She is loaded with rich cultural psychology and humanistic information, which has lasted for thousands of years. Besides her perfect artistic form, it embodies the basic characteristics of China's art, and more importantly, the spiritual power contained in calligraphy has decisive and guiding factors.
This is the soul of calligraphy. In religion, the soul is regarded as an immaterial thing that exists independently without the human body. Once the soul leaves the human body, people die.
The same is true of calligraphy. If she loses her soul, she will undoubtedly face death.
what is the soul of calligraphy? This soul is the culture of China and the spirit of China.
She should include elegant humanity; Profound philosophy; Rich tradition; Unique aesthetics in these aspects.
1. Humanism
Calligraphy has been deeply marked with China culture since its birth.
Some people say that calligraphy is the core of China culture. I think culture is the core of calligraphy.
why? Because no matter from the generation or development of calligraphy, it runs around the core of culture. The study of calligraphy techniques and the appreciation of the surface of calligraphy lines is only a superficial understanding. The real understanding of calligraphy is the cultural connotation implied in Chinese calligraphy, a mystery beyond strokes, and an endless cultural world.
Therefore, without the concept of culture, calligraphy will lose all its dazzling brilliance.
1. "Poetry is the soul of books".
As we all know, China is a country of poetry, and poetry is the soul of all China arts.
Su Shi said: "Poetry is inexhaustible, and it overflows into a book, and becomes a painting, which is all beyond poetry."
This is a general understanding of China's art.
Poetry is content, while books are form. Its writing is the soul and its book is the body.
So poetry is the soul of a book, or writing is the soul of a book.
I once asked Mr. Wen Huaisha, a Chinese scholar, how to improve his calligraphy skills. Wen Huaisha whispered three words to me: "recite Tang poems".
that makes sense. why?
first, poetry (which can be understood as poetry in a broad sense including literary forms) is the basic content of calligraphy art.
An ancient book says, "Poetry expresses ambition and sings about love." The realm of poetry expresses life, and the realm of calligraphy also expresses life, so the ancients evaluated calligraphy as "reaching its nature and its sorrows and joys".
calligraphers are imbued with human feelings between brushwork and ink dance, and beautiful calligraphy works must be the life of lines and Mo Yun and the formation of life. You can look at our calligraphers, whether they write by themselves or others, who always love to "write" poems. And it has to be a poem by China. Since Sun Guoting, the artistic thinking mode of combining poetry and books has been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Sun Guoting said in the Preface to the Book Spectrum: "Emotions express words, which means coquettish". He is particularly opposed to "the theory of hand-fans waving their luck" and thinks it is "vulgar".
Secondly, poetry dominates the artistic conception of a calligraphy.
Good calligraphy must have literary association, artistic conception of poetry, composition of painting, rhythm of dance, rhythm of music and perfection of body posture. Shen Yinmo once said, "Without color, there are brilliant pictures, and without sound, there is harmony in music." The idea of calligraphers comes from poetry, and different poems make different books. The inner poetic mood of the calligrapher drives the pens in the calligrapher's hands to form works with different artistic conception. For example, Su Shi's "Plum Blossom Sticks", written at the end, suddenly became wild grass, which was determined by unrestrained poetry. In his Cold Food Post, he wrote that "I want to cherish spring every year", and the word "year" broke the pattern and suddenly became a big character, drawing lessons from the composition of the wild grass. This shows that poetry leads the writing. Since Zhang Huaiguan put forward the idea of "combining writing with ink" in Book Discussion, calligraphers of all ages have attached great importance to it. Throughout history, great calligraphers are all great poets, great writers and great scholars, or at least some people with achievements. To put this sentence in reverse, it is that if you are not a great scholar and a great writer, you will never become a great calligrapher. It can be said that what our contemporary calligraphers lack is precisely the two hands of "writing and ink". Calligraphy can't go up without profound literary accomplishment and extensive cultural accomplishment. I once said, "The depth of a book is culture, and the perfection of a book depends on cultivation." Calligraphy skills can be infinitely approached through tempering, while the richness of the mind is endless. The improvement of spiritual character and cultural accomplishment is more difficult and slow than the study of skills. Impetuousness and eagerness for success in the book world should also be related to this.
