78-year-old artist, writer and collector Huang Yongyu is aptly named `The Hall of Ten Thousand Lotuses' (Wan He Tang). Situated not far from Beijing's eastern suburbs among orchards and newly planted vineyards, Wan He Tang's surroundings are, thankfully, still free from highway construction and electric power lines. Huang's rural hideaway probably differs little from the stone farmhouse he renovated in the 1980s, just outside Florence in the village of Leonardo Da Vinci's birth. Huang's enthusiastic embrace of the Italian lifestyle has clearly been the inspiration for much of what we see here at Wan He Tang. Huang still maintains close ties with Fenghuang, his hometown in western Hunan, even though he keeps homes in Hong Kong, Italy and Beijing. The earthy cosmopolitanism of these dwellings is underlined by the abundant gardens he cultivates in each of them. This eclectic mixture of Chinese classical garden design with elements borrowed from an Italian farmhouse seem oddly suited to Huang's own oeuvre and lifestyle. As we wander through his vast compound admiring the fruits, vegetables, gourds, vines and flowering trees, Huang laughingly informs us that according to a Chinese adage, a wise man keeps three homes, and discloses that he keeps five. Huang has moved in and out of China several times in the course of his career, first leaving in 1948 for Hong Kong, where he worked as the art editor of Dagongbao. In 1953, he returned to participate in the construction of a `new China'. He began teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. The institution was to remain his official danwei (work unit) for some forty years. In 1989, he left once more for Hong Kong where he enjoyed a relatively quiet life of artistic celebrity among its community of collectors and auction-goers. In 1997, fifty years after his first move to Beijing, he returned again, this time to construct Wan He Tang; his own vision of modern Chinese living on a grand-scale. Wan He Tang defies easy categorization: while it is an extremely personal interpretation of an artist's atelier, it is also an intriguing architectural hybrid which succeeds in integrating modernist concepts, both Western and Eastern, with traditional Chinese culture. Traces of Huang's Hunanese roots may be gleaned from his reliance on vernacular two-storey housing. This has been juxtaposed with elements of northern Chinese imperial courtyard design, and adaptations from modern residential conveniences. Like all good classical Chinese courtyard and garden design, the seemingly disparate elements have been magically integrated into a harmonious whole. To appreciate the imaginative powers of its creator, visitors must take a leisurely stroll through the grounds, and above all, linger. Situated just outside the main gate of Wan He Tang on the road leading from the centre of the village is a classical Chinese pavilion intended for public use. This elegant structure is designed in typical Qing style and beautifully crafted in wood - the main construction material of Wan He Tang. In offering shelter, the pavilion is clearly a show of gratitude for the grand rural lifestyle Huang has been able to construct in this relatively tolerant rural setting. As he nears the end of an illustrious career as a modernist interpreter of Chinese traditional painting, the creation of Wan He Tang may well be Huang's most ambitious artistic endeavour to date. While the two-and-a-half year construction period ostensibly ended some time ago, one suspects that Wan He Tang will forever remain a work in progress - `work' of one type or another is likely to keep Huang occupied for many years to come. The extensive grounds offer unlimited scope for collection, display and storage - the better to whet an already keen appetite for collecting! Despite an abundance of classical exterior architectural details, the visitor is left with an equally strong impression of the starkly modern elements in the interior space as well as the varied array of memorabilia, art objects and antiquities displayed in this vast compound. The works of the artist are on view, along with those by students and friends, mixed together with an assortment of handmade regional crafts, trees, flowers, birds, dogs, scholar's rocks, bonsai, antiques and gourds. All this and much more will continuously be absorbed by the master of Wan He Tang in a neverending cycle of connoisseurship and creative collecting. Wan He Tang's uniqueness lies in the sum of its parts, best described as one man's idiosyncratic taste for architecture as panorama, and aesthetic consumption taken to hyperbolic proportions. By the end of the visit, and regardless of one's personal preferences, it is impossible not to admire Huang's individuality.

