? -Reading Notes on Learning Books (2)
Still water runs deep.
? Calligraphy theory in ancient China is an inexhaustible treasure for calligr
? -Reading Notes on Learning Books (2)
Still water runs deep.
? Calligraphy theory in ancient China is an inexhaustible treasure for calligraphy learners, and its importance is self-evident. However, for most beginners who don't know much about ancient Chinese and are eager to find simple aesthetic rules of calligraphy, the role of ancient calligraphy theory often can't be brought into play. From the perspective of contemporary people, calligraphy theory also has shortcomings and deficiencies, especially the summary of the beauty of calligraphy is not intuitive and concrete, and even deliberately detours and confuses people, lacking scientific analysis of the aesthetic laws of calligraphy, which is a bit "eternal". The ancients discussed calligraphy in two common ways.
? The characteristics of all the way are particularly abstruse, mysterious and mysterious. Austria has a kind of mystery, calling itself "the mystery of calligraphy" and "the mystery is indescribable". Some ancient people talked about calligraphy, first talking about heaven and earth, looking up and looking down, and then talking about calligraphy. The ancients called this situation practice, as if they thought calligraphy was the essence of heaven, earth, sun and moon. Although the ancients stood tall, it was useless to read a lot of content. For example, Wang Xizhi's book theory "On Books" is about the secret of practicing calligraphy. Every word is "or like an insect eating leaves, or like a tadpole in the water;" Or like a strong man's sword, or like a woman's slender beauty ",land and water plants, animals and plants, men and women, far away. Another example is the mature official script of the Han Dynasty, in which the horizontal painting begins with the name of silkworm head and ends with the name of goose tail; Suo Jing's calligraphy in the Western Jin Dynasty is vigorous, saying that his strokes are silver hooks and tails, just like a scorpion wagging its tail; Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty wrote the above points and compared them to the head of a mandarin duck. Yan Zhenqing's hook for writing regular script in the prosperous Tang Dynasty is said to be a goose head hook. For another example, Su Shi wrote Ping in the Song Dynasty, and Huang Tingjian said that his words were stone-pressed toads; Huang Tingjian wrote cursive in circles, but Su Shi retorted that his words were dead snakes hanging trees. It is said that Wang Xizhi's word Yue Long Tianmen, the tiger lies in the phoenix que; Draw a tiger like Wang Xizhi and a dragon like Zhong You; The dragon and phoenix dance is better written, which is almost called spring insects and autumn snakes; Thick ink is called ink pig, thin words are like macaques, and so on. Sometimes the ancients went too far and were mysterious. For example, the relationship between people and calligraphy is easy to understand, and the styles of words written by people with different personalities are of course different. However, to say that "although not a saint, although the work is not expensive" (Song Caixiang), "the heart is correct and the pen is correct" (Liu Tanggong is complete) and "people are correct and the book is correct" (Ming Xiangmu) confuses artistic standards and moral standards. Especially for beginners with practical purposes, it is really too pedantic and may not be directly effective.
? The other way is characterized by a special physical form, which summarizes the skills of calligraphy and has various names. The former is too mysterious and the latter is too complicated. Metaphysics focuses on Tao, while complexity focuses on technology. The essence of complexity is also metaphysics, which is the metaphysics of technology. As far as regular script brushwork is concerned, the earliest is Bi Tu, which is a secret biography of Mrs. Wei, and the strokes are summarized into seven types; After that, the eight-word method appeared. Some people think that it was written by Zhi Yong, while others think that it was based on the first word "Yong" in Wang Xizhi's Preface to Lanting. Later, the poem "Ode to the Heart" by the monk Zhiguo proposed the method of 18. Later, in the early Tang Dynasty, 36 laws were handed down as Ou Yangxun. In the Yuan Dynasty, there was a monk Li Puguang's "Big Character Club"; In the Ming Dynasty, there were seventy-two cases written by Jiang Ligang and eighty-four Chinese characters written by Mason Lee. In the Qing Dynasty, there were "92 Laws of Huang Ziyuan Frame Structure", etc ... The more complicated it became, the more confused it became. It seems that this is almost a word-for-word law. There are many rules, which seem to be more difficult to master than no rules, and it is difficult to discourage people.
? The essence determines the phenomenon, and the internal determines the external. "The business of a gentleman is based on this." As far as the summary of calligraphy learning rules is concerned, if we only pay attention to the external rules and are led by Chinese characters, but ignore the in-depth summary of the internal rules, it is really putting the cart before the horse, or even putting the cart before the horse. For the sake of brevity, we look at the inherent law of calligraphy beauty from three aspects: strokes, structure and radicals.
? The soul of strokes is the problem of strokes, from strokes to strokes and from strokes to strokes. When simple strokes are connected, there are complex strokes. At present, among the 28 commonly used Chinese character strokes, 1/3 is a combination stroke, which is only a phenomenon, and it is still five or six steps away from the inherent law of strokes. How to write the strokes of a brush is the inherent law of strokes and the main source of stroke strength and beauty. The closer to the problem of brush strokes, the closer to the inherent law of brush strokes.
? The internal law second only to brush strokes is the problem of brush strokes. It is an inherent law that there are different strokes between the start, stroke, stroke and adjacent parts of a stroke. The number of gestures must be less than the number of strokes, because strokes are the external phenomenon of gestures, and the phenomenon is always more complicated than the law.
? The problem next to the gesture is the stroke problem. Without gestures, calligraphy has no strokes.
? There are three levels of strokes. The basic strokes of regular script should not be all Chinese characters. At present, it is problematic to call 28 strokes as basic strokes. The eight strokes of a permanent character are the most basic strokes. What are the eight tricks? That is, point, horizontal, vertical, left, press, fold, lift and hook, which are the first-level strokes. Transverse is divided into long transverse and short transverse, vertical is divided into vertical, vertical, skimming is divided into short length, folding is divided into horizontal and vertical folding, and so on. This is the second level of strokes, called decomposition strokes. When the decomposed strokes are recombined, all the forms in the 28 strokes are included, which is the third-level stroke.
? In contrast, the law of the eight-character method is an internal law, while the law of synthetic strokes such as "horizontal folding hook" is an external law.
? Next, look at the structure, not the side. Because radicals also belong to the structure of strokes, and most words are radicals themselves, the content of the structure is wider, and the beauty of the structure determines the beauty of radicals. In contrast, the structural law is internal, and the radical is only an external appearance, which only reflects the concrete form of the structural law, so we should master the structural law first and then analyze the radical in detail.
? The main pen is the soul of the structure. The so-called main pen is the stroke that reaches the realm, and the left and right main pens are the key points. There are three situations: horizontal main pen, two-wing main pen and no main pen, which are represented by the words "one, big and mouth". Furthermore, there are four directions related to the main pen, namely, the middle palace, tension, center of gravity and so on. Further, there are many details, such as emptiness, fullness, symmetry, founder, golden section and so on. If we don't solve the above problems, we don't pay attention to the internal laws of the structure. The so-called internal law of structure must be the law involving thousands of Chinese characters, rather than focusing on the appearance of words.
? Finally, look at the side. Not counting compound radicals, there are more than 500 radicals in Chinese characters, which can be said to be varied, but the internal laws have not changed. What is this rule? How to summarize? How many kinds can be summed up? Can you master all the essentials of radical learning through a small part of radical learning? These are the internal laws of the radical. Corresponding to the eight-character method, we combine all the radicals into eight series. It can be said that grasping the core characteristics of each series of radicals is the inherent law of radicals.