So calligraphy is "easy to learn but difficult to master".
when Huang tingjian commented on su Shi's calligraphy, he said that "the spirit of learning and writing, and the melancholy of Sandy, originated from pen and ink, is beyond the reach of others". What others can't reach is Su Shi's elegant literary style.
thirdly, poetry can gradually improve calligraphy.
China's calligraphy studies verve, pays attention to ethereal spirit, and can get rid of the worldly life. In Wang Wei's poem, he said, "Go back to the deep forest, shines back to me from the green moss." It's a feeling, a feeling of slow movement. This kind of feeling can't be found in calligraphy. If you can't find something in calligraphy creation, you can look for it in poetry and then help our creation in turn.
Calligraphy creation is a lyrical and poetic search process. If you can't be intoxicated and immersed in pen and ink and self-experience, you can't enter. When you enter the realm of poetry, the flying of cultural spirit is all in it, and ordinary skills and kung fu are no longer obstacles. Without the realm of poetry, it is impossible to enter the realm of poetic calligraphy, no matter how solid your basic skills are and how skilled your skills are.
2. "Writing is the foundation of books".
Writing is the foundation of calligraphy, and "knowing the words and breaking them" is the premise of writing, which only limits calligraphy to the circle of literati;
literature is the ladder of calligraphy progress, and "artistic cultivation" is the bridge for calligraphy to enter the aesthetic realm and reach the emotional experience. Scholars are both necessary conditions and innate advantages for calligraphy. Only the combination of literati and calligraphy can make calligraphy enter the palace of art.
Calligraphy has always been accompanied by the rise and fall of literati from the day it came into being. As a class, China literati first appeared in the pre-Qin period of "a hundred schools of thought contend". Most literati have delicate feelings, rich inner world and "duality" in personality.
Literati of all ages, whether "proud" or "frustrated", all love calligraphy. It is said that two famous artists, such as Mi Fei, are a literati with inner turmoil. After their disappointment, on the one hand, they studied the ancient books, and on the other hand, they became the four masters of the Song Dynasty.
Tang Yu Shinan, who had a smooth life and made friends with Emperor Taizong, was devoted to politics and calligraphy, and became a great generation. From this, we can see that calligraphy can be an angel for the frustrated, and it can also be a comfort for the successful when they are mentally tired.
China's calligraphy art became such an "angel" and "close friend" among ancient literati. It can even be said that they found their "self" in the art of calligraphy, thus obtaining a supreme spiritual satisfaction. At least we can see the indissoluble bond between literati and calligraphy from three aspects.
firstly, calligraphers are all literati.
In the history of calligraphy in China, the first recognized calligrapher was Li Si of Qin Dynasty.
He is the prime minister of Qin Shihuang. First of all, because of his outstanding literary talent, he can become a famous minister and a famous politician. After Qin unified the six countries, Li Si said, "Qin strikes those who don't agree with Qin Wen, so the world does it." Starting from the unification of words, he sought political unity. He personally created Xiaozhuan seal in the process of simplifying Dazhuan seal, based on the Dazhuan seal created by Shi Chuan in Zhou Dynasty, "deleting its complexity and taking its appropriateness". In particular, he put this new style of writing into "solemn and sacred" use, and when he accompanied Qin Shihuang to inspect various places and boarded famous mountains and rivers, he drew up and wrote a series of words that mainly praised Qin Shihuang. According to the remaining "Stone Carving on Mount Tai", Li Si's literary talent and calligraphy have reached a very high level.
As recognized by the world, Wang Xizhi, who has the greatest influence on calligraphy art, is also an authentic scholar. The so-called "eating in the east bed with an open stomach", the hobby of "eating elegantly and nourishing", the habit of "having sex with geese" and the interest of "swimming in the mountains and rivers for entertainment" all show a true "Wei and Jin demeanor", which advocates smoothness, freedom and peace.
