The requirements for full calligraphy writing are: the characters should keep the center line, take over the traction, the pen should connect with the meaning, pitch up and down, and look around to the left and right.
1. Keep the word on the center line.
There must be a center line between one word and cannot deviate from it. If there is one character in the cursive writing that is to the left and another to the right, when the beginning and the end are connected together, they are still on the same center line. The same is true for regular characters. Some side characters, such as the character "xi" and "ge", the character "cai" with an apostrophe goes to the left, and the character "zhi" with an apostrophe goes to the right. This means you can't just pay attention to one The issue of word balance should be considered from the perspective of the whole line.
The movement of Qi is just like a person walking around, sometimes swinging his left arm and sometimes swinging his right arm to maintain the balance of the body. The left and right expansion and contraction of the words are also to change the balance and to unite the momentum, so that the momentum seems to be coherent. For example, in Wang Xizhi's "Sangluan Tie", the word "Tu" suddenly moves to the left, and the word "Poison" suddenly moves to the right, so that the character from the first character "Xian" to the last character "Chai" is still on a center line.
2. Undertake the traction, and the pen breaks the connection.
The movement of Qi between characters is certainly caused by the changing balance between left and right. This has been discussed above and will be further analyzed here. Regardless of regular or cursive characters, as long as you carefully observe the ins and outs of the characters, you will find that the brush edges of each character, that is, the intersection between the previous character and the next character, have a connecting and pulling brush edge.
For example, the starting point of the stroke of the next character is to take over the stroke of the end of the previous character, that is to say, it is connected by the stroke of the previous stroke. Then the stroke of the next stroke is traction, that is, the stroke of the next stroke is drawn. The strokes of one word are pulled out, so that there is correspondence and explanation between the pens, and the writing is naturally coherent. The last stroke of the previous line and the beginning of the next line should also echo each other, so that their energy flows through and every other line continues.
The connection and traction of regular script and cursive script are different. Regular script is connected in strokes, and the strokes are broken (that is, there is no string), only the upper and lower strokes are connected together; while cursive script is connected and connected. Break, especially since the Tang Dynasty, there have been more and more "continuous" and "gossamer" cursive scripts connecting several words. When we write cursive script, we should not forcefully connect them with gossamers. If one or two characters are connected, it is okay, but three or four characters are too connected. If it is too much, it will feel tangled, and you will have the problems of spring earthworms and autumn snakes.
So just connect the pen with the meaning. Zhang Shen, a calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty, proposed that "the meaning of the brush strokes should be looked forward to, facing upward, the yin and yang rise and fall, and the strokes of the brush strokes should not be broken." This means that the strokes of the brush strokes should not be broken.
3. There is pitching up and down, and looking around to the left and right.
The method of arranging the rows up, down, left and right was simply described by predecessors as "those that originate from the left should be on the right, and those that originate from the top should lie below." Ge Shouzhi, a calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty, was more specific about the arrangement requirements for the top, bottom, left and right: "If the characters above are made into paragraphs, this character should be connected accordingly; if the characters on the right are made into paragraphs, this character should be connected accordingly. If the word "大捺" is used in conjunction with the upper character, use a turn point to connect it; if the character "大捺" is used in conjunction with the character "大捺" in the right row, use "qingqiao" (i.e., abbreviation) to respond to it. . ”
The upper and lower relationship of characters is a pitching relationship. The characters on the top should look down on the characters below, and the characters on the bottom should look up to the characters on the top. The characters on the left should look after the characters on the right. The words on the right should take care of the left. The most taboo thing is that every word is the same, and the top and bottom are flush like counters, which separates the layout and composition of a line.
Especially cursive writing, it reflects changes through the size, width, width, obliqueness, and curvature of the characters. Wang Xizhi's cursive script has many of the above-mentioned changes. For example, in "Lanting Preface", the first word "year" is written with hanging dew, and the next word "year" is changed to the hanging needle style.