"Calligraphy" is the most important work of Sun Guoting, a calligraphy theorist of the Tang Dynasty. The calligraphy realm described in it is that "at the time of the general meeting, people and calligraphy grow old", which is fascinating.
"Tong", as the name suggests, can be understood as mutual communication, mutual understanding, and mutual fulfillment, without obstacles or even loss.
"Hui" refers to the result of communication, understanding, and perfection, that is, people and books are mutually exclusive.
In the early stages of learning calligraphy, even if you have a deep understanding and understanding of calligraphy, your hand control of the brush must be very naive. It is impossible for you to control this brush to write according to your will. Produce ideal works. Only by constantly learning and training certain techniques, so as to express one's artistic pursuit and artistic personality as one wishes, can we reach the point of "Tonghui", but it is just Tonghui, and it cannot speak of something very important. A high realm, so what is the highest realm?
Sun Guoting also gave an explanation for this highest state: "People and books are old." What does old mean? Mature! It also means reaching the top of the world of life and calligraphy.
Mr. Feng Youlan, the most famous philosopher in China, divided the realm of life into four levels. From low to high, they are the natural realm, the utilitarian realm, the moral realm and the heaven and earth realm.
In the realm of heaven and earth, heaven, earth, and humans become one. According to Laozi, they are in an extremely natural state of freedom, peace, and tranquility.
The most famous classification and description of the realm of calligraphy is the Qing Dynasty calligraphy theorist Bao Shicheng's book "Yizhou Shuangji", which divides the realm of calligraphy into divine grade, wonderful grade, and powerful grade. There are five categories: , Yipin and Jiapin.
It can be seen from this that the classification of human realm and the classification of calligraphy realm have some similarities, which is quite interesting.
It can be found that after being a human being has reached the highest realm - the realm of heaven and earth; creating calligraphy has also reached the highest realm - the realm of divine quality, that is what Sun Guoting said "both people and calligraphy are old".
In this realm, the most typical characteristic is that both the person and the brush controlled by the person can achieve the most natural and free state of "doing whatever you want without violating the rules."
"At the time of Tonghui, people and calligraphers grow old." Life and calligraphy go hand in hand. What a noble state this is!