Huang Yongyu, autumn 2001

Our tour begins inside the main gate at the southernmost courtyard. During the course of my late autumn visits, the leafy vines which envelop the courtyard walls gradually shift to a brilliant shade of red. `When all the leaves turn red,' Huang remarks, `it will be time for me to leave for Italy.' At the centre of the courtyard, are two life-size bronze sculptures completed by Huang some years ago: one, a playful caricature of the artist, based on a drawing by a well-known Hong Kong cartoonist friend, and the other, a youth with arms outstretched and head thrown back in exultation. Through the first courtyard, we enter the southernmost hall, with raftered ceilings over six metres high. Constructed in the classical mode with imperial proportions, this is Huang's studio, and clearly the centrepiece of the complex. This vast room is a dream of painterly indulgences, scattered with works in progress, and complete with walk-in stone fireplace, baby grand piano, custom-made cast-iron chandeliers, and expansive seating for dinner parties. Left to anyone but Huang, the job of cataloguing the studio's contents would be daunting, and would probably never be completed. There is an enormous waist-high terracotta Han dynasty horse which stands in the centre of the room along with several Neolithic pottery pieces. The hand-carved lacquer furniture mixes traditional design with modern craftsmanship. The engaging soft sculpture artworks on the wall, Huang explains, were completed by students from a school for mute children in Shandong province, and acquired at an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Beijing. A screen displays his friend Da Long's calligraphy on one side and one of Huang's signature semi-abstract ink-wash florals on the other. The latter is an explosion of pink, yellow and fiery red, evidence of the painter's superior skill at grafting a modernist colour palette to Chinese traditional painting. A handful of smaller works, newly mounted as scrolls, have been rolled up and stacked in a corner. Half-finished paintings, pinned on the walls or strewn across his enormous work table, seemingly dashed off with an artist's casual disregard for tidy order, happily belie the grandeur of the studio and point instead to Huang's endearing informality. An early work, a lovely black-and-white portrait of Chopin, hangs above his bookshelf. Imaginative blue-and-white ceramic vases of various shapes and sizes were recently painted and fired by Huang in Wan He Tang's backyard kiln. A stuffed owl is perched on the piano - no doubt as a wry allusion to Huang's notorious Winking Owl. Painted towards the end of the Cultural Revolution, this politically ambiguous work was severely criticized by Jiang Qing. Stepping north out of the studio, into the inner courtyard, we find our path blocked by an enormous scholar's rock. Its size is startling, nearly filling the compact courtyard. Huang has two other examples which are even larger and just as striking. They come from the mountains of Anhui province, where rocks of such dimensions are rare and exceedingly difficult to move without breaking. Weighing several tons, the rocks stand as tribute to Huang's ingenuity, eccentricity and persistence. Turning eastward, we pass through a wooden gate which leads to a separate and larger courtyard. Unfolding before us like a scene from a cinematic dreamscape was a man-made lake, vaguely reminiscent of Beihai and the Summer Palace, ringed by six two-storey pavilions of varying scale and design, each a vantage point. The pavilions are linked by paved areas and corridors for optimum viewing pleasure as one progresses round the lake. We gaze in astonishment at the profusion of lotuses which give the compound its name. Huang invites us to return in July when all will be in bloom and the lake will be carpeted with pink blossoms. There is also an abundant supply of fish raised here for the occasional day of relaxed fishing. The grandest pavilion holds a portable teahouse which can be conveniently moved outside in warm weather so that guests can sit along the lake's edge and enjoy the lotuses. Huang regales us with tales of how a party of 600 could be seated quite comfortably around the lake, and shows us the simple quarters built to accommodate lucky guests who are invited for longer stays. The pavilions and their interiors were designed by Huang. On display are artworks by foreign artists, Huang himself, his students, and still others, Huang points out, by students of his students. There are also Huang's early woodblock prints completed in Hong Kong during the late 1940s and early 1950s, before his move back to Beijing. These early studies of the Tujia people are reminders of Huang's Hunanese origins and his artistic beginnings as a printmaker. The second of the Anhui scholar's rocks sits at the edge of the lake, now transformed into an ingenious fountain with water from the lake flowing under and through it. From the fountain, a curving walkway snakes around the lake. We stroll around the lake, listening attentively to Huang's detailed description of all that we see. He provided the builders with sketches of the structures he envisioned. With no specific historical or formal reference, they are an amalgam of all that Huang found elegant and practical in Chinese traditional architecture and landscape design. When his friends advised him to engage the services of a good fengshui master, Huang retorted: `Here, I am the fengshui master!'

