In Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Zhong Dingwen, it is difficult to see the author's emotional traces. In the Han Dynasty, official script began to be written in different ways. In the Tang Dynasty, calligraphy received great attention, and a large number of calligraphers with their own characteristics appeared, such as Ou Yangxun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan. The calligraphy in the Tang Dynasty is very standardized, and each stroke follows the style of Legalists. For example, Yan Zhenqing's regular script, on any tablet, is the same, regular and exemplary, but it does change a little. In the Song Dynasty, calligraphers were rich and varied in different works, which made them more interesting. Calligraphy theorists say that "calligraphers in Song Dynasty attached importance to freehand brushwork". The representative figures of freehand brushwork in Song Dynasty are Dongpo, Huang, Guo and Cai. Later generations commented that his calligraphy was "trying to get rid of the Tang Dynasty model". Without leaving your own style, every article has changes, and there are often strange and wonderful pens.
The factors that affect artistic creation also affect writing. For example, the author's temperament, mentality, environment, text content. Therefore, the words written on different occasions must be different, which is a logical result. Song people knew this well and put it into full play. Why was the freehand brushwork of calligraphy delayed until the Song Dynasty? This should have a lot to do with the society at that time. Scholars in Song Dynasty indulged their own temperament. Famous poets in the Song Dynasty, such as Zhang Xian and Liu Yong, were addicted to Goulan Restaurant all day, and even some people with status often took geisha to visit, even Su Dongpo was no exception. This is reflected in calligraphy, which is free and free.
As mentioned earlier, calligraphy is a very vivid art, so what does freehand brushwork mean? This kind of calligraphy with both form and spirit fully shows that there are abstract elements in the image. Calligraphy is done by the writer with thoughts and feelings. Viewers can explore the author's emotional ups and downs from the strokes in calligraphy works, and explore the calligrapher's psychological state from the changes in brushwork. But it should also be pointed out that abstract things are highly generalized, so there are many solutions. We may not be able to accurately grasp the artistic conception of calligraphy works, which is related to the common sense and experience of the viewer. If the viewer is also a calligrapher and has had similar experience, it will be more appropriate to pursue the artistic conception of the predecessors. Otherwise, it depends on the understanding of the audience. To sum up, Chinese characters have evolved into abstract characters, but there are still images in the abstraction. Calligraphy is a very vivid art, but the image contains abstract things. This once again shows that image and abstraction, image thinking and abstract thinking can not be completely separated.