Brush, as a national treasure, is the most important writing tool in China's thousands of years of civilization history. So how do novices choose brushes? Brush structure: the brush consists of a pen head and a pen tube.
The nib is divided into tip, waist and root according to its length; According to the height of hair quality, it is divided into pre-pen hair, two pre-hair, cushion hair and fur. Types of brush: according to the size of the pen head, brush can be divided into large, medium and small characters; According to the stroke length, it can be divided into long front (soft front stores more ink), center and short front (just front stores less ink).
According to the texture of raw materials, it can be divided into hard hair (rabbit hair, wolf hair, etc. ), soft hair (wool, chicken feathers, etc. ) and doubled two brushes (the hard pen is the main hair and the soft hair is the auxiliary hair). According to the source, it can be divided into: tire brush, wolf brush, rabbit shoulder purple brush, deer brush, chicken brush, duck brush, brush, pig brush, mouse brush, tiger brush, ox ear brush and so on.
According to the shape, it can be divided into round type, pointed type and luxurious type. When choosing a pen, the pen tube should be straight, the nib should be conical, the nib should be firm, and there should be no moth-eaten hair removal.
Then soak the pen tip in water for about 2-3 mm, and squeeze this part into a flat shape. If the bristles are of the same length and arranged neatly, they can be dipped in water to restore the cone shape, and then gently draw a circle on the nail cover without splitting. There is no distortion.
Good elasticity is a good pen. .
2. How to choose a good brush?
There are many kinds of brush, among which Zihao, Langhao, Yang Hao and double-stranded brush are the most important.
The purple brush is made from the back of the rabbit's neck. It is named for its dark purple. The strength of rabbits in the north and the south is also different, and some are made up of the combination of north and south. The tenacity of rabbits is called health brush, which is better than that of the north. It is long and sharp, suitable for writing straight Fang Zhengzhi characters, and is valued by calligraphers.
Bai Juyi's Purple Pen Yuefu says, "A purple pen is like a cone and sharp as a knife." The characteristics of Zihao pen are described completely, but because only the hair behind the rabbit's neck is available, it is expensive and not long, so it is impossible to write big characters on the plaque.
Wolf brush is actually made of wolf hair. The previous generation did make pens with wolf hair; But today's wolf hair is the hair of the weasel "wolf", not the hair of the wolf.
What Langhao saw was recorded very late, and some people used the "parallel pen" as Langhao's pen, so the use of Langhao can be pushed to before Wang Xizhi's Jin Dynasty, but it is not certain. The weasel can only use the tip of its tail as a pen, which is firm in nature, second only to rabbit hair but too wool, and is also a healthy pen.
Disadvantages are similar to those of Zihao, not too big. Wool is made from the hair or tail hair of green sheep or antelope.
Textual research began before the Northern and Southern Dynasties. By the Qin Dynasty, Meng Tian's improved new pen had become a pen-making material. Calligraphy is the most important thing, sheep are soft and have no front, and books are "weak and boneless", so calligraphers in past dynasties rarely use them.
After the Southern Song Dynasty, Yang Haocai began to make pens. But it was widely used after the early Qing Dynasty. Because the Qing dynasty paid attention to roundness and delicacy and could not show off its talents, only soft wool could meet the requirements and was widely used at that time.
The softness of wool is also poor. If it is properly combined with paper and ink, it can also show a plump and gentle style, and it is cheap and easy to get. Wool is so long that it can be written in large letters more than half a foot. Double two brushes have more than two kinds of pens, named according to their mixing ratio, such as three purple seven sheep and five purple five sheep.
Meng Tian's improved pen, with "deer hair as the column and wool as the quilt", belongs to a double-stranded brush. Double double brush takes one more health value and one more softness value to match, with health value as the main factor, which is called "column"; If you are gentle, you will be the deputy, and you will be called "Bei".
No matter how long the column is, the quilt is short, which is the so-called pen with column and quilt. Quilts also have many layers, such as rabbit hair as a column, short wool quilt, and three layers of * * * are the same length as the column, so the roots are extra thick and thin, storing more ink, which is convenient for writing.
The characteristics are different according to the mixing ratio, either rigid or soft, or moderate hardness, and the price is cheap and labor-saving, which are all advantages.
3. How to choose a writing brush
There are many kinds of brushes in China, and they are well-made, among which Hunan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other real estates have the best quality.
According to the purpose, it is generally divided into purple hair, double brush, fountain pen, wolf hair, wool, large pen and writing brush. Boutique features: the pen body is straight and round, the hairline is clean, straight and unbiased, it does not lose hair when used, does not open *, is flexible and moderate, and the pen tip and pen holder are firmly bonded.
Pay attention to the characteristics of hair when buying, generally depending on the author's requirements. (1) Wool Wool: Made of goat hair, it is a popular product.
Among them, wool has been stored for many years, fat has dried up, and it is easy to ink; Chen is a bit rigid; Smart sheep are thin and transparent tips; A clean sheep has no impurities and its wool is soft. (2) Purple hair: It is made of black hair on the back of the mountain rabbit. The hair is relatively rigid, and it is suitable for writing running script and cursive script.
(3) Wolf hair: made of weasel tail hair, slightly less rigid than rabbit hair. (4) Moustache pen: made of moustache, the strokes are pure, smooth and sharp, and the written fonts are both hard and soft.
(5) Chicken brush: made of chicken chest hair, which is quite soft and difficult for beginners to master, so it is not suitable for use. (6) bristle pen: processed and steamed with bristles, used for writing large plaques.
