Liu Ti's masterpieces handed down mainly include The Mysterious Tower and the Shence Army Monument. The book "The Mysterious Tower" is handsome and beautiful, with a clean and neat pen, which leads to the bone and is round and thick within the simplicity; However, The Monument to the Army of Shence, with a combination of rigidity and softness, stopped the flesh and blood evenly, and with a firm pen, was rated as "the first miracle in my life" by later generations. These two posts are good models for learning regular script.
To learn Liu characters, you must know and be familiar with their characteristics. Taking The Mysterious Tower as an example, this paper analyzes the structural characteristics of Liu Ti's brushwork.
first, the main characteristics of Liu Ti's regular script pen
Liu Ti's character pen is both "Fang Bi" and "round pen". "Fang Bi" means that both the beginning and the end of a stroke are angular and square. For example, the horizontal strokes of the words "ten", "health", "too" and "right" below are Fang Bi. In these words, the vertical painting and the long stroke are combined by Fiona Fang, and there is a second turning to fold the pen, which is more angular than usual, so that the strokes of the characters appear thick and vigorous with the pen.
In the words written with a round pen, the dots are round, and there is no trace of folding front. The method of writing with a pen is: wrap the front of the pen after starting, do not spread the front of the pen, write everywhere, and collect it at one meal. The words written in this way are particularly rich and round. For example, the strokes in the words "Zhi", "Dao", "Zhe" and "Yi".
2. Several most distinctive strokes
1. Long and short strokes
Long strokes are the main strokes, which are generally used in the top cover, middle waist or bottom support of characters. For example, the long horizontal painting in the words "book", "happiness", "truth" and "industry". They generally stretch to the left to take advantage of the situation, the middle section is slightly thinner, the ends are slightly lower, and the middle arch is as high as a boat. In this way, the font is prevented from being long and thin, and the font is stretched and vivid. The same is true of the long horizontal in the words "day", "strange", "hill" and "different".
the shape of the short cross varies with the position.
if the short cross in the left side is to avoid, the right end of the cross is slightly pointed, which is called "right pointed cross". For example, the grass head in the word "horizontal" and "swinging", the bamboo head in the word "symbol" and the three horizontal lines in the upper left of the word "Pei" are like this.
if several paintings are carried out simultaneously, they should be changed flexibly according to the situation. For example, the four horizontal lines of the word "Da" have different shapes. The length of the upper two horizontal lines is obvious, and the length of the lower two horizontal lines is different. Another example is the word "shou", the upper two horizontal lengths are similar, but the strokes are different, the lower horizontal hook is open, and the long horizontal pen in the word tends to the right, and the lines are not the same; Another example is the numerous horizontal paintings in the words "Zhu" and "Yi", which are different in length, thickness and shape.
There is also a special short cross, which is short and thick, with the same thickness on the left and right, slightly drooping in the middle and slightly upturned at both ends, and is often used in the first stroke of some words. Such as "positive", "vector", "husband" and "Ryukyu".
Liu Ti's pen for horizontal painting has the same characteristics: the pen starts neatly, and the pen is obviously frustrated. When you start writing, you should enter the pen gently against the front, then cross-cut it down, and quickly move to the right. Don't be slow, and get it at once.
2. Vertical hook belt support
Vertical hook belt support is an obvious feature of Liu Ti, and this kind of hook can be divided into three categories in practical application: first, when the pen runs to the lower end of the vertical, it bends slightly to the left, and then slightly bends back to the front, and quickly kicks the hook to the left, such as the hook in the words "Hu", "Yu", "Cheng" and "Mo"; Second, the pen is transported to the end of the vertical painting, and the pen is slightly lifted upward to make the end of the vertical painting slightly thinner, and then it is quickly leveled to the left, such as the hooks in the words "East", "Things", "Lai" and "Multiply"; The third type adopts the method of reaching the end of the vertical painting before the pen arrives. When the pen reaches the end of the vertical painting, the pen tip is slightly raised, making the hook seem to be similar, such as the hook in the words "street", "destroy", "record" and "Yu". In addition, there are many changes in hook painting, such as the oblique hook with the word "Dao", the horizontal hook with the word "Sentence", the horizontal hook with the word "Mi" and the horizontal hook with the word "Nai", all of which are similar to the above hook method, but the positions are slightly different.
