Therefore, this is the most basic way of life of the ancients, the most convenient and basic way of communication, and also an effective way of their inner practice, so we call it a way of life of human beings. But today, soft pen writing has become a special training, first there is hard pen calligraphy, and now there are direct typewriters, computers and so on. This kind of soft pen writing is getting farther and farther away from our daily life and our writing, so calligraphy, as an independent artistic noumenon, has never been so conscious and intense as it is today, and it has never been so urgent as it is today. It is precisely because of this situation that when Mr. Pan Tianshou visited Japan in the late 1950s, he felt that it was a very high thing for Japan to teach calligraphy in art colleges and saw the development of contemporary Japanese calligraphy. After I came back, I called for the establishment of calligraphy teaching specialty in China Academy of Fine Arts. In the early 1960s, the Ministry of Culture entrusted our school to conduct calligraphy teaching experiments. In this way, China has the earliest students majoring in calligraphy. Of course, at the beginning, the number was very small, only two or three people. In this way, after the Cultural Revolution, universities resumed normal enrollment and teaching, and our school quickly seized the opportunity. At the graduate level, we have recruited a number of outstanding students by using the excellent teacher resources of our school, and trained the first generation of calligraphy graduate students in China. Nowadays, these calligraphy graduate students are the academic leaders and professional backbones of calligraphy teaching and research in some important art colleges and academic institutions such as Central Academy of Fine Arts and China Academy of Fine Arts, and they are also powerful artists in contemporary Chinese calligraphy creation. Since the 1990s, the calligraphy major in our school has never stopped, and the undergraduate teaching and postgraduate teaching have never stopped. It was not until 200 1 that calligraphy became an independent department, originally belonging to the Chinese painting department, and it was a professional direction. After independence, it became the first calligraphy department in China, as a basic independent teaching unit to strengthen the research and creation of calligraphy art teaching in China. In 2003, the Modern Calligraphy Research Center was established. While adhering to the tradition, we also emphasize the creation of modern calligraphy. We put calligraphy under the very active situation of today's cultural creation and the requirements of the new era, and strive to find the relationship between calligraphy and today's artistic creation, today's daily life and today's writing, which has gradually broken away from the soft pen tool, and strive to make the calligraphy teaching and research institution in our college a new cultural ecology.
We have a brief look at the basic development of calligraphy teaching in our school. You just asked what is the greatest contribution of calligraphy teaching in our school to contemporary calligraphy creation? I think it is mainly in two aspects: the first aspect is to face the spirit of calligraphy with the research spirit of contemporary humanities and art, and treat calligraphy as an academic. It is this spirituality that leads us to regard calligraphy as a living cultural carrier, not only to study its history and past, but also to study its relationship with China's traditional spirit and cultural factors, and to study the cultural relationship between calligraphy and our daily life and daily writing, so as to study calligraphy as an academic and an art. The spirit, framework and system of this research accumulated and formed over the years are of fundamental significance to the whole calligraphy art in China. This kind of research is to construct a cultural research mechanism from a fairly high humanistic perspective. In this mechanism, we have constructed the relationship between calligraphy and China literature, between calligraphy and its own history, between calligraphy and various social factors, and between calligraphy and many cultural factors. All these relationships are studied from this broad humanistic perspective. I think this research mode, this research thinking and this research humanistic vision are of fundamental significance to the research and creation of contemporary China calligraphy. In the second aspect, we have integrated a team and trained a group of people through such research. It is said that when our school first started to discuss calligraphy teaching, the masters at that time got together to discuss how to take calligraphy classes. At that time, the school invited a group of experts and famous artists such as Sha Menghai and Lu, and gathered a group of outstanding young talents. Today, these people have become the main figures in the inheritance of calligraphy art and are active in the national calligraphy art education and calligraphy art creation. This is the second contribution.
As for the calligraphy education in our school, what is the special significance and characteristics? I think the most important feature is learning calligraphy in the Academy of Fine Arts. It puts calligraphy in an environment with strong humanistic spirit with art as the main body, and puts it in a pattern about world culture and a nation's visual expression to start teaching. Then all the fine arts disciplines, from traditional Chinese painting to western oil painting, all of these interact with calligraphy teaching and complement each other, which has a great influence on students, making calligraphy teaching find its own position in comparison with other fine arts disciplines, making calligraphy teaching and creative research face a fundamental problem of tradition and innovation in fine arts, and get a good comparison and thinking under the circumstances of globalization and localization.
