Judging from the history of calligraphy in China, after a long evolution, the writing of Chinese characters began to have a certain opportunity to rise in concept at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This is the inevitable result of the development of aesthetic consciousness to a certain stage, and it is naturally formed. From the pre-Qin dynasty to the Han dynasty, Chinese characters on various inscriptions on stone inscriptions had obvious artistic significance, but they were never regarded as an independent art. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, the situation had changed. Practical writing and aesthetic writing were separated and began to go their separate ways. This change is related to the large-scale development of political culture in the Western Han Dynasty. The writing and application of western Han characters are more and more frequent. According to the law of discipline, the imperial court tried to select people who were good at eight-style calligraphy and appointed officials from counties and central institutions to write and play things. If the writing is not standardized, their behavior will be punished. Although Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty didn't have to obey the precepts because he studied art, "being able to write" has always been the imperial court's assessment of literati's promotion. Calligraphy is linked with official career, which urges people in Han Dynasty to attach importance to calligraphy. In order to write conveniently and quickly, fonts broke through the seal script of Qin Dynasty, resulting in a variety of writing methods such as official script and cursive script. The quality of writing has also become a necessary condition for becoming a literati, thus making writing begin to be linked with the life interest of literati. This is an important condition for calligraphy to develop into an art in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the artistic consciousness of Chinese character writing can be investigated from the following four aspects: first, five calligraphy styles, seal script, cursive script and running script, appeared, which made calligraphy have formal conditions; Secondly, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, practical writing and aesthetic writing, which used to be vaguely mixed together, were divided to some extent. Third, real calligraphers appeared in this period; Fourthly, the real calligraphy theory was formed in this period. This paper intends to study the background of calligraphy art consciousness in the late Eastern Han Dynasty around the above four signs.
The integrity of the first and fifth bodies
The Han Dynasty is a period of gestation, emergence and evolution of various calligraphy styles. Compared with the relatively simple and symmetrical pattern of seal script, official script, cursive script, running script and regular script are much richer in brushwork and physical structure. However, seal script was no longer a practical writing in the Han Dynasty, and it was only used in some solemn occasions.
(1) The writing method of official script was completed as early as the Qin Dynasty, and it has produced official script with square strokes, simple structure and convenient writing in daily use. At that time, there were many officials and prisons, and official script was widely used because of its convenience and simplicity. The appearance of official script has greatly changed the way Chinese characters are written. Compared with the lines of seal script, the lines of official script have clear beginning and end, full of movement. As soon as this new script appeared, it quickly replaced the seal script. In addition to the convenience of practical application, it can not be ignored that it strengthens the writer's appreciation and play with pen and ink. It can be seen from the characters of bamboo slips in the Western Han Dynasty that the pattern meaning of seal script has been rapidly weakened, and gradually formed the basic shape and pen style of official script in the Han Dynasty. By the Han Dynasty, the official script itself was still developing and maturing, from the ancient Chinese characters that tended to be vertical in the early Western Han Dynasty to the official script that fluctuated obviously and tended to be horizontal. This kind of official script used in the inscriptions in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty is generally called eight-part essay by later generations.
The middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty was the heyday of official script. Inscriptions are the main remains of calligraphy in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The ethos of people erecting monuments in the Eastern Han Dynasty was related to the prevailing social ethos of divination theories such as Yin-Yang and Five Elements, and the induction between man and nature. Inscription has a mysterious meaning, and it is also related to the great praise of virtuous, upright and famous people in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Therefore, although the important government announcements at that time were copied by Cao Zhang, the inscriptions were very serious and usually written in a standard and neat way. It is from the inscriptions that the Han people matured and developed a set of standardized writing methods of official script. On the other hand, it is in a large number of stone inscription activities that the standardized writing method of official script has also found a wide range of uses. Compared with bronze inscriptions, the stone carvings in the Eastern Han Dynasty can be said to belong to ordinary people. The environment in which bronzes are placed is very aristocratic, so its scope of application is relatively narrow, which brings a generally solemn and elegant style. Stone carving is not like this, because it benefits the village, paves the way and bridges, and villagers in Shiliba Village build monuments to promote merit. Another example is that when an elder dies, he does good deeds before his death, and later people erect a monument for him to record the facts and show the moral fashion ... This kind of life content and demand may be found in every family and village, so the monument has become a common practice and the passage of calligraphy popularization has been opened. Generally speaking, inscriptions not only pay attention to the content of their articles, but also pay attention to the level of calligraphy, because this is a respect for the owner of the monument. This situation has undoubtedly brought a lot of creative opportunities to calligraphy works, which is one of the main reasons for the rise of calligraphy art in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Once calligraphy reaches the common people, its style cannot be artificially controlled according to the tastes of monarchs, aristocrats and other minority people, so the diversity of writing styles appears. This is attributed to the stimulation and influence of social environment on style.
