Characteristics of Cao Fa
The formation of Cao Zhang is the beginning of the mature period of cursive script art, its main characteristics are that it retains the waves of official script, its shape is straight, its characters are independent, and it occasionally uses Lian Bi to paint, which simplifies the structure of official script, but its strokes are clear and discontinuous, just as Zhang Huaiguan said, "the characters are different", but its own evolution and development also includes factors such as continuous cursive script.
In addition to a large number of bamboo slips, Cao Zhang's masterpieces include the works contained in Urgent Chapter, Ode to a Teacher, Le Yi Post, Huang Xiang Urgent Chapter and Chunhua Pavilion Post. In the Yuan Dynasty, with the efforts of Zhao Mengfu and Song Ke in the Ming Dynasty, this calligraphy style was revived.
Although Cao Zhang is a cursive script, it is different from today's cursive script. It has established cursive script writing rules and has its own set of rules, which is the basis for Cao Zhang's writing to be accurate, easy to understand and beautiful.
Zhang's method is rigorous and has great statutes. The brush strokes have been changed and refined as much as possible, and every point of the painting is well-founded and has a source. If you don't conform to cursive calligraphy when writing, it is easy to be specious, which hinders reading and is not easy to be beautiful. Learning Cao Zhang should pay attention to the following points:
(a) are not connected with each other, and the word spacing is uniform.
Throughout the chapter, the words are almost independent and have no connection. There are few connections between strokes, so it is much easier for beginners to manage individual words and write the font of each word. In fact, the overall atmosphere of Cao Zhang must be harmonious, seamless and coordinated.
(2) the font is flat, the pen is reduced, and the picture is connected.
The shape of Cao Zhang has developed from the horizontal and vertical of official script to rectangle, circle or square, which is much richer than the original structural type. This is a vivid change caused by the cursive script itself. In the treatment of glyphs, the opening intention of the palace in the official script is still retained.
(3) Take advantage of the trend to write and exert the pen power.
Most of Cao Zhang's pens follow the trend directly, and the long horizontal strokes still show the meaning of official script. The collection of pens also obviously retains the way of collecting pens in official script, especially in the place where pens are collected, and the writing method of collecting pens is exerted as much as possible. After dinner, it's simple.
(4) Turn from circle to arc, and turn to front easily.
In order to improve the writing speed at the turning point of the brush, Cao Zhang saved the trouble of lifting and bending, and changed it into an arc formed by the circular rotation of the wrist, which greatly simplified the complexity of using the pen when writing. This writing method is related to Cao Zhang's early evolution from official script.
(5) The strokes are in harmony with the official intention, and the symbols are replaced with each other.
In the simplification of Cao Zhang graphics, there is another phenomenon, that is, simple strokes are omitted, adjacent strokes are connected, two strokes are turned into one, and even many strokes are connected into one. After omitting strokes, some strokes are symbolized, and in the process of convention, some rigid alternative symbols appear, which is very convenient to use and brings great convenience to writers.
For the sake of brevity, some words even break the rule of writing from left to right and write directly from right to left. Nowadays, some font changes in Weeds originated from Cao Zhang.