The figures in calligraphy are different from artistic figures and "pavilion figures" specially designed for the imperial examinations in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Imperial academy's official document writing is very neat and rigid, so the words in the pavilion are derogatory, which is of course more different from the words in ancient and modern printed books. The lines and characters of calligraphy are flesh and blood, bones and muscles, spirit and strength, thoughts and feelings, life meaning, dynamic beauty, process beauty and charm beauty.
The three forms of calligraphy are strokes, characters and lines (or the whole work), which are integrated into a system of calligraphy beauty.
In this system, strokes are the most basic, because words and lines are composed of strokes. We can think of words and lines as the trajectory and arrangement of stippling. Many formal beauty elements in stippling, such as strength, movement, rhythm, change and harmony, are also formal beauty elements in words and lines. Of course, the proportion of these elements in the three is different.
Stroke emphasizes brushwork. Liang Qichao, a famous scholar in modern times, emphasized the importance of pen power to calligraphy in an article, saying: "Writing depends on pen power, and whether there is pen power determines the quality of words. The presence or absence of pen power, as soon as you write it down, you can see it immediately. "
How can I show my strength with a pen? Sun, a book critic in the Tang Dynasty, said, "All wonderful people should come back together and keep their backs." By backbone, he means the internal strength of using a pen and the external strength of drawing on paper. Dropping some ink dots on paper at will is spineless and powerless; For a person who can't write with a brush, dragging a pen on paper like painting with a brush is spineless. The correct way to write with a brush is to hold the pen straight, and the pen forms a 90-degree angle with the paper.
The grip of using a brush
So how do you show your strength in your lines? There are various means, and here are only two that are easy to understand.
One is to use more centers. The center is to keep the pen straight when writing, keep the main hair in the center of the stroke to be written, and the auxiliary hair on it naturally falls on both sides. The pen used in the center has bones in the words and is smooth and natural. Opposite the center is the flank, which is sharp and steep because it deflects the cue ball to one side of the line.
The second is to press skillfully. This is an important means to create a sense of magic and rhythm. Lift, that is, when writing, gently lift the pen upward; Pressing is the opposite. Press down hard. Lifting the pen can make the lines look thin and powerful, light and smooth; Press the pen to make the lines thick and powerful, dignified and calm.
The thick or thin, light or heavy lines in a word are mainly obtained by this method of lifting and pressing hard. We can take the word "big" in regular script as an example.
Lift and press: press where there is a red dot, and lift the rest. The red arrow in the middle is the direction of the pen.
It is not an easy task to deal with these two diametrically opposite ways of exerting power. When the writer lifts or puts down the pen on time, he has to deal with two different ways of exerting force: walking and staying, that is, one tries to move forward, and the other tries to make it stay or not to walk so fast. This situation is just like a basketball player moving forward with the ball. He ran with the ball while patting it. This skill cannot be achieved overnight.
Qian Dian seal script
The frequency of lifting and pressing changes of various books is different. Because of the pursuit of quick strokes, cursive script changes less, cursive script and cursive script change more than cursive script. There are many changes in the rise and fall of official script, especially the horizontal painting of silkworm head and goose tail and the knife. Press the most commonly used equivalent italics. Only the seal script is basically unchanged, and it uses the center, not the side, because the seal script pays attention to the uniform line thickness. But seal script has its own way to show its power. One of them is to express strength with fast and slow lines and lines with consistent shades. Qian Dian (1741-1806), a master of seal script in the Qing Dynasty, has strong and round words, fast and slow strokes, and thick and dry pen and ink, which shows how superb the author is. In his later years, his right body was withered, and he wrote seal script with his left hand, which was equally excellent.