Zhu Da
Zhu Da (1626-1705), also known as Geshan, Daolang, Geshanlu, Langyue, An, Chuanxi, Poyunqiao The person's house, the donkey house, the monk, the Badashan people, etc. A native of Nanchang, Jiangxi. A descendant of Zhu Quan, the son of Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty. His calligraphy and paintings in his later years were all signed with the four characters "Bada Shanren". There are two theories about the origin of this name: one is that "I try to uphold the Eight Great Enlightenment Sutras, so I am called the Eight Greats"; the other is that "the eight great ones, in all directions and corners, are all great, and there is no one greater than me." According to the autobiography of Bada in Geshan Portrait, Shao was a hereditary noble. He is intelligent by nature and can write poems at the age of eight. When the Ming Dynasty died, he was a scholar (scholar). When he was twenty years old, he "suffered a change and abandoned his home to seek refuge in the mountains." At the age of twenty-three, he "shaved his hair and became a monk" and was given the name Chuanxi and his name was Ren'an. At the age of thirty-one, "he was called the master with a straight brush, and more than a hundred people followed him as scholars." In the seventeenth year of Kangxi's reign (1678), at the turn of summer and autumn, he fell ill. In the 19th year of Kangxi (1680), he returned to secular life. After that, he lived in Nanchang, Jiangxi, and devoted himself to poetry, calligraphy and painting until his death. Bada experienced earth-shaking changes during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. From the royal family to a commoner in the countryside, he became a monk to avoid harm. However, his poems, calligraphy and paintings were extremely outstanding and eye-catching, and the Qing rulers tried every means to win over him, and "then he became mad." He pretended to be dumb but not crazy, all because of the hatred of his family and country. The sadness in his heart can be seen from this. As for the various strange behaviors of the mountain people, people at that time thought that "this is how crazy they are."
Bada Shanren’s calligraphy achievements are quite high, but because of the name of his paintings, not many people pay attention to him. Huang Binhong once said that "calligraphy and painting are two", which is indeed a wise statement. The eight major calligraphy styles are applied to the running cursive with the round and rounded lines of seal script. They start and cut naturally, without hiding the head and guarding the tail. They use a superb technique to combine the falling, rising, walking, staying, stacking, surrounding, etc. of calligraphy. Return, hidden in it without leaving a trace. Skill is hidden in clumsiness, and the writing is austere and simple. The true meaning of this can only be understood after a long period of practice. In short, using seal script to write cursive script is the same as using official script to write seal script in "Tianfa Shen Zhi Shi □ Stele".
The most comprehensive picture of Bada Shanren's calligraphy style in middle age is none other than Bada's self-titled title in "Small Portrait of Geshan". He wrote calligraphy in the six styles of seal, official, Zhangcao, Xing and Zhen. His skill is so profound that it is rare to compare with others. He can be said to be the masterpiece of Jishanren's calligraphy. On the eve of Bada's death, the level of calligraphy art reached its peak, and cursive script was no longer strange. For example, the "Four Proverbs in Running Script", "Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra", and "Posts from Officials Arrival" (i.e., "Posts from Zhoujintang Ji") written at the age of eighty are plain and natural, without any modification, quiet and simple, without a trace of the human world. Smoke and dust. The calligraphy of eminent monks is roughly the same. The only person in recent times who has grasped its essence is Master Hongyi.
Bada was also good at seal carving, and Shanren's seals were often unique and varied. Bada also pays great attention to the artistic essence of the seal, such as: the two-sided seal of "Donkey House, Man, Donkey". The white text on the front seal enlarges the "person", as if an iron tent is covering the house, resulting in vertical lines and horizontal lines on the right. In contrast, there are many rounded corners on the right side, and the entire printing surface is neither rigid nor rigid, clever and natural. The design of the latter one is particularly clever. It only uses three characters: donkey, house and man, arranged up, down, left and right, to express the complete meaning.