LATE multifaceted artist Mu Xin spent 24 years in the West and lived the credo "Reveal the art, conceal the artist." Now admirers are revealing both the extraordinary art and artist in his homeland. Wang Jie reports.

During his life, writer, poet and painter Mu Xin had an intense following in the West where he lived for 24 years, but he was virtually unknown on the Chinese mainland.

One of the most original artists of the last century, he has been called "a living link between classical and modern Chinese art," as well as between the East and the West.

Now his former students and admirers, including famed painter and writer Chen Danqing, are trying to ensure that Mu Xin (born Sun Pu) finally gets the recognition he deserves in his homeland. Mu died in December 2011 at the age of 84. His simple tomb bears no inscription, only his name "Mu Xin."

Mu's hometown near Shanghai, the canal town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang Province, plans to build a memorial and museum for Mu's works, both written and painted. These include his "Prison Notes" penned in solitary confinement in prison over 18 months and hidden in his padded uniform and his small ink-wash "Landscape Paintings" created during the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976). Coming from a wealthy and aristocratic family and being an intellectual, he was a natural target.

The paintings' small size (approximately 20cm x 32cm) was the result of scarce materials and the need to hide his efforts, sometimes working only at nights. His notes were written on paper intended for his "self-criticism" in prison. How he got the paper and ink remains a mystery.

Mu led a very low-profile life and did not seek publicity. He had only two major exhibitions while he was living in Queens, New York, for two decades.

He returned to his hometown in China in 2006 when he was 76 - and virtually unknown in his homeland. At that time, only his essay collection, "Shadow of Columbia," had been published on the Chinese mainland.

Two independent American filmmakers interviewed Mu in 2010 and produced a documentary, "Mu Xin: Notes from the Underground," expected to be released by the end of the year.

"We hoped that our film would introduce more people to this great artist who taught us from the shadows how to lead our lives in the face of adversity. He showed us that what you say means little, but what you do with your time on this earth is everything," says Tim Sternberg who made the film with Francisco Bello.

Sternberg says they wanted to make a documentary on China's contemporary art but found only "reflections of modern art." Then on the Internet they saw Mu's painting titled "Spring Brilliance at Kuaiji."

"It features a world lost in the immensity of time with its misty, blurred mountains looming triumphant over the minuscule buildings in the foreground. We immediately realized that this was the man we wanted," he says.

Given a classical Chinese education, Mu was also schooled in Western art and culture, once calling Leonardo da Vinci his "early teacher."

When he was only 15, Mu enrolled in the Hangzhou National Art College (now China Academy of Art). Throughout his life, Mu chose to keep distance from his audience. He lived Flaubert's credo "Reveal the art, conceal the artist."

Mu was a man who had lived through China's pre- and post-revolutionary periods, who had risked his life to create his "Prison Notes" and misty, metaphysical "Landscape Paintings" while imprisoned during the 1970s. The works are surprisingly tranquil.

"While in prison, Mu also painted musical notes on white paper, silently playing the music of Mozart and Bach as if on a keyboard," says Mu's student Chen Danqing, one of China's foremost painters and writers.

In 1982 Mu left China for New York where he had no relatives or friends at that time.

When he returned to his hometown he also kept to himself in his restored family home, creating prose, poetry and paintings.

"I don't know whether there can be a correct appraisal of Mu Xin, maybe never," says Chen. Both were living in New York when they were introduced by a friend in 1982 on a subway. He recalled that Mu's articles on contemporary literature were ground-breaking and "shattered" conventional wisdom.

"I admire Mu not only as an individual, but also the temperature of the Chinese intellectual of his era," Chen says. "The way he spoke, the way he did things, never too hastily yet elegantly. He was good at cooking, home decoration and even at making clothes himself."

From 1984 to 2000, Mu published around 10 short novels, as well as essays and poetry collections. He was called by some the "Robinson Crusoe in Literature," a reference to the character in Defoe's 1719 novel about a castaway who spent 28 years on a tropical island. Mu won a following especially in the overseas Chinese community and in Taiwan.

Last year he published "The Empty Room," a collection of essays written in English.

Some of his writing has been described as an innovative combination of fiction, philosophical reflections and san wen (three writings), a Chinese genre with elements of poetry, fiction and essay.

"I came across his words and was immediately drawn by them," says Rebecca Wu, a professional in her 40s. "This writer has penetrated different facets of society and humanity with a solid grounding in both literature and art."

In an interview with a Chinese magazine, Mu described himself this way: "My ancestors were in Shaoxing and I could speak fluent Shaoxing dialect. But my spirit is rooted in ancient Greece and Italy, so I am a 'Shaoxing Greek'."

Frederick Gordon, a collector of Mu's works who met him in 1998, says "Lu Xun taught Chinese people about dignity, and Mu Xin used his dignity to survive the imprisonment during the 'cultural revolution.' His life and his actions during that time are a shining example for all people to develop and maintain their own dignity."

Gordon, who spoke at Mu's memorial services, says he believed Mu had a deep influence on the younger generation, which was evident from the number of young people who turned out for the services.

Mu had only two major exhibitions in the United States, Gordon says, "because he was a very proud individual and refused to play the game of self promotion, which is so prevalent in the current art world."

In 2001, when he was 76, he was given his first major traveling exhibition, curated by Alexandra Munroe, now the Samsung Asian art senior curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition at Yale University brought him fame in a small circle of people interested in modern or contemporary Chinese painting.

In order to earn a living, Mu once held classes at his home on the history of world literature.

Mu himself once said about a life of integrity, "It is rare that a tiny great man lived a clean life in this dirty world for a couple of decades."


Mu Xin's words

The short story "18 People on the Bus" by Mu Xin in English is about a bus driver cruelly tormented routinely by 18 daily commuters. Finally, the driver tosses the one kind-hearted person off the bus, saving him, and then drives the bus off a cliff, killing himself and all aboard.

Here is an excerpt:

As I've gradually come to understand, "Hong Lou Meng" ("A Dream of Red Mansions") is a great novel not only because of its multi-layered meanings that have been widely commented on, but also because of this fascinating truth it reveals: any organization with one or two hundred employees interacting on a daily basis is similar to the kinship structure in "Hong Lou Meng" ("A Dream of Red Mansions").

Our institute was relatively small in size, somewhere between one hundred and two hundred people. On the surface things seemed peaceful and prosperous, but in reality the workplace had disintegrated. Each resented the other and everyone blamed one another.

This opaque, confusing, tension-filled atmosphere had been developing for a long time. Consequently, everyone had learned to play a specific role in the daily drama. Sometimes they hurt others to benefit themselves; sometimes they hurt others to no benefit at all.

The pleasure derived from benefiting oneself wasn't always obtainable, but the pleasure derived from hurting others was easily obtained at any time.