(7) Double brush: Different animal hairs are mixed in different proportions. Writing can be both rigid and flexible.
For example, purple hair is combined with wool, in which the more purple hair, the harder it is, and vice versa.
4. How to choose a writing brush
Wolf brush: It should be made of weasel tail hair according to strict requirements.
The surface of stellera chamaejasme pen is bright yellow or reddish and shiny. If you look closely, every hair is quite strong and straight. The waist is thick and the roots are slightly thin.
Wet the nib and knead it into a flat shape, and you can see that its hair is bright and light yellow. Wolf tail hair is up to 6 cm (including pen bucket 1 cm), which is produced in the northeast and is particularly expensive.
The length of the common stellera chamaejasme pen is 4-5cm. Most of the common wolfsbane pens on the market are made of yellow horse hair or ox hair, and some fake wolfsbane pens are made of dyed yellow goat hair, with a yellowish brown or reddish brown surface and slightly light or grayish white roots.
The price of fake wolf hair is less than 10% of the price of real wolf hair, and it is almost impossible to use. Wool brush: made of white mountain wool. The variety and specifications of goat hair are very strict. It should be carefully selected and matched according to different producing areas, seasons and age groups, as well as the grade, thickness, softness and front edge length of wool quilts. Nowadays, many people call a pen with long hair a long leading edge pen. In fact, a pen with long hair is a pen with long leading edge (also called deep front).
A pen with a long nib can only be called a long brush or a long brush. The price difference of Baishan wool is very big, and the real long-front and deep-front wool pens are not cheap.
Purple hairbrush: the main raw material is a small part of black needlepoint hair on the back of mountain rabbits. Zihao has a shiny surface, sharp front and straight and smooth hair. After wet kneading, the front glume is slender and dark brown and transparent. Generally speaking, the length of Zihao pen is less than 4 cm, and it can only be used as a small pen.
In addition to black needle hair, mountain rabbits also have side tips (also called flower tips). The quality of this kind of side pointed hair is not as good as that of black pointed hair, and the price is not as good as that of purple pointed pen. Except for the authentic lake pen, most of the other producing areas are wool dyed black or black, and its quality and cost are incomparable with the authentic purple-pointed pen.
Double-stranded brush: a brush made of several kinds of fine hairs, usually called double-stranded brush. When making a double-stranded brush, the properties and characteristics of various hairs should be properly matched, the prepared parts should be reasonable, and the length and content of several hairs should be calculated accurately, so as to achieve the expected use effect, otherwise the definition of double-stranded brush will be lost.
Stone badger pen: A pen made of stone badger needle hair is called a stone badger pen. Stone badger has a white or yellowish nib, dark gray waist and roots, and white flowers. Hair length is generally more than 5 cm, and the longest can reach 8- 10 cm. The needle hair of the stone badger has the advantages of being thick, straight, strong and sharp. The needle hair of the stone badger has a rough surface and a large amount of ink, which can show various effects. It is one of the commonly used brushes for painters to draw pines, plums and landscapes, but the price of this kind of stone badger pen is higher.
Besides stone badgers, there are badgers, dog badgers and so on. Most of these badgers live in northern China. Its badger hair is thick, not United, not tight, easy to disperse, not smart, not suitable for writing.
This kind of pen often appears in the market, also known as the stone badger pen, which is cheap and unusable, and often makes many painting and calligraphy lovers miserable. Chicken writing brush: the chicken writing brush used by the ancients is to use the long hair on the cock's neck to remove the stalks, tear off the delicate short hair, and make it into small letters and other hairs.
For example, ancient people used fine-print pens, such as Wei Bei Jilang, Jilang, Yellow Jilang and White Jilang. These chickens and wolves are made of weasel tail hair, purple wool or goat hair, and then made of short and thin chicken feathers. Therefore, they are named various Jilanghao. This kind of Jilanghao is too laborious and expensive to make, and it is rare in the market. Modern feather writing brush is simple in technology, and it is made by binding chicken feathers with quasi-pieces with handles. It is impossible for this kind of chicken brush to have the "four virtues" of sharp circle. It is conceivable that this kind of chicken brush is not suitable, perhaps because a few painters want a special style, or just for fun.
Bristle pen: made of pure bristles, there are white, black and hemp bristles, which are characterized by strength, hardness, straightness, independence and looseness. Mountain horse pen: It is a new variety developed in recent years.
Mountain horses refer to wild horses in the northern mountainous areas, not horses raised artificially. Writing hair is reddish brown or dark brown, and some are gray and shiny, with a length of 6-8 cm. Its rigidity is stronger than wool loop, and it is similar to wolf hair.
Fetal hair pen: this refers to the brush made of the hair of the newborn's first haircut. Fetal hair is delicate, soft and weak, mostly curved, with unknown front; However, with the improvement of living conditions, contemporary people are generally only children, so the wind of making meaningful fetal hair commemorative pens is on the rise, which is not suitable for painting and calligraphy, but the commemorative significance of fetal hair brushes is very precious. The so-called fetal brushes on the market are not genuine, they are all black wool or dyed black wool.
Moustache pen: Are the mice here mice, chinchillas or squirrels? At present, manufacturers do not use the beards of these animals, because they are not suitable for pens, and the so-called "moustache pens" on the market are not necessarily genuine, which needs further research. Wang Xizhi also quoted the word "handed down from generation to generation" in Bi Jing Lu.
Some historical documents are also skeptical about the existence of moustache pens, such as "moustache is very rare" in the first volume of Research. .