GREAT misery nurtures great art, it is often said.

But Mu Xin (1927-2011), who has been called a “living link between classical and modern China art,” refused to dwell on the bitter suffering of his life, instead pouring a sense of solitude and solace into his work.

The poet, writer and painter was considered “the musician in literature and the magician in painting.”

Last week, the Mu Xin Art Museum opened in his hometown of Wuzhen, where he died four years ago at age 84.

Mu spent 24 years in the West, living by Flaubert’s credo “reveal the art, conceal the artist.”

His life was extremely low-profile. He never sought publicity and he eschewed interviews. He had only two major exhibitions in the two decades he lived in the Queens borough of New York City and never had an exhibition on the Chinese mainland while he was alive.

From 1984 to 2000, Mu published about 10 short novels, as well as essays and poetry. He was sometimes called the “Robinson Crusoe of Literature” because of his solitary lifestyle.

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

Mu was virtually unknown on the Chinese mainland until the recent publication of some of his works. Many newfound Chinese fans wanted to know more about the man behind the legend.

The museum, built in an understated, elegant style that befits Mu’s personality, aims to rectify that gap. In it are displayed his paintings and written works.

When Mu was only 15, he was enrolled in the Hangzhou National Art College, which is now the China Academy of Art.

The ink-wash paintings from his brush strokes are misty and elegant, fused with Western impressionism. Most feature a world lost in the immensity of time. Blurred mountains loom triumphant over minuscule buildings in the foreground.

The dove-gray museum has about 600 of his drafts and paintings.

These include “Prison Notes,” penned while he was held in solitary confinement and hidden in his padded prison garb, and his small ink-wash “Landscape Paintings,” created during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76). The son of a wealthy, aristocratic family, Mu was among the intellectuals persecuted during that period. Three of his fingers were broken in prison.

The small sizes of the painting ­— about 20 x 32 centimeters ­— reflect the scarcity of materials and the need to hide his artistic efforts. His notes were written on paper supplied for “self-criticism” in prison. How he got the paper and ink remains a mystery.

Mu may have never expected these works to see the light of day. Each character is so small that the writings are hard to read. The words reflect a man escaping the harsh reality of a dark cell through a personal dialogue of memory and meditation.

“While in prison, Mu also painted musical notes on white paper, silently playing the works of Mozart and Bach,” said Chen Danqing, a close friend and director of the museum.

Mu emerged from the hardships of imprisonment with no resentment in his heart. His paintings and writings reflect a thoughtful stoicism reminiscent of ancient Chinese scholars.

In 1982, Mu left China for New York, where he had no relatives or friends to help him. When asked later why he left, he replied simply, “I wanted to take a walk outside China.”

Chen has done much to resurrect Mu’s legacy. He has been a tireless advocate of his former mentor’s works and legacy.

They met on the New York subway through the introduction of a mutual friend. Chen said Mu’s articles on contemporary literature were groundbreaking and “shattered” conventional wisdom.

“Compared with him, we are nothing,” Chen said.

Posthumous tributes are widespread.

“I have a complicated feeling when coming to this art museum,” said Wu Hong, an art professor at the University of Chicago. “Mu was like a falling star, seemingly fleeting, yet we need a telescope to explore its solid concrete.”

In a rare interview with a Chinese magazine, Mu once described himself this way: “My ancestors were from Shaoxing, and I could speak the Shaoxing dialect fluently. But my spirit is rooted in ancient Greece and Italy, so I am a ‘Shaoxing Greek’.”

Born in Wuzhen, Mu maintained a strong emotional link with his hometown. The misty and tranquil aura of the area was ingrained in his essence.

He returned to Wuzhen in 2006 when he was 79 and still virtually unknown in his homeland. At that time, only his essay collection “Shadow of Columbia” had been published on the mainland.

When he returned to his hometown, Mu still kept to himself in his restored family home, creating prose, poetry and paintings. He died in December 2011 and is buried in a simple tomb with no inscription save the name Mu Xin.

Many will lament that Mu didn’t live to see the opening of the museum dedicated to him. Or perhaps, he wouldn’t have cared. He did view a blueprint of the museum. On his deathbed, Mu was said to have murmured “the wind, the water and the bridge.”

The privately run museum was built with an investment of 100 million yuan (US$15.6 million). The 6,700-square-meter lakeside building was designed by New York-based architect Hiroshi Okamoto.

“Besides the works of Mu Xin, we will also have two underground exhibition halls,” Chen said. “Next year, we are planning to exhibit some of the drafts and documentation of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, and the year after that, perhaps Kafka or Dostoyevsky.”

Another highlight of the museum is a library designed in the style of a ladder. Visitors take off their shoes and can sit along the “rungs” to read from a collection of titles Mu mentioned in his works. “It is rare that a tiny great man lived a clean life in this dirty world for a couple of decades,” Mu once said about a life of integrity.

In Mu Xin’s words

The short story “Eighteen People on the Bus” by Mu Xin, written in English, is about a bus driver cruelly tormented every day by the 18 commuters who always ride with him. Finally, one day, the driver stops and forces the only kind-hearted rider to disembark. Then he 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 the 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.”

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 everyone else.

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.