On Calligraphy

During the Three Kingdoms period, Dan Wei, a calligrapher of Wei State, quoted the famous saying that "if a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first" (The Analects of Confucius) (The Letters of Chen Si). Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher in Jin Dynasty, said after reading Mrs. Wei's brush strokes: "The writer of paper is also an array, and the author is also a knife" (Wang Ting's "Calligraphy Essentials"), and compared the brush to an invincible knife and gun. "Postscript of Guang Chuan" said: "If you want predecessors to discuss books, you must first choose a pen ... Wei Changshan's book is better than a pen." It can be seen that, in addition to requiring the author to have profound artistic attainments, he also needs to choose a kind of free and handy brushwork to help the author achieve the artistic conception, express the style and achieve the ideal effect. The so-called "good books don't choose pens" is just a joke.

As a tool for painting and calligraphy, the brush should first pay attention to practicality and demand "high quality" and "affordability", no matter whether it is in the past, present or future, even if people have rich economic conditions. For the brush maker, first of all, we should pay attention to improving the quality of the brush head, apply real "kung fu" to the brush head, reasonably select all kinds of raw materials that make up the brush head, make the best use of them, and then produce all kinds of high-quality brush heads to meet the requirements of different users. Never put the cart before the horse, the pen tip is shoddy, the pen holder is gorgeous and magnificent, and the cost of the pen holder is several times or even dozens of times that of the pen tip. This flashy practice is a trampling on the traditional technology of writing brush. Bamboo pole should be the best pen container, which is light to use and low in cost. When necessary, if the pen tip is particularly good, a high-grade pen container should be prepared.

A well-made brush is a precious work of art, which sounds a bit "mysterious" and seems a bit "Pharaoh sells melons"-because I come from a brush family and have been playing with brushes for generations. Actually, it's not that I brag about writing brushes. For a long time, although the writing brush is known as one of the "Four Treasures of the Study", it does not really occupy the position of "treasure". In the eyes of ordinary people, it is nothing more than buying one in the overwhelming brush market. Therefore, the understanding of this "treasure", coupled with the proliferation of fake and shoddy brushes, leads to the low market price of brushes, which restricts the development and quality improvement of brushes.

In fact, it is not easy to make an excellent brush. This is a comprehensive system engineering, and all links should be meticulous and carefully coordinated, so that "unity is strength". Well-made brush all kinds of raw materials are precious animal and plant resources, and the price is relatively expensive. Starting from the selection of materials, "one in a million" means strict and accurate selection of materials. After manual 100 processes, semi-finished pens were made. In the early 1960s, when I was discussing the writing brush with several famous calligraphers, such as Mr Ouyang Zhongshi, Mr Shen Peng and Mr Liu Bingsen, they understood the manufacturing technology of the writing brush and said to me with emotion, "A light and small writing brush looks simple, but it is really not easy to make. /kloc-more than 0/00 processes, all done by hand, is really amazing. " They immediately wrote some good sentences, such as "Hongyi Bizhuang", "Best Lake Pen", "Hongyi Lake Pen" and "Excellence" to encourage them. In fact, a precious celebrity painting and calligraphy is a precious work of art, and there is no doubt that the excellent brush for creating these precious works of art is a precious work of art.