On the third question, I think it is like this: At present, there has been a general call for strengthening humanities education in China University. Some universities offer art, music and poetry appreciation courses to enhance students' interest, while others offer classic reading instruction courses to guide students to pay a distant respect to tradition. All these come down to the most fundamental point, that is, universities should carry forward the humanistic spirit and establish a sense of cultural mission, that is, to cultivate talents with cultural spirit and cultural mission. This is to promote humanities education in universities. How to do this? There are many ways, such as offering art appreciation courses and classic reading guidance courses, which are all good ways. In all these aspects, I personally think that calligraphy is an effective course, which can arouse students' interest and make them communicate with the traditions of China and the cultural spirit of China. First, through this course, let students know about China's calligraphy, understand the shape, image and environment behind China's calligraphy, and improve their interest. Second, in the process of writing, students can understand the China cultural spirit contained in China's calligraphy. For example, we talked about the relationship between reality and reality. China's calligraphy holds a pen, which refers to the relationship between real hand and virtual hand, which he can understand in writing; The relationship between China and Fiona Fang, the shelf structure of China's calligraphy, and the inner and outer circles at the turning point can all be understood in detail. The bookshelf structure of China characters is like building a house. When he writes, he can observe and grasp the cultural spirit of China. It's not empty, it's real, it's loaded, it's intuitive, and it's understandable. Thirdly, by learning calligraphy to understand the history of China's calligraphy, a historical and cultural axis can be virtually established. The main axis of China's cultural history is a living carrier. When you understand this living carrier, you will understand the inner things of China's spiritual changes, and you can also use this spindle to understand the history of the world. So I think from these three angles: first, the interest of calligraphy itself. Second, writing about the experience of China's spirit is intuitive and obvious. Third, understanding the history of China and grasping the integrity of cultural history. It is very effective to carry out humanistic education through calligraphy in this way. So when I put forward this idea at the China Cultural Forum held in Xiangshan Hotel not long ago, it was warmly welcomed by everyone.
Calligraphy education is undoubtedly the major that China Academy of Fine Arts occupies the academic commanding heights in the national calligraphy education pattern. As far as I know, there are many brands of Chinese Academy of Fine Arts. Chinese painting, modern art design and animation all have considerable advantages in their respective fields. Can you talk about the position of calligraphy education in the academic system and structure of the whole Chinese Academy of Fine Arts and the relationship between them?
Xu: Calligraphy education is a special education in our whole art education, which is related to the particularity of calligraphy art itself. Because there is a natural connection between fine arts disciplines, it is related to naturalness and portrait by grasping the natural prototype. Calligraphy is not like this. Although the creation of calligraphy is first taken from the natural image, it has formed its own calligraphy image. However, when teaching calligraphy, we should first copy and understand the rules of China's traditional calligraphy. It has a special book history and a special book theory, so it is not only related to its own tradition, but also to the whole cultural tradition. Therefore, this teaching is very special. However, it is precisely this particularity that provides a good inspiration for the art teaching in China Academy of Fine Arts as a whole, and guides us to think, beyond the perceptual appearance, to think about the inner things, to think about the close relationship between theory and practice, and to understand and experience China's cultural spirit. Therefore, in the structure of the whole art discipline chain in our school, we put calligraphy and Chinese painting in the position of the soul, hoping that it can develop a very internal and overall guiding significance. The success or failure of calligraphy teaching lies not only in the inheritance and development of calligraphy itself, but also in the inheritance and development of the whole Chinese Academy of Fine Arts and even the whole fine arts discipline. Therefore, our school emphasizes that all enrolled students should learn calligraphy and let calligraphy develop as a basic course. The purpose it wants to achieve is also the purpose of college humanities teaching I just talked about, of course, its level is higher.
Holding the International Calligraphy Festival in Hangzhou can be said to have the advantages of "favorable weather, favorable geographical location and harmonious people", and it is also of far-reaching significance for the construction of a cultural province in Zhejiang Province. Could you please talk about the main contents of the first international calligraphy festival in Hangzhou and the characteristics, specialties and characteristics different from other calligraphy festivals?
