Characteristics of Dunhuang Calligraphy Works

Dunhuang has a wide range of calligraphy, mainly the calligraphy of suicide notes unearthed in the Tibetan Sutra Cave, as well as the calligraphy of Han bamboo slips, grotto inscriptions and existing inscriptions unearthed in ancient sites in Dunhuang area. Dunhuang suicide note contains more than 40,000 volumes of ink from the Sixteen Kingdoms of Jin Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty. It is the most abundant and systematic first-hand material to study the history of China's opening period and its calligraphy art. The style of Dunhuang suicide note has obvious characteristics of the times and regions, and is called the style of Confucian classics. Scripture originated from simplified Chinese characters in Han Dynasty and was completed in regular script in Tang Dynasty. It is an important style of copying scriptures after the Jin Dynasty. It recorded in detail the whole process of the script opening in China after the official reform, which greatly promoted the development of the script. There are three kinds of rubbings of Tang Dynasty in Dunhuang suicide note. There are Ou Yangxun's How to Spend Life, Liu Gongquan's Diamond Sutra, Tang Taizong's Li Shimin's Hot Springs, and even Wang Xizhi's 17 post. These rubbings and temporary stickers are extremely precious, and they are rare Mo Bao in the Tang Dynasty. The manuscript about calligraphy theory in Dunhuang suicide note has three leaves, which is quite remarkable. First of all, the writing method is discussed, and the proportional relationship of strokes, thickness, length, width and the size relationship between words are discussed in detail and incisively. The second and third books are Wang Xizhi's Book Theory and Incomplete Volume of Style Theory, which are Wang Xizhi's manuscripts of book theory in folklore. Hard pen calligraphy in Dunhuang scrolls is a folk creation that has never been recorded in the history of calligraphy. The so-called hard pen here was then a wooden pen or a reed pen. Judging from the physical objects unearthed in Gansu, the tip of the hard pen split into two petals, which is exactly the same as the tip dipped in water today. This shows that China's hard pen calligraphy has existed since ancient times. Because Dunhuang was occupied by many nationalities in history, many minority languages were preserved in the suicide note. There are Sanskrit, Mongolian, Uighur, Xixia, Tubo and so on. Tubo (ancient Tibetan) has the largest number. These volumes are written with brush or hard pen, which are quite neat and smooth, full of rhythm and unique aesthetic taste, and have high artistic value of calligraphy. Dunhuang suicide notes are written in volumes, most of which are copied with pens, which is a great achievement of ancient folk calligraphy. The copywriters of the thesis are employed scripture writers or ordinary people. They copy all the year round, practice makes perfect, long books become art, and some are brave and bold in writing; Some of them are skilled, elegant and gentle. Calligraphy style, cursive script, official script and seal script are all available, rich and colorful, natural and simple, flexible and changeable. Its skill, judgment and aesthetic taste are admirable! There are a lot of precious ink in the murals of 492 caves in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. One is the title of the Buddhist painting list, and the other is the title of the patron, both written by the painter who created the mural. Although there are a large number of these inks, they have different workmanship. Except for a few excellent ones, most of them are the works of painters, and there are many typos. However, the style of this book has a simple and naive local flavor. There are many stone tablets from Tang Dynasty to Qing Dynasty in Dunhuang area. Its seal cutting times are different, and its calligraphy styles are also different. Among them, Li Kerang rebuilt the Mogao Grottoes monument in the early Tang Dynasty, which was a masterpiece in the monument. Although the tablet is a regular script, it has Weibei style, strange structure and strange words, and is a rare tablet in future generations. More than 7480 pieces of Han bamboo slips/kloc-0 have been unearthed in the Han Dynasty ruins in Dunhuang area, which occupies an extremely important position among the Han bamboo slips found in China. Han bamboo slips are the most precious materials for studying the history of Han Dynasty in China. At the same time, it is also the first-hand material to study the calligraphy style and the evolution of calligraphy art in Han Dynasty. Han bamboo slips unearthed in Dunhuang advanced the maturity of official script from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, from which we can see the drastic changes and maturity process of the transformation of ancient Chinese characters into Han Li. Calligraphy in Han bamboo slips is a link between the preceding and the following, which opened the later model, line and cursive script. Dunhuang calligraphy, from the calligraphy of Han bamboo slips in the Western Han Dynasty to the calligraphy of inscriptions in the late Qing Dynasty, has a long history and a large number. The diversity of calligraphy styles, the variation of brushwork, the originality of style and the profound skill are amazing, which are the most precious historical materials in the history of Chinese calligraphy.