Analysis:
Wild grass, expressionism in calligraphy
The achievement of wild grass is another manifestation of the peak of calligraphy in the Tang Dynasty. The representatives are Zhang Xu and Huai Su.
Zhang Xu was born in Wujun (now Suzhou, Jiangsu Province) during the reign of Tianbao in Kaiyuan, Tang Dynasty (713-756). He has a long history, so the world is also called Zhang Changshi. Zhang Xu has been addicted to alcohol all his life, and his temperament is uninhibited. He often goes crazy while calling when he is drunk. It is recorded in the history of painting that he used to write big characters with his hair soaked in ink. At that time, people called him "Zhang Dian".
Zhang Xu's wild grass swims around, which is ever-changing and extremely strange. Mr. Han Yutao believes that it can be summarized into three characteristics. One is "crazy", which is written in one go, consistently, maintaining a momentum, full of "meaning" and "no pity for right and wrong" The second is "strange" and "abnormal". For example, "there are thousands of floating clouds", which are unpredictable and unpredictable. The third feature is "awesome" "Awesome" is not "pleasing" or "charming", but abandons the morbid state of beauty and delicacy, and produces a feeling of rock overwhelming. "If the viewer is right about words, he will feel" awe-inspiring ". Although Zhang Xu's cursive script is crazy and careless, it does not lose its statutes, and every bit of painting has its own rules, because his regular script also has quite high achievements. There are not many works handed down from ancient times by Zhang Xu, such as Abdominal Pain Sticker and Four Ancient Poems.
Huai Su (737-? ) The word hides the truth, and the common surname is Qian. He was born in Tanzhou (now Changsha, Hunan Province) and became a monk at an early age. He was more than twenty years behind Zhang Xu, and was influenced by Zhang Xu and Yan Zhenqing. He studied books in his childhood and worked very hard. The idiom allusion of "Mo Chi in Bizuka" is derived from him. His calligraphy is passionate, bold and unrestrained, such as "birds out of the forest, frightened snakes into the grass." At that time, poets such as Li Bai and Qian Qi all had poems praising his calligraphy. Han F wrote in a poem: "Where there is a screen, Huai Su can be clearly seen. Although it is dusty and stained, you can still see thick ink marks, strange stones rushing to the autumn stream, and cold vines hanging on Gu Song. If you teach the waterfront, every word will be a dragon. " Comparing his handwriting with Zhang Xu's, we can see that the latter's strokes are fat while the former is thin. Therefore, Huai Su has poems such as "Running snakes and walking eight places" and "Cold apes drink water and shake dead vines" in his Autobiographical Notes, which are very appropriate.
In China's ancient book theory, whether it is the discussion of seal script, official script, line script, model script or cursive script, most of them are compared with natural landscape or some phenomena to describe and describe them. Readers have to rely on a kind of life feeling and life experience to understand, so that they can appreciate and understand. Calligraphy is a very mysterious art, especially wild grass. The writer is often full of * * * and is in a state of excitement. The reader vaguely feels some emotion from the ink. In fact, this is the characteristic of an expressionist art. Mad grass came into being in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, painting was basically a form of meticulous painting, and it took a long time for Fan Shan to paint his eyes and eyebrows. Even the expressionist painting like Wu Daozi's, will eventually be limited by the shape of things, and can't be completely released. In this case, if there is wild grass in calligraphy, it can be borrowed to fully express feelings or emotions. This is probably the main reason for the emergence of expressionist calligraphy.
After Zhang Xu and Huai Su, there were many cursive writers in the past dynasties, such as Huang Tingjian in Song Dynasty, Zhu Yunming in Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei, Wang Duo, Fu Shan in Qing Dynasty and modern Lin Sanzhi. Every calligrapher inherits his predecessors, but at the same time, he melts into his own personality.