There are countless paintings and calligraphy works created by Dong Qichang in his life, among which the paintings and poems of recent people are an important part. "Reading thousands of books" as he said in "Essays on Painting a Zen Room" means that one must learn from tradition and the ancients if he wants to become an artist. At the age of 65,438+07, he wrote Yan Zhenqing's Many Pagodas when he began to learn calligraphy. At the age of 22, he studied painting with Huang, and later with other painting schools. This practice of learning from the ancients lasted for 80 years and accompanied him all his life. He widely absorbed the strengths of the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties and learned from others, which made his paintings and calligraphy achieve artistic achievements beyond the ancients.
Dong Qichang emphasized learning from the ancients, but opposed pure mechanical imitation. With the increase of experience and the maturity of his thoughts, he inherited the techniques of his predecessors, and did not rely on the "efforts" of others, but selectively chose and integrated his own thoughts. He believes that without his own creativity, it is difficult to express the spirit of the ancients, so it is necessary to reproduce the "Fengshen" of the ancients with his own prototype. With a deep understanding of the gains and losses of ancient painting and calligraphy techniques, he absorbed the methods of many schools, changed at will, and reached a unique realm.
Dong Qichang's landscape paintings generally have two faces, one is ink painting or pale crimson painting, and the works with this face are more common; The other is turquoise, and it is rare to come out without bones. He attaches great importance to the traditional techniques of imitating the ancients, and his subject matter has not changed much, but he has unique attainments in the use of pen and ink. His paintings often imitate the paintings of famous artists in Song and Yuan Dynasties and are advertised in inscriptions. Although he talks about imitating the past everywhere, he is not ignorant of the past, but can get rid of the old mold and form his own style. On the basis of learning from ancient masters, he integrated his painting characteristics into his paintings, rubbing and pointing, so his mountains and rivers are trees and stones. His painting style was very famous at that time and he became the leader of "Hua Tingpai".
In Lun Shu and Du Fu's Poems, it is obvious that Dong Qichang has made great achievements in writing Dong Qichang's calligraphy. Dong's calligraphy attainments are the highest in cursive script, and he is also quite conceited about regular script, especially small script. Although Dong Qichang was in the era when calligraphy was popular in Zhao Mengfu and Wen Zhiming, his calligraphy was not blindly influenced by these two calligraphy masters. His calligraphy combines the calligraphy styles of Jin, Tang, Song and Yuan, and forms its own system. His calligraphy style is elegant and ethereal, elegant and self-sufficient. The brush strokes are elegant and plain. Use a pen accurately, always keep a positive face, and rarely use a pen that is depressed and dull; In terms of composition, word for word, line for line, branch layout, density symmetry, and strive to catch up with the ancient law. Ink is also very particular, dry and wet, wonderful. Calligraphy in Dong Qichang can be said to be a masterpiece of ancient methods, and the "six styles" and "eight styles" were all refined by him. At that time, it was "famous abroad, lacking in size, spreading among the people, and competing for beauty." (Biography of Wen Yuan in Ming Dynasty). Until the middle of Qing Dynasty, Kangxi and Qianlong took Dong Shu as the patriarchal clan system and praised him. They even copied Dong's books themselves, often listed on the right side of the seat, and read them in the morning and evening. Kangxi once wrote a long postscript praising his ink: "Hua Ting Dong Qichang's calligraphy is very different. Its elegance and roundness are popular between Chu and Mo, which is beyond the reach of many scholars. Every time you are not careful, you will be unique, such as a breeze blowing and Wei Yun winding, which is quite natural. Taste its structural fonts, all from the Jin people. Gai spent most of his life in Getie, in Lanting and Shengjiao, and he got the method of moving his wrist, but it was clumsy and clever to turn his pen to hide the front. ..... Yan Zhenqing, Su Shi and Mi Fei are all good at eliciting their talents with grandeur and preciseness, but they are all Jin people. Zhao Mengfu is the second largest king. Its prosperity and origin are integrated, so it is necessary to copy the ideas of various schools, and the spirit of beauty and embellishment is unique. Cursive scripts are also arranged vertically and horizontally, which I appreciate very much. Its use of ink is wonderful, and the shade is unique. I copied the most, and every time I said that Tian Zi had excellent skills, it was not easy. " It is said that Kangxi also wrote "Shu Dong" by himself, which made Shu Donghong popular for a while, and there was a craze for Manchu people to learn from Shu Dong. For a time, the pursuit of fame and fortune almost always took Shu Dong as a shortcut to official career. On the occasion of Kangxi and Yongzheng, his calligraphy had a far-reaching influence, which was unmatched by other calligraphers. Ming and Dong Qichang's "Fu on the Red Wall before the Wai".
Dong Qichang's calligraphy has always been evaluated differently. Praisers pour out their compliments. Wang Wenzhi, a famous scholar and calligrapher in Qing Dynasty, called Dong Qichang's calligraphy "a calligrapher's masterpiece". Xie Zhao called it "the pen of cooperation, which is often unprecedented." Zhou Zhi said that he was "invincible in six bodies and eight methods, surpassing the Soviet Union and entering the rice, while his style was forgetting me". But there are many critics of Dong Qichang, among which Bao Chen Shi and Kang Youwei are the most fierce. Bao Chen Shi said: "Writing is inevitable." . Kang Youwei's Two Ships in Guangyi sarcastically said: "Xiangguang (Dong Qichang), though famous, is like a Taoist priest who takes a break from food, indifferent and frugal. If the general's momentum is like a rainbow, the barrier is towering and the flag changes color, he will not dare to go down the mountain! "
Dong Qichang did not leave a book on calligraphy, but his experience and opinions in practice and research are scattered in a large number of inscriptions and postscript. Dong Qichang has a famous saying: "Jin people's books take rhyme, Tang people's books take method, and Song people's books take meaning." This is the first time in history that calligraphy theorists defined the aesthetic orientation of calligraphy in Jin and Tang Dynasties with three concepts: rhyme, method and meaning. These viewpoints have played a good role in explaining and guiding people to understand and learn classical calligraphy. Dong Qichang was diligent in painting and calligraphy all his life and enjoyed a long life. Therefore, many works have been handed down, such as Pipa Xing by Bai Juyi, Imperial edicts of three generations, cursive poems, overlapping pictures and postscript of Yanhe River, Ni Kuanzan, and Fu Shu on the Red Wall before and after.