Because Dong Qichang’s calligraphy received supreme praise during his lifetime, people at the time called it “one of the top three masterpieces of poetry, calligraphy and painting highly praised by domestic scholars and scholars.” He was also the last accomplished person in the Ming Dynasty who traced the tradition of the Two Kings, and had a profound influence on the style of calligraphy in the following hundreds of years. In fact, after Dong Qichang, there has never been a master of calligraphy in the history of Chinese calligraphy who can compete with him.
He is worthy of his name and can be called the king of Chinese calligraphy and calligraphy. Even in the late Qing Dynasty, when the idea of ??stele studies was prevalent, many bigwigs were dissatisfied with him, but they did not dare to deny his achievements.
Introduction to Dong Qichang's calligraphy
Dong Qichang "There are no calligraphers who have learned the ancients and remained unchanged", emphasizing that the purpose of learning the ancients is to seek change and innovation. Treat the calligraphy techniques and styles of the ancients as the "bones" of your own writing, and then the "muscles, blood, and flesh" will change with your life attitude, career experience, etc., or increase or decrease, become larger or smaller, fatter or thinner. , thick or light, strong or weak.
Gradually integrate into the writing state. The most outstanding "change" in his technique is to apply the changes in "ink color" in landscape paintings to calligraphy creation. In terms of "interest", he injects the life experience of avoiding political risks into calligraphy and painting creation, and brings it to the extreme. Express one's own mental state in calligraphy and painting, and integrate one's own spiritual insights with the ups and downs of life.
The "change" between him and Li Si of the Qin Dynasty's seal script, the "change" of Han Zhongyao's change from official script to regular script, the "change" of modern and ancient writing by Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, the "change" of Zhao Mengfu's retro style, Xu Wei's "chaotic but not chaotic" "change" and so on are also changes from the ancients, but they have different styles and are unique. By studying the change process, track of change, change process and gains and losses in Dong Qichang's calligraphy style, through the study of this "change", I try to provide some enlightenment for calligraphy scholars.