Xu: Mr. Lu Xun said that there are three beauties in writing, which means the beauty of the heart, the beauty of the sound, and the beauty of the form. China's calligraphy is an art about the expression of Chinese characters. First of all, it is a square character. Its stippling makes the rotating and shelving structure form a unique calligraphy style, so the first thing is the form. Then, China's calligraphy emphasized from the beginning that "a book can only be called a book if there are icons in both vertical and horizontal directions". The icons mentioned here include both natural images and calligraphy images created by people. From seal script to official script, to cursive script and regular script in the late Han and Wei Dynasties, the image of calligraphy gradually became independent and full. Traditional calligraphy theory always compared the image of calligraphy with that of nature. So, what is behind this image of nature? It is the god of nature and the response of the writer's spirit, which forms the unique aesthetic tendency and picturesque writing characteristics of China's calligraphy. This unique aesthetic tendency of emphasizing the god of nature and the writer's spirit is to form a national spiritual atmosphere; To put it mildly is the writer's spiritual atmosphere. Therefore, the second most important thing in China's calligraphy is image. Because of the vertical and horizontal images of the characters themselves, the spiritual image of the writer and the spiritual atmosphere of the nation are brought out. Then, the performance of writing this kind of soft pen reveals the temperament and feelings of the writer, which can achieve the function of communicating between man and nature and activate the intention of life. When you reach a high level, you forget your heart, your hand, your pen and your book, and the harmony between man and nature. This realm is the real return of calligraphy. Therefore, people in China regard calligraphy as a way to cultivate one's self-cultivation, so calligraphy is such a settled thing, such a high thing, which we call the realm. Therefore, calligraphy is first related to form, then to image, and the highest realm is related to environment, so as to reach a high realm, forget the environment and live environment.
Besides China, Japanese and Korean also have calligraphy. Of course, its calligraphy is basically in the same strain as that of China, and it is deeply influenced by China tradition. Different from China, there are Iranian calligraphy and Islamic calligraphy, and the status of calligraphy is quite high. From Istanbul to Iran, from the plains of Asia Minor to the Iranian plateau, portraits are forbidden in all halls of Islam, but calligraphers' calligraphy is hanging in the sky and has a high status. I once had an experience. In Iran, I visited the studio of a Persian calligrapher. I have read his calligraphy. This calligrapher not only has a good foundation of traditional calligraphy, but also participated in the creation of contemporary calligraphy. His handwriting is very big, which looks like a painting at first glance, but he thinks it is still calligraphy. We had a good talk, and I found many differences between China and Iranian calligraphy. The first difference is the difference between tools, materials and methods. He is hard pen calligraphy, and we are soft pen calligraphy. He used bamboo, thinned it and cut it into inclined planes. When running, the inclined planes cross on the paper. But because there is not much ink, the ink in the middle of the stroke is gone, and it is difficult to use it well after dipping the pen. Coupled with the differences in Iranian characters, it is also made up of. Its material is written on paper, not rice paper, but hard paper, which emphasizes the beauty, sharpness, crispness and brightness on both sides of the strokes. Second, the aesthetic requirements are different. Because of the different tools, because it is written on hard paper, it is required to write the aesthetic feeling on both sides of the stroke, so the aesthetic requirement brought out is to be beautiful. China's calligraphy is written on Xuan paper with brush and soft pen, so China's calligraphy puts forward different things, which is a higher level difference. Finally, on the basis of a cultural creation, on the basis of cultural creation, in the synthesis of writing, in the synthesis of a nation's overall feeling, overall expression and cultural expression, they are all different. Different, even very different. For example, there was an announcement concocted by China on his desk at that time. He wrote my name on the cooked announcement with this hard pen. I feel a little late, a little cautious and dry, not so glib. I said it looked good, but he shook his head in disapproval. Later, I wrote the words "elephants are invisible" on his paper. Actually, I am not good at calligraphy. I dare to write this word on the paper written by their first-class calligraphy master. Why? Because I am really proud of China's calligraphy. Therefore, our calligraphy and Iranian calligraphy are different in tools, materials, methods, aesthetic requirements and the root of cultural creation. So it is different in form, image, environment and culture.