Walking back to the central courtyard, we enter the northernmost building, Huang's living quarters. This is where he does most of his writing. The bulk of his collection of Neolithic pottery is also housed here, along with family photos and other personal memorabilia, including an Italian exhibition poster for Huang's paintings, and a small selection of his recent work. There is an unusually large example of a partially glazed Tang sancai horse. An elaborately carved Ningbo-style wedding bed sits incongruously next to a writing desk with a large 1970s leather swivel chair. The chair was bought some years ago for less than RMB100 from a furniture sale at Beijing's diplomatic compound, reputedly from the study of George Bush when he was America's ambassador to China. Huang jokes that he would like to have the opportunity to sell it back one day, perhaps to `Little Bush', as the former president is affectionately called by many here in Beijing. Large black-and-white photos of Somerset Maugham and nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppen-heimer hang above the desk. Huang admires Maugham for his writing and Oppenheimer as a dishevelled genius in oversized pants and sloppy clothing. There is also a framed colour photograph of Huang's Italian farmhouse alongside an equally large photograph of the picturesque Chinese house he has rebuilt in the traditional style on the riverfront of his hometown. Huang's innermost study is also the most modern room in Wan He Tang and boasts an enormous skylight which leaves a gaping archway of glass running along a substantial portion of the ceiling, allowing for the entry of ample natural light for reading and writing. Tall Western-style windows extend along the northern wall. The colourful graffiti-like paintings which decorate the window panes are the work of Huang's grandson when he was only two or three years old. One of Huang's ink-wash paintings is on prominent display here. The depiction of a semi-naked woman astride a horse, rendered with a minimum of brushstrokes, is an unusual subject for Huang. There are also works with more traditional themes in acrylic and oil, along with a series of bronze sculptures. Although Huang first began to work with bronze in Italy, he soon discovered that it was more cost-effective to work in China, where materials of equivalent quality could be found in the south. There is even a copy of photographer Helmut Newton's retrospective album Sumo, a thirty-kilogramme, limited edition resting on its Philippe Starck display table. Huang continues to publish literary works; his prolific output includes poetry, cartoons and small sketches. These days two main projects occupy much of his time: the completion of his memoirs and the preparation for his eightieth birthday exhibition. He perceives the former as a collection of `what he has seen in this society since childhood'. Some 200,000 characters have been written to date, and recently serialized in a Hunan literary journal. Huang adds that he is only up to his fourth birthday and still has some way to go! Much of this work focuses on the Hunan of his youth, made famous by the literary works of his uncle, acclaimed author Shen Congwen. Last year, Huang donated a large amount of money towards the restoration of a temple and guildhall in Fenghuang. With his generous support, a new building in the traditional style was erected on the site of the original which was razed after 1949 to make way for a teacher's dormitory. Huang also designed an enormous bronze image of Guanyin for the interior, and painted simple murals of Buddhist folk stories and prayers on the interior walls of the building. The eightieth birthday exhibition will include works in all media. It will open in Hong Kong, then travel to Beijing, Guangzhou and Hunan. In order to finish the works for this exhibition, Huang follows a long-established regime of painting for four to five, or even eight hours a day, at least four to five days a week. However, adhering to a fixed schedule is not vital; the freedom and ability to vary interests and projects while working at breakneck speed clearly remains Huang's area of expertise. The visit ends with an invitation as Huang's guest to see the marvellous restoration of vernacular architecture in his hometown. We toast with the famous liquor from Hunan carried in unusual pottery bottles, for which he reportedly received over RMB18 million in design fees. While I gladly accept his offer to travel to Hunan, I secretly wonder if I will find the energy to keep up with Huang.