Another example is Huai Su, a monk surnamed Qian in the Tang Dynasty, who is famous for his wild grass. Supposedly, since he has become a monk, it is difficult to be called a "scholar". However, as far as his family origin is concerned, his father is a famous poet Qian Qi and Qian Qi in the Tang Dynasty, and we often write "flowers muffle a bell in the Palace of Bliss and and rain has deepened the Dragon Lake willows". His most acclaimed masterpiece, Self-Narrative Post, expresses his experience of learning books and its ups and downs in the form of poetry, which shows a high literary talent.
As for other calligraphers, such as Cai Yi, Ou Yangxun, Yu Shinan, Chu Suiliang, Yan Zhenqing, Huang Tingjian, Su Shi, Mi Fei, Zhao Meng (fu Zhaopage), Zhu Yunming, Wen Zhiming, Fu Shan, Zheng Xie, He Shaoji, etc., in terms of their most important and basic aspects, all of them are great writers. If we lose the minimum prerequisite of "literati", it is almost impossible to pursue the wonderful truth of calligraphy, a high-level art.
second, cultural accomplishment and calligraphy attainments.
generally speaking, the two are in direct proportion. As a calligrapher, he has always been regarded as a part of "literati" since ancient times, mainly because calligraphers have knowledge in literature, history and philosophy. Scholars and learning, calligraphers and literati, calligraphy and self-cultivation, etc., are all closely related, which is also a topic discussed by the ancients. However, in modern times, some people always regard calligraphy as a simple skill of "getting used to it". The overall impression of today's calligraphy should be: "the richness of form and the degradation of connotation."
calligraphers emphasize the effect of pen and ink, but downplay the essence of "expressing feelings". Calligraphy is the product of China's traditional culture. Today, the old-fashioned traditional education and culture have become specialized knowledge. Most calligraphers can only make up for this deficiency in their spare time. Even after a lot of efforts, due to the changes in the environment, there is little gain. Therefore, it is difficult to fully understand and grasp the rich connotation contained in the calligraphy tradition.
the degradation of bookish spirit is also the biggest defect of current calligraphy. Because of this, I think it is more and more important to emphasize the close relationship between cultural literacy and calligraphy art today. For example, Cai Yi, a famous calligrapher in the Eastern Han Dynasty, is not only a writer, but also a master of history, temperament and astronomy, and can also draw. His wealth of knowledge has promoted his calligraphy art to a good level, and there is a comment in history that "the backbone is broad-minded, refreshing and fascinating".
The text of the Six Classics in the book stands outside the Imperial College, watching the learners jam the thoroughfare. With his high intelligence and extraordinary intelligence, he was inspired by accidental events and created a "flying white" book, which had a great influence on later generations. His daughter, Cai Wenji, has a cultural accomplishment from her family's studies and is good at calligraphy.
As for Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Yan Zhenqing, Zhang Xu, Yu Shinan, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Dong Qichang, etc., all of them have other skills or a wide range of knowledge, and they are not dabbling in general, but concentrating on seeking, and most of them have high achievements. It can be said that a calligrapher who can only write and has no other skills is rare in the history of ancient calligraphy.
predecessors have repeatedly emphasized that "the merits of a book are outside the book", not limited to "inside the book", which is also the golden advice gained by accumulating countless experiences and lessons.
thirdly, the book is a painting of the heart and the nature of Tao Qing.
Compared with non-literati, literati's inner life, love and hate feelings are rich and complex, and generally speaking, the degree should be much higher; In ancient times, most people engaged in the art of calligraphy were literati. It can be said that all the literati had a strong desire to write. Even the last feudal literati, like Kong Yiji, who dipped their fingers in water to write four "Hui" characters, still did not get rid of the psychological set cast by this ancient culture.
Obviously, in the long history of ancient China, calligraphy was the closest partner of literati in all previous dynasties. Literati felt enriched with a pen in their hands, and they could tell their thoughts with the pen in their hands. In the process of creating her, I appreciate the joy of creation and the pleasure of aesthetics in the process of appreciating her.
From "painting with the heart as the book" is bound to lead to lyricism, so as to satisfy the most frequent and general spiritual desire of literati for art.
It can be said that the relationship between ancient China literati and calligraphy art is deeper than other literary styles such as painting, music and even poetry.