On the third day after their visit to Zhenqing Daoist Abbey to admire the camellias, Wei Xie finished "Huan Yi Presenting a Flute." It had taken twenty days in all. Chen Caozhi had observed the entire process of his teacher painting it, from conceiving the idea, composing the scene, handling the brush and ink, and applying color, right through to the final touches over the whole painting. Observing it had been a complete course of study in itself. Gu Kaizhi said that in his four years studying painting under Master Wei, he had watched such a complete process no more than ten times, because Master Wei took an extremely long time over his paintings. The Lengyan Seven Buddhas Painting, for instance, had taken more than three months.
Chen Caozhi had gained a great deal from observing this painting. His previous Western landscape paintings had been narrow in perspective; this was his first thorough, detailed understanding of painting a panoramic composition. He discovered that applying color was harder than handling ink. Master Wei used only three colors—vermilion, gamboge, and Qing Province blue—yet the colors that appeared in the painting were extraordinarily rich. This was certainly not something he could comprehend and master in a mere six months or a year.
Over the past fortnight, Chen Caozhi had also painted three flower studies. Once Wei Xie finished "Huan Yi Presenting a Flute," he presented these three exercises and asked his teacher for guidance. After looking them over, Wei Xie briefly pointed out some shortcomings and flaws, then said, "Painting has six categories: figures, buildings, landscapes, saddled horses, flowers and birds, and ghosts and deities. Caozhi, you can begin with flowers and birds, then gradually move on to buildings and landscapes. To paint human figures, however, begin with ghosts and deities-"
Beside them,