Word: shih
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...Painter Pai-shih, by airmail, one July 26 TIME...
...read in TIME, July 26, about the aged Chinese painter, Ch'ih Pai-shih . . . According to your article he sells his pictures for a dollar. Knowing a bargain when I hear about one in the art market, I sent him $1 cash . . . and today the picture really arrived, a traditional Chinese brush painting of a pair of shrimps. His calligraphy is gross but his figures are sensitive and beautiful...
...with a wispy grey beard, a high thin voice, and a rambling house in Peiping. There he works behind peeling walls that surround a series of tiny gardens, through which ducks and relatives waddle and wander happily all day long. Ch'ih Pai-shih has 30 relatives living with him, and supports 20 more in Hunan. His household includes ten children of his own, the youngest of whom he hopefully calls...
...help support this household, he must work with lightning speed, painting with swift, sure brush strokes on pieces of thin bamboo paper. The slightest error in wetting or pressing upon the brush would mean an ugly smear and having to start all over again. But Ch'ih Pai-shih never has to start over again, and he can turn out four or five of his delicate paintings a day. These he sells only on order, and only by the square foot (his price...
Keys & a Stone. Ch'ih Pai-shih has many fears. One is that people might stop ordering his paintings, and that he will be forced into the streets to peddle them himself. Another is that someone will rob him, and that he must keep all his paints and possessions always locked up, carrying the keys around with him on a rope about his waist. With such worries, and 50 relatives, and a whole year - and thousands of square feet - of orders to fill, there was little peace last week for Ch'ih Pai-shih. Once in a while...