3. The stroke of vertical painting
Vertical painting is always thicker than horizontal painting, and the end is hung with dew or hanging needle according to different needs, such as "dry" and "ten". The juxtaposition of the two verticals shows the trend of facing each other or facing back. Generally, totally enclosed fonts, such as "Gu", "Guo", "Yuan" and "Tuan", are facing each other, and the right vertical is thicker than the left vertical; The characters surrounded on three sides, such as "door", "smell", "open" and "explain", adopt the opposite trend.
4. Types and characteristics of apostrophe painting
The apostrophe in Liu Ti characters is long and flexible, such as the apostrophe in the words "Left", "Big", "Zhang" and "Miao"; Short and straight, depending on the needs of different structural fonts, there are elbows, such as "you" and "right"; There are flat, such as "Xiang" and "Qian"; There is a short triangle, such as the painting in the words "sign" and "Buddha"; In addition, there is straightness, such as the word "for"; Back to the front, such as "Sheng" and "Wei"; Orchid leaves, such as "degree", "dust" and other words. All kinds of changes are different.
5. Thick and powerful strokes
The strokes of the willow characters are thick, with long feet and thin tails. His types are straight, such as "Jin", "She", "Zhi" and "Zu". Short words, such as "Zhang" and "Hao"; Side pressing, such as the pressing of the words "Ding" and "Yes"; Horizontal pressure, such as the pressure of the words "Tao" and "Zao"; Anti-si, such as "every" and "belly".
when left and right intersect, the left is light and the right is heavy, such as left and right in the words "Zhang", "Jiao", "Grant" and "Mei".
In addition, the fire bottom point in Liu Ti is different, with its left two points inclined to the right and right two points inclined to the left, which are symmetrically arranged left and right; The middle two points are slightly slender and often replaced by short vertical ones; The left and right points are slightly thicker, mostly quadrilateral points, and their slopes are more obvious than those in the middle. This arrangement makes the four points have changes and vitality. Such as "nothing", "photo", "fish" and "burning".
There are many elbow vertical points at the vertex of the capping head, and the left point is often replaced by a short vertical point. For words such as "six", "square" and "main", the vertices are mostly quadrilateral points inclined to the left. The parallel two points are different according to the glyph, and some adopt the two-point backward style, such as the next two points of the words "for" and "different"; Others use the opposite type, such as "grain" and "flat"; Others adopt the forward type, such as the upper two points of the word "benefit". The arrangement of the three water points should have their own postures, and their tips should be roughly aimed at the tail of the first point in order to echo up and down, such as the three water points in the words "clear", "deep" and "deep".
Third, the structure that best reflects the characteristics of the font
1. The inverted trapezoidal word "mouth".
all characters with four corners, such as "mouth", "day", "white" and "field", are written as an inverted trapezoid with a wide upper part and a narrow lower part, that is, the lower ends of the left and right vertical parts are inclined inward. If there is no stroke in the "mouth", it is generally to put the left vertical foot out of the mouth; If there is a stroke in the mouth, it is the right vertical foot that bends slightly to the left and extends out of the mouth. In the upper left corner of the word "kou", most of them are disconnected, leaving a gap. This treatment makes the characters tight and informal on the whole, and sparse but not scattered.
2. Wide Bao Gai
Every Bao Gai or similar top cover is written larger, so that it can cover the lower strokes for stability.
3, the unique "wood" word
Liu Ti's "wood" word, whether it is a single character or a radical, is generally placed on the vertical painting.
