Huang Yanpei's Calligraphy: How to Be an Official and Write a Book?

Mr. Huang Yanpei, a democratic revolutionary and educator in China, should be a thorough Shanghainese. His hometown is Chuansha County, Jiangsu Province (now Pudong New Area, Shanghai). 1878, Huang Yanpei was born in Shenzhai, a residential building in Chuansha Town. Speaking of this "literature and history first" Shen Zhai, it is very famous. Many years ago, I made a special trip to Chuansha Town to visit the "inner stone dike" as the former residence of Huang Yanpei-Lane 74 of Lanfentang. This is a two-story brick-wood courtyard facing south, covering an area of about 300 square meters. It was originally the residence of Shen Shuyuan, the Juren and Cabinet in the 9th year of Xianfeng in Qing Dynasty (1859). Shen is a knowledgeable connoisseur, good at poetry and painting. He is also a great collector of ancient books, calligraphy and painting and epigraphy. Even the writer Yu 19 named his collection "Southeast". Among them, the most precious is the fragment of Xiping stone inscription in Han Dynasty that he obtained in 1863. Originally collected by Huang Yi, one of the "Eight Babies in the West", it was inscribed by famous artists such as Weng Fanggang, Bi Shen, Sun Suiru and Wang Niansun. After Shen Shu 'ar got the residual words of Xiping Shijing, he set up a room upstairs in Neishidi, which was inscribed by calligraphers such as He and Zhao.

Huang Yanpei spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Hanshi Classics Room, where he studied Neijing. Because the Huang family has a very close relationship with the Shen family: Huang Yanpei's grandfather Huang Dianmo is Shen Shuyuan's brother-in-law, his grandfather is Shen Shuyu's brother-in-law, and Shen Xiaoyun's son is Huang Yanpei's uncle. Four generations of the Huang family have lived in this house. Huang Yanpei was born here, and a large number of inscriptions, ancient books and modern Chinese and foreign masterpieces in Han Shi Shi Jing provided him with unique conditions for his job study in his youth. When Huang Yanpei was a teenager, his parents got sick one after another. Although it was a nine-year private school, he was educated by his mother when he was a child, but it was his uncle Shen Xiaoyun who influenced him. Huang Yanpei's study, morality and patriotism are mostly guided by his uncle. He wrote a poem entitled "The Portrait of Uncle Xiaoyun", with the inscription: "In the past hundred years, Chuansha Cultural Center will promote my uncle, Mr. Shen Xiaoyun's home, Mr. Shen's family studies, literary knowledge, and do everything, just like drinking to sober up. After the Sino-Japanese War, I was taught to be new and backward. " Huang Yanpei became a scholar at the age of 21 because he read a large number of subsets of classics and became familiar with many classic works. At the age of twenty-three, he was admitted to the special class of Shanghai Nanyang Public College, including first-class teachers such as Cai Yuanpei and Zhang Yuanji, and the most famous students such as Li Shutong. However, it wasn't long before Nanyang Public School was dissolved. At the request of his uncle Shen Xiaoyun, he took part in the Jiangnan Provincial Examination for the first time and won easily this time. Source: Calligraphy Home, Calligraphy Home China Calligraphy Learning Network.

Although Huang Yanpei is open-minded, accepting new studies and persistently pursuing vocational education and democratic revolution, his old school foundation, eight-part essay and calligraphy skills are very deep, which is mainly due to the influence of family studies and hard work in his youth. Huang Yanpei's calligraphy is rich in pen and ink, and he is free in both directions. Although his regular script also has a little "cabinet-style" style, it is ingenious and elegant after a little change. In his later years, Huang Yanpei wrote a memoir, Eighty Years, which recorded in detail his childhood study in Hanshi Classic Room. Although he didn't mention the copying of calligraphy posts in Linchi, a large number of rare calligraphy posts and famous steles in Han Shi's classic room must have made him feel at home and opened his eyes. If he hadn't been immersed in it all day and studied hard for years, he would have created his own unique style of writing, which was round, vigorous, elegant and natural? When Zou Taofen founded Life Weekly, the word "life" was inscribed by Mr. Huang Yanpei. After the inscription, he also analyzed: the word "fate" is a bit stubborn and dares to work hard; I enlarged the mouth of the word "live", which means that everyone has food and symbolizes that everyone has something to say.