Why do you have to learn regular script before learning calligraphy?

This question is really difficult to answer, but it is easy for me to give an example. For example, for children, do you think it is better to eat finely processed infant food or just what we adults usually eat?

The reason is obvious, of course, it is best to eat food suitable for the child's age.

So, back to your question. Why do you want to learn regular script? Because he is a "foodie" suitable for beginners to learn.

In the same way, even for infants, a large part of what they eat is gradually formed by processing what they can get now. So there is also a sequence here, but for children, only fine processing is suitable for them.

In the same way, so do we learn calligraphy. As a beginner in calligraphy, he is a baby in the sense of calligraphy. Such a child learns calligraphy, and I think it is difficult to digest other things without the basis of eating some food.

Therefore, when we study calligraphy, we don't have to follow the development law of calligraphy mechanically and rigidly. Only what suits you is the best.

In the calligraphy system, although regular script appeared very late, it basically appeared together with running script and cursive script. Therefore, the so-called late appearance in the question actually means that regular script is the last mature script, while other scripts, such as running script, are perfect, fully mature and even self-contained in Wang Xizhi's hands.

However, it was not until the Tang Dynasty that regular script was gradually legalized and standardized, which is also the characteristic of the development of regular script, and it matured relatively late.

Therefore, we usually think that regular script is a symbol of the art of the Tang Dynasty, but it is not. Regular script appeared even earlier in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but it reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty, so it will give us the illusion that regular script developed late.

In addition, as I said before, regular script is a "children's food" suitable for beginners to learn, and there is no intention to belittle regular script at all. On the contrary, regular script has the highest artistic value and the greatest difficulty. Beginners should learn regular script first because of its characteristics.

Regular script has no hairspring, the strokes are relatively independent, the writing speed is slow, it can take care of the characteristics of beginners accordingly, and it is easy to copy and master.

So many factors decide that regular script becomes the first choice for beginners. Of course, according to this standard. In fact, seal script official script can also be used as an introductory book to learn. It's just that all previous dynasties used regular script as an introduction to authenticity, so it was handed down.

In a word, it is a blind superstition to decide the order of calligraphy learning according to the order of calligraphy. People are human because they can know the rules and use them to make profits for themselves. We should not be slaves to rules, but should be masters of rules. There are actually not so many restrictions on learning calligraphy.