Four Treasures of the Study refers to China's unique tools for painting and calligraphy-pen, ink, paper and inkstone. "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first." To learn calligraphy, he must know the tools of writing. Pen, ink, paper and inkstone are not only tools and materials of calligraphy art, but also works of art with historical and cultural value after thousands of years of development.
pen
China began to use the writing brush in ancient times. Brush can be divided into hard hair, soft hair and double-headed brush. Hard hair is mainly made of rabbit hair or weasel tail hair, referred to as "purple hair" or "wolf hair", which is elastic, sharp and powerful; Soft wool, chicken feathers, etc., soft and round, full of changes; Double-strand brush, with purple hair or wolf hair as the core or waist brace and wool as the cover, is made according to a certain proportion, combining rigidity with softness.
There are pens of different sizes, the big ones are fighting pens and lifting pens, and the small ones are small, Gou Xianbi; The strokes are long and short, long, medium, long, medium and short. The characteristics of pens are "sharp, neat, round and healthy", which is what the ancients called the four virtues of writing brush. Pens should be properly kept when used in order to be durable.
black
China began to use motorcycles as early as the Neolithic Age. Artificial ink began in the Warring States period. 1954, a basket of black clay, namely Gu Mo, was unearthed in Yangjiawan, Changsha, Hunan. According to the different raw materials, the types of ink can be divided into Song Yanmo, oil fume ink and pine oil fume ink. When making ink, in addition to pine smoke and oil fume, a proper amount of Chinese herbal medicines such as musk, borneol and pig bile are often added to the gel.
Ink has a variety of shapes, exquisite decoration, a certain spectrum, and is often matched with exquisite craft ink cartridges, which has high collection value.
paper
Papermaking is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. It is said that Cai Lun could make paper in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In fact, from the cultural relics unearthed underground, Baqiao paper was produced in the Western Han Dynasty. Most of the paper before the Song Dynasty was cooked paper, and its water absorption and air permeability were not very good. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, painters liked to use raw rice paper with strong water absorption and air permeability.
Calligraphy paper is generally divided into practice paper and creative paper. There are meta-book paper and fringed paper commonly used in practice paper; Xuan paper is generally suitable for creative paper.
inkstone
Inkstone platform, commonly known as inkstone platform, or inkstone pool, inkstone field, inkstone tile, ink sea, etc. , is a tool for grinding ink, holding ink and licking ink. At present, the earliest Gu Yan is 1957, an inkstone unearthed from the Qin tomb in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province. The inkstone and the accompanying grindstone are made of pebbles with ink on them. The inkstone platform not only has practical value, but also has high ornamental value.
Besides pen, ink, paper and inkstone, other auxiliary tools include felt, paperweight, pen washer and pen container. When creating calligraphy works, seals are generally needed, so seals and inkpad are also tools for calligraphy creation. In modern times, with the development of the times and people's needs, hard pen calligraphy, represented by pens, reappeared and continued to play an important role in people's lives.