A line should be connected from beginning to end, and the characters should be arranged in a proper manner. The size, length, fatness, thickness, back, and between the beginning and the end should be properly matched. In particular, the arrangement of strokes should be consistent from beginning to end. Lazy, but not fragmented, this is the movement of Qi in a line.
1. Keep the center line of words
There must be a center line between a word and cannot deviate from it. Among the cursive characters, one character seems to be to the left and another to the right. When the beginning and the end are connected together, they are still on a central line. The same is true for regular characters. Some side characters, such as the character "xi" and "ge", the character "cai" with an apostrophe goes to the left, and the character "zhi" with an apostrophe goes to the right. This means you can't just pay attention to one The issue of word balance should be considered from the perspective of the whole line. The movement of Qi is just like a person walking around, sometimes swinging his left arm and sometimes swinging his right arm to maintain the balance of the body. The left and right expansion and contraction of the words are also to change the balance and to unite the momentum, so that the momentum seems to be coherent. For example, in Wang Xizhi's "Sangluan Tie", the word "Tu" suddenly moves to the left, and the word "Poison" suddenly moves to the right, so that the character from the first character "Xian" to the last character "Chai" is still on a center line.
2. Undertake the traction pen to break the meaning connection
Of course, the movement of Qi between characters is caused by the changing balance between left and right. This has been mentioned above and will be further analyzed here. . Regardless of regular or cursive characters, as long as you carefully observe the ins and outs of the characters, you will find that the brush edges of each character, that is, the intersection between the previous character and the next character, have a connecting and pulling brush edge. For example, the starting point of the stroke of the next character is to take over the stroke of the end of the previous character, that is to say, it is connected by the stroke of the previous stroke. Then the stroke of the next stroke is traction, that is, it pulls the stroke of the next character out, so that the stroke of the next character is drawn out. There are correspondences and explanations between the pens, and the writing is naturally coherent. The last stroke of the previous line and the beginning of the next line should also echo each other, so that their energy flows through and every other line continues. The connection and traction between regular script and cursive script are different. Regular script has connected strokes and all the strokes are broken (that is, there is no string), only the upper and lower strokes are connected together; while cursive script has connections and breaks, especially since the Tang Dynasty. At the beginning, there were more and more "continuous" and "gossamer" cursive scripts that connected several words. When we write cursive script, we should not forcefully connect them with gossamers. If one or two characters are connected, it is okay. If there are too many three or four characters, it will feel like a string. If it is lingering, there will be problems like spring earthworms and autumn snakes. So as long as the pen breaks the meaning, it will be fine. Zhang Shen, a calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty, proposed that "the meaning of the brush strokes should be looked forward to, facing upward, the yin and yang rise and fall, and the strokes of the brush strokes should not be broken." This means that the strokes of the brush strokes should not be broken.
3. There is pitching up and down, and looking forward to the left and right
The arrangement method of the rows up, down, left and right is simply described by the predecessors as "Things starting from the left should be on the right, and those starting from the top should be down." Below". Ge Shouzhi, a calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty, was more specific about the arrangement requirements for the top, bottom, left and right: "If the characters above are made into paragraphs, this character should be connected accordingly; if the characters on the right are made into paragraphs, this character should be connected accordingly. If the word "大捺" is used in conjunction with the upper character, use a dot to connect it; if the character "大捺" is used in conjunction with the character "大捺" in the right row, use "qingqiao" (i.e., abbreviation) to respond to it. .... "The up-down relationship of words is a pitching relationship. The words on the top should look down on the words below, and the words on the bottom should look up to the words above. The words on the left should take care of the right side, and the words on the right should take care of them. To the left. The most taboo thing is that every word is the same, and the top and bottom are flush like counters, which separates the layout and composition of a line. Especially cursive writing, it reflects changes through the size, width, slant, and straightness of the characters. Wang Xizhi's cursive script has many of the above-mentioned changes. For example, in "Lanting Preface", the first word "year" is written with hanging dew, and the next word "year" is changed to the hanging needle style. Another example is Chairman Mao's handwritten "Man Jiang Hong and Comrade Guo Moruo". The character "Shake" is five times larger than the character "五"; the character "国" is very wide, while the character "大" is very narrow; the character "风" is very long, while the character "西" The characters are very short; the character "Li" is slanted to the left, the character "Qi" is slanted to the right; the character "安" is extremely curved, and the character "下" is extremely straight.
However, judging from the layout of this painting, the word "shake" does not feel big, and the word "五" does not feel small; the word "Li" does not feel slanted, and the word "pathetic" does not feel awkward. This is a clever way of looking up and down. The characters are woven together, unifying individual words in the large white space of the whole text. The spacing between the words is uneven, and there is rarely a virtual white horizontal line that can pass through. "Strange scales and feathers" is one of Zhang Huaiguan's "Ten Methods of Using the Brush" in the Tang Dynasty. This is not only useful for the structure of a character, but also is particularly important for the movement of Qi and the organization of the entire text. That is, through the shape of each character , either square or round, triangular or oblong, as well as intricate changes in size.
When writing regular characters, although there are not as many changes as cursive characters, due to the length, slant, and density of the Chinese character structure itself, it cannot be absolutely consistent. The character "Che" is long, the character "Liang" is short; the character "口" is small, and the character "Ti" is big. We should also pay attention to the changes in the matching of Qi in line with the principle of regular regular characters, so that they look left and right, the male and female are connected, and the strokes and stipples echo each other. For example, when writing the word "doctor", the left side is both left and the right side is left. If you use the same style to write, there will be no change. If the upper and lower characters have hanging needles, the next character can be changed to hanging dew. One character uses a folding edge, and the next few characters can use a folding edge, that is, the writing method is straight down without folding. When the meaning of the strokes is exhausted, the folding edge is used to change the style of the writing. This also creates a shadow relationship between the upper and lower strokes. .