First of all, we must understand the structure of the brush.
A brush consists of a pen tip and a pen tube. The nib is divided into tip, waist and root according to its length; According to the height of hair quality, it is divided into pre-pen hair, two pre-hair, cushion hair and fur.
Secondly, we should know the types of brushes.
Brush can be divided into large characters, Chinese characters and small characters according to the size of the pen head; According to the stroke length, it can be divided into long front (soft front stores more ink), center and short front (just front stores less ink). According to the texture of raw materials, it can be divided into hard hair (rabbit hair, wolf hair, etc. ), soft hair (wool, chicken feathers, etc. ) and doubled two brushes (the hard pen is the main hair and the soft hair is the auxiliary hair). According to the source, it can be divided into: tire brush, wolf brush, rabbit shoulder purple brush, deer brush, chicken brush, duck brush, brush, pig brush, mouse brush, tiger brush, ox ear brush and so on. According to the shape, it can be divided into round type, pointed type and luxurious type.
Brush made of goat hair
This pen is made of goat hair. Wool pen is soft in texture and absorbs a large amount of ink, which is suitable for writing with round and solid stippling. More durable than a wolf's brush. Most of these pens are lake pens, which are relatively cheap. Generally, there are big pens, Jingti (or pen lifting), Lianfeng, Feng Ping, Ding Feng, Gaifeng, flagpole, Jade Bamboo Shoots, Yulanrui and Jingzha.
Wolf brush
This pen is made of the hair on the tail of a weasel. The rat tail produced in Northeast China is the most common, and it is called "North Langhao" and "Guandong Liao Wei". Wolf hair is stronger than wool pen and suitable for writing and drawing, but it is not as durable as wool pen and more expensive. Common varieties are Zhu Lan, freehand brushwork, landscape, flowers, Ye Jin, costume patterns, red beans, small seiko, deer and wolf hair calligraphy and painting (made of wolf hair and deer hair), leopard and wolf hair (made of wolf hair and leopard hair), special long-peak wolf hair, super long-peak wolf hair and so on.
Purple brush
The writing pen is made of rabbit hair, so it is named for its purple, black and bright colors. This pen is tall and straight, sharp and sharp, and it is more elastic than wolf hair. Rabbit hair produced in Anhui is the best.
Double-ended brush
Double-stranded brush is made of wool and other bristles in a certain proportion. It combines rigidity with softness, which not only keeps the water storage of wool, but also has the strