Appreciation of Dong Qichang s Regular Script;
Dong Qichang calligraphy regular script 1
Dong Qichang's calligraphy regular script II
Dong Qichang's calligraphy regular script 3
About Dong Qichang:
Dong Qichang (1555- 1636), whose real name is Xuanzai, was named as a Buddhist of Sibai and Xiangguang. Han nationality, from Huating, Songjiang (now Maqiao, Minhang District, Shanghai), was a painter and calligrapher in Ming Dynasty. In the seventeenth year of Wanli, Zhongjinshi was awarded editing by the Hanlin Academy. He became an official of Nanjing Ritual Department and died as "Wen Min".
Dong Qichang is good at painting mountains and rivers, learning from Dong Yuan, Huang and Ni Zan, and his brushwork is delicate and neutral, quiet and elegant; Clean and bright with ink fragrance, gentle and plain; Green, simple and generous. Zen Buddhism is a metaphor for painting and advocates the theory of "Southern and Northern Schools". He is an outstanding representative of "Huating Painting School" and has the beauty of "Yan Gu Zhao Zi". His painting and painting theory had a great influence on the painting world in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Calligraphy in and out of the Jin and Tang dynasties, sui generis, can make poetry.
His works handed down from generation to generation include Rock House Map, Eight Scenes in Autumn, Zhou Jintang Map, Pipa Trip by Bai Juyi, Imperial edict of the Third World, Poem Collection in cursive script, Postscript of Yanhe Stack Map, etc. He is the author of Essays on Painting Zen Rooms, Collected Works of Rong Tai, Notes on Xihongtang (Block Edition) and so on.
Dong Qichang's artistic achievements;
summary
Dong Qichang is known as "Zhang Xing Mi Dong" in calligraphy, that is, he is tied with Linyi Xingdong, Zhang Jin Jiang Ruitu and Xu Tianmi; There is a saying in the painting that the south is east and the north is rice. Mo Shilong and Chen Jiru advocated the "North-South School" theory, that is, the "courtyard style" landscape painting and "literati painting" were divided into two schools. There are countless paintings and calligraphy works created by Dong Qichang in his life, among which the paintings and poems of recent people are an important part. What he called "reading thousands of books" in "Essays on Painting a Zen Room" means that if one wants to be an artist, one must learn from tradition and the ancients. At the age of 65,438+07, he wrote Yan Zhenqing's Many Pagodas when he began to learn calligraphy. At the age of 22, he studied painting with Huang, and later with other painting schools. This practice of learning from the ancients lasted for 80 years and accompanied him all his life. He widely absorbed the strengths of the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties and learned from others, which made his paintings and calligraphy achieve artistic achievements beyond the ancients.
draw
Dong Qichang emphasized learning from the ancients, but opposed pure mechanical imitation. With the increase of experience and the maturity of his thoughts, he inherited the techniques of his predecessors, and did not rely on the "efforts" of others, but selectively chose and integrated his own thoughts. He believes that without his own creativity, it is difficult to express the spirit of the ancients, so it is necessary to reproduce the "Fengshen" of the ancients with his own prototype. With a deep understanding of the gains and losses of ancient painting and calligraphy techniques, he absorbed the methods of many schools, changed at will, and reached a unique realm.
Dong Qichang's landscape paintings generally have two faces, one is ink painting or pale crimson painting, and the works with this face are more common; The other is turquoise, and it is rare to come out without bones. He attaches great importance to the traditional techniques of imitating the ancients, and his subject matter has not changed much, but he has unique attainments in the use of pen and ink. His paintings often imitate the paintings of famous artists in Song and Yuan Dynasties and are advertised in inscriptions. Although he talks about imitating the past everywhere, he is not ignorant of the past, but can get rid of the old mold and form his own style. On the basis of learning from ancient masters, he integrated his painting characteristics into his paintings, rubbing and pointing, so his mountains and rivers are trees and stones. At the age of sixty-seven in the second year of the Apocalypse, he copied The Journey to the West, Fan Kuan in the Northern Song Dynasty, and adopted the comprehensive painting techniques of green color setting, ink painting and light crimson, which fully demonstrated his exquisite figure modeling, unique landscape style and the charm of natural inheritance of painting art. His painting style was famous at that time and became the leader of "Hua Tingpai".
Dong Qichang pays special attention to the skill of using ink. Ink painting is good at splashing ink and cherishing ink. Shade, dry and wet are naturally harmonious, and there is not much pen and ink, but the artistic conception is far-reaching and the charm is endless. You don't have to show off your strangeness, but you are full of gas and fill the paper room. Dong Qichang's colorful landscapes, or using Yang Sheng's boneless method, use colored pens instead of ink pens to complete lines, outlines, hooks, twists and rubs, which are extremely beautiful without being portrayed; Or imitate the pale crimson method of Huang and add the turquoise method of Zhao Mengfu, which is unique, distinct, elegant and fresh, and full of vitality.
Dong Qichang's paintings emphasize freehand brushwork, which makes the beautiful landscape look a little stretched. However, he is also good at calligraphy and poetry. Every time he finished painting landscapes, he wrote poems with lines like silkworms and shining like lightning. Poems, books and paintings in the whole picture set each other off and become interesting, harmonious and lyrical. Dong Shi's creation has thus become a model for literati painting to pursue artistic conception.
For example, the whole painting "Mountain Scenery" is just a dry vision, and the pen and ink are simple, but full of charm and strength. The front of the picture is a corner of the slope, decorated with several bare stones. There are three old trees at the foot of the slope, standing in a patchwork way. In the middle is a tree with leaves, which is briefly outlined, but its branches and leaves can already be seen; Next to the two leaves, give full play to the role of splashing ink, the left straight curve, the right horizontal proud shore, alternating shades, full of vitality. The upper part of the picture is painted with faint ink, and the distant mountains cross, leaving only the outline hidden in the sky, but the mountains are blank, as if smoky and magnificent. The author dyed a few scattered leaves in the distant landscape with thick ink, which were far and near, rich in layers and filled with smoke. There is a small slope on the left, on which several straight trees are drawn with horizontal ink. In the middle of Wang Yang, there is a flood, but there is no pen and ink, but the boundless momentum of the lake is vividly on the paper. This painting is 225 cm long and 75 cm wide. With such a large vertical axis, only a few trees and distant mountains are arranged, so you can grasp the whole picture with distant peaks, wide waters and green trees. This is the result of Dong Qichang's clever use of "Wang Qia splashed ink, Li Cheng cherished ink, and the two factions merged into one painting". The whole picture seems sparse, but there is nothing that can't be taken care of. The pen is fresh and vigorous, subtle and beautiful. It is purely moist, eye-catching, and has the moving momentum of ink and wash. If you didn't master the skill of "painting in space", you wouldn't have such a brilliant layout. Some people think that this is Dong Qichang's inspiration from the book structure of "broad-minded, witty, but not ventilated", which makes sense. The whole vertical shaft is not painted, but it looks beautiful and has the potential of thousands of miles, giving people a feeling of being far and quiet.
For example, in his later years, he wrote "The Snow in Guanshan". The mountains are endless. The mountains on the right overlap and have a heavy momentum. There are many valleys in the middle, cliffs stand tall, villages, jungles, flowing springs and mountain roads are scattered, mixed but not chaotic; In the winding river, although there are dry rocks and valleys, there is no feeling of blockage. There are clouds on the left, soaked in trees and stones, and the roads and mountains are heavy, hidden and obscure, and far-reaching. In the picture, the thirsty pen is used to hook the rocks of the peaks and peaks. The rubbings are extremely accurate and flexible, and the lines flow away briskly, with appropriate density. The concave and convex light and shadow of the mountains and hills are completed by layers of horizontal giant moss and light ink, which is exquisite and impeccable. The artistic conception is simple and profound, full of the poetry of "there are no birds in a hundred mountains and no footprints in a thousand paths". The whole picture is old and clumsy with a pen, with a strong sense of bone, fresh pen and ink, not sweet or vulgar. Draw a cold distant landscape with a sparse pen. A few lines of postscript at the end of the volume make the book beautiful and vigorous, which makes it look bookish, lively and natural, and has its own style. Just as China contemporary painter Nanshan Leshan commented on the artistic characteristics of Dong Qichang, Dong Xiangguang (Dong Qichang) is knowledgeable, so he can put pen to paper with clear ink, wash the mountains, be quiet and profound, and have no dirt.
calligraphy
Dong Qichang's calligraphy absorbed the essence of ancient calligraphy, but it did not imitate it deliberately, and it had the beauty of "Yan Gu Zhao Zi".
Dong Qichang's calligraphy achievement is also very high. Dong's calligraphy attainments are the highest in cursive script, and he is also quite conceited about his regular script, especially small script. Although Dong Qichang was in the era when calligraphy was popular in Zhao Mengfu and Wen Zhiming, his calligraphy was not blindly influenced by these two calligraphy masters. His calligraphy combines the calligraphy styles of Jin, Tang, Song and Yuan, and forms its own system. His calligraphy style is elegant and ethereal, elegant and self-sufficient. The brush strokes are elegant and plain. Use a pen accurately, always keep a positive face, and rarely use a pen that is depressed and dull; In terms of composition, word for word, line for line, branch layout, density symmetry, and strive to catch up with the ancient law. Ink is also very particular, dry and wet, wonderful. Calligraphy in Dong Qichang can be said to be a masterpiece of ancient law. "Six types" and "Eight types" were all refined under his hand. At that time, it was "famous in foreign countries, lacking in volume, spreading among the people, and competing for beauty." ("Ming history? Biography of Wen Yuan). Until the middle of Qing Dynasty, Kangxi and Qianlong took Dong Shu as the patriarchal clan system, and admired and favored him. They even copied Dong's books themselves, often listed on the right side of the seat, and read them in the morning and evening. Kangxi once wrote a long postscript praising his ink: "Huating Dong Qichang's calligraphy is very different. Its elegance and roundness are popular between Chu and Mo, which is beyond the reach of many scholars. Every time you are not careful, you will be unique, such as a breeze blowing and Wei Yun winding, which is quite natural. Taste its structural fonts, all from the Jin people. Gai spent most of his life in Ge Tie, in Lanting, winning teaching, and he was able to move his wrist, but his pen rotation seemed clumsy. ? Yan Zhenqing, Su Shi and Mi Fei are all famous for their grandeur and preciseness, but they are all Jin people. Zhao Mengfu is the second largest king. Its prosperity and origin are integrated, so it is necessary to copy the ideas of various schools, and the spirit of beauty and embellishment is unique. Cursive scripts are also arranged vertically and horizontally, which I appreciate very much. Its use of ink is wonderful, and the shade is unique. "He copied the most, and every time he said that his natural posture and skill were excellent, and it was hard." It is said that Kangxi also wrote "Shu Dong" by himself, which made Shu Donghong popular for a while, and there was a craze for Manchu people to learn from Shu Dong. For a time, the pursuit of fame and fortune almost always took Shu Dong as a shortcut to official career. On the occasion of Kangxi and Yongzheng, his calligraphy had a far-reaching influence, which was unmatched by other calligraphers.
Dong Qichang didn't leave a book monograph, but his experiences and opinions in practice and research can be found in a large number of inscriptions and postscript. Dong Qichang has a famous saying: "Jin people's books take rhyme, Tang people's books take method, and Song people's books take meaning." This is the first time in history that calligraphy theorists defined the aesthetic orientation of calligraphy in Jin and Tang Dynasties with three concepts: rhyme, method and meaning. These viewpoints have played a good role in explaining and guiding people to understand and learn classical calligraphy. Dong Qichang was diligent in painting and calligraphy all his life and enjoyed a long life. Therefore, many works have been handed down, including Pipa Xing by Bai Juyi, Poems of Haicheng, Imperial edict of III, Poems in cursive script, Postscript of Jiang Yan's Piles, Poems Before and After Nikuanzan's Red Cliff, and so on.