4. Conforming to the natural glyph
According to the general structural characteristics of Liu Ti characters, we should pay attention to the fact that the center of gravity of the characters should be concentrated, and the horizontal, vertical, left-handed and right-handed characters should be longer and extended to all sides. The size of words varies from word to word, and the width is wider, such as "Er", "Shang", "Yu" and "You". The narrow is narrow, such as "eye", "self", "moon" and "back"; The big is big, such as "dew", "pet", "play" and "return"; The small is small, such as "already", "scholar", "mouth" and "ten thousand", all of which conform to nature.
For words with dense or sparse strokes, it is not overemphasized that they should be collected into small characters and then expanded into large characters, but slightly reduced or expanded under the same conditions. In handling words with dense strokes, the pen should be thinner, and the weight, thickness and density of strokes should be uniform; For words with simple strokes, the strokes should be fat and plump, and the small ones should be big, not too big or too small. Generally, it should be one or two times smaller than other words.
In addition, we should be good at using the illusion of vision to solve the problem that the size of the whole character is not harmonious because of the different shapes and areas of the characters, so as to write regular script that conforms to people's aesthetic habits and the characteristics of willow characters.
The size and width of the word "Liu Gongquan" in the post are quite different, but they are very harmonious when viewed together. This kind of coordination is based on the physiological phenomenon and aesthetic habits of people's eyes, and it is actually unbalanced to achieve visual balance, which we should understand and master.
5. In the process of writing, the strokes of the words should not be too thin, because Liu Ti's regular script is not strong.
Fourth, several problems that should be paid attention to when learning Liu Ti's regular script
(1) Pay attention to the comprehensive use of fingers, wrists, elbows and forearms, and correctly understand the meaning of using wrists.
How to write correctly (referring to solid, palm-empty and wrist-vertical) is a key problem. People often say that the pen depends on the finger and the pen depends on the wrist. This statement is not complete, but should refer to the comprehensive application of wrist, elbow and forearm. Because the fingers are holding the pen and moving under the drive of the wrist and arm, it is impossible to simply use a certain part to transport the pen. In addition, fingers, wrists and arms have their own different functions, so we should use a certain part flexibly according to the different sizes of words and different parts of the same stroke. The so-called writing with the wrist mainly refers to writing characters such as middle and big letters. At this time, the elbow of the right arm is placed on the table, and the wrist is lifted, mainly with the wrist, and the movement of the wrist drives the movement of the finger. Writing strokes in lower case and upper case, such as starting and closing strokes, which require slight movement, depends on the fingers. When writing a character about 1 cm or larger (the following examples are all based on hanging the elbow to write a regular script about 1 cm), the wrist will be reduced to a secondary position. At this time, the elbow should be hung, the elbow joint should be used as the axis, and the forearm should be rotated to drive the wrist and refer to the pen movement, but the pen starting and closing parts of the stroke still depend on the wrist and finger movement; And some strokes must be completed by the joint action of fingers, wrists, arms and elbows.
So, what are the characteristics of correct pen movement? That is, when writing, the pen keeps falling to one side or the other, or rising and falling, and the direction of the pen is opposite to the direction of the pen, so that the words written by the pen have a astringent feeling. If the pen holder is always upright, it is actually the elbow joint and shoulder joint that move. Therefore, we should pay attention to the comprehensive application of finger, wrist, elbow and forearm to play their different functions. Here are two examples to illustrate.
For example, the writing method of Liu Ti's word length is as follows: when starting a pen, use the fingering method. First, swing the pen tip slightly to the right in the air, and then slightly reverse the trend to the left to enter the paper. ①, ②, cut it slightly and lightly. ③, turn the pen tip slightly to the middle, turn it to the left with the wrist, turn the pen tip to the center to write. ④ Turn the forearm around the elbow joint to drive the wrist to the right. ⑤ When closing the pen, pick the pen tip slightly. As you can see here, fingers, wrists, elbows and forearm are all used. Another point to be reminded is that the process of turning the forearm to drive the wrist to the right always has an upward trend, which is just in line with the trend of horizontal painting, which is very beneficial to overcome the problem of drooping on the right side.