(2) The appearance of running script and regular script. By the Han Dynasty, seal script, official script and Cao Zhang had matured. Although running script and regular script finally came into being and matured, they also began to appear in this period. Kiyohara, Shimen, Japan, said in "Research on Four Hills and Cliffs": "Generally speaking, in the Qin and Han Dynasties, seal script and official script developed to Kai, Xing and Cao style, and the script style became diversified. Today's regular script, running script and cursive script were all formed at that time. "
Eight-part essay calligraphy is very decorative, and strokes are very particular about starting and putting pen to paper, which is mostly used in formal occasions to show solemnity. However, in order to simplify and save trouble in daily application, a kind of vulgar official script has gradually emerged, which is also differentiated from ancient official script. It doesn't pay attention to waves, turns around at the turning point, uses more sharp pens, has hook pens, and some strokes are often connected together. By the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, this vulgar official script gradually evolved into a new style, that is, running script. However, Kaifa was introduced to Li Shu in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty. For example, in the first year of Yuan Xing in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was the word "Hangu" on Wang's double que, and its style was obviously characterized by regular script. For example, the left-handed painting of two characters changed from the reverse stroke of official script to the positive stroke of regular script, and its pen collection also lost its waves, while the word "Han" changed from square to square. It can be seen from the bamboo calligraphy brick written in the second year of Yongshou in the Eastern Han Dynasty that the calligraphy of this brick has a strong sense of regular script, and the restoration of many regular scripts in its horizontal painting, especially the three points on the left side of the word "mud", is purely the brushwork and form of regular script. As can be seen from the above, running script and regular script appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and then prevailed in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
(3) The establishment and prevalence of cursive script Regarding the emergence of cursive script, Xu Shen's Preface to Explaining Characters pointed out: "There are cursive scripts in Han Xing." However, according to the unearthed data from the late Qin Dynasty and the early Han Dynasty, there are only scribbled official scripts, but no cursive scripts. What we can see now is the cursive script mixed in Juyan Han bamboo slips. Therefore, the cursive script appeared a little later than the eight-part essay, and the waves in the cursive script were absorbed by the eight-part essay. This kind of early cursive script, which retains the brushwork of official script and has independent characters, was called "Cao Zhang" after Wei and Jin Dynasties, which is different from the continuous and distant modern cursive script, while people in Han Dynasty only called it "cursive script".
Eight-part essay is formed as a standard official script, and the application of handwritten systematic characters in real life has formed two development directions: one is to turn grass into chapter grass; The second is to remove the waves and gradually evolve into regular script. Cao Zhang's basic writing method was formed as early as the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. At that time, documents, letters, account books and even prescriptions were generally written in extremely simple Cao Zhang. At this time, due to the improvisation of Cao Zhang's writing and more and more complicated pen-writing skills, calligraphers were addicted to the ever-changing pen-and-ink skills, thus creating a large number of calligraphers who loved artistic cursive scripts in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Zhao Yi's non-cursive script proved that cursive script was popular in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. From the practical point of view of Confucianism, Zhao Yi believes that cursive script is a relic that is not helpful to the governance or application of saints. He said: "Towns don't take advantage of this, courts don't take this as an official, doctors don't take this as an examination, four departments don't take this as a preparation, recruitment doesn't take this, and performance appraisal doesn't take this word. Good does not reach politics, and it does not harm governance. " Nevertheless, people are still pursuing it tirelessly. Zhao Yi vividly described the situation at that time: "Serve the public wholeheartedly, practice hard, forget its fatigue, fidget, and have no food to eat." Ten days, a few pills and a month's ink. Leadership is like soap. Lips and teeth are often black. Although I was in the crowd, I didn't talk about the scene, but I showed my fingers and painted the ground, covered the wall with grass, cut my skin with my arms, broke my fingers and claws, and saw my bones bleeding. "Why are calligraphers such as Cui Yuan, Du Du and Zhang Zhi so fascinated by cursive script? Since Zhao Yi said that cursive script is not practical, there can only be one explanation, that is, they found that cursive script has an infinite aesthetic world. Therefore, we can say that these people are the first generation of calligraphers who write Chinese characters with full conscious artistic consciousness.