For another example, Liu Ti hangs his pen upright and uses fingering. ① The pen tip is slightly swung to the lower right first, and then he enters the paper to the left against the trend. ② He flips the pen to the upper right, ③ closes the pen to the lower right, ④ The pen tip is slightly turned back to the middle, and presses the pen to the front. ⑤ With the wrist as the axis, the hand runs downward. If the elbow joint is vertical for a long time, it can be bent to the right. ⑤ When receiving the pen, it points to the left to pick lightly, and ⑦ The movement of fingers and wrists is used here. In the process of pen stroke, because only the wrist moves downward as the center, the fulcrum is short, the left and right swing of the hand is slight, and the pen tip runs vertically. This method of pen stroke can help overcome the problems that the vertical drawing is not straight or the vertical drawing is inclined to the right.
(2) Pay attention to the integrity of the stroke
Every stroke has three basic processes: starting, writing and receiving. In each process, there are different requirements and brushwork.
For example, when starting a pen in a long horizontal direction, you should pay attention to the following actions: turning the pen and cutting it lightly, turning the wrist to the front, and adjusting the pen tip to the center's pen-writing state. These actions should be done in a quick, continuous and one-time manner. Turning the pen to cut and turning the front with the wrist are the main points of horizontal painting. In order to change the thickness of strokes, horizontal strokes should be used alternately while maintaining the center. Keeping the center and changing the press are the main points of writing. In the horizontal stroke, it should be noted that it is best to turn back to the left at the upper pick-up part, then lightly stroke the pen to the right, and then run the pen tip to the lower right corner of the stroke to lift the pen to the left and gently rotate the pen to collect the pen. Running the pen tip to the lower right corner of the stroke, lifting the pen lightly and turning the front is the key point of pen collection. Of these three processes, collecting pens is the most important, and we should not be anticlimactic. It is common for people to write, start and stroke, but the pen is sloppy, either at one meal or with the pen in their hands, but the pen tip is not in place, so the pen collection part is round or sharp and cannot be complete. It is necessary to emphasize the collection of pens and cultivate a good style of work, especially for young students.
In fact, the three strokes of basic strokes are the comprehensive application of pen skills such as stopping, lifting, pressing, making, turning, light, heavy, fast and slow, which are the basic skills of learning calligraphy. We must master it skillfully and apply it to every stroke.
(3) Pay attention to the influence of "vision illusion" on learning books, and deepen our understanding of Liu Ti's principle of writing characters in regular script.
People's eyes have strong recognition ability when observing things, but they often have some illusions because of the different shapes and positions of objects. The same is true of writing. Beginners should know how these illusions affect the structure of regular script and what methods to take to eliminate these influences. In this way, we can have a correct understanding of the principle of writing in regular script summarized by predecessors, take corresponding measures to eliminate the influence of visual illusion and master the structure of words faster and better. Here are a few examples to give a brief explanation.
first, a horizontal painting with the same thickness is horizontal, but under the observation of people's eyes, it often feels that the right side is slightly lower. When we are writing regular script, if the horizontal drawing is very flat, we will feel that the right shoulder of the stroke is drooping and uncomfortable, so the horizontal drawing of regular script is mostly treated as the trend of low left and high right to eliminate the influence of visual illusion.
second, the "visual center" is often higher than the "geometric center". If people observe a rectangle hanging on the front, the place that the eyes think is the center is just higher than the geometric center where the two diagonals intersect. This phenomenon often affects the center of gravity of words. Therefore, when dealing with characters with long upper and lower structures, Liu Ti adopted the method of "tightening up and loosening down". The upper strokes were arranged compactly, so that the center of gravity moved up and the lower strokes were slightly longer and looser. Just like a person's figure, the legs are longer than the length, and it looks pleasing to the eye.
Third, when horizontal and vertical paintings with the same thickness are compared together, they will feel that the horizontal painting is thicker than the vertical painting. This is that people's eyes are arranged horizontally, and the things that look horizontally are more real and the error is small, while the things that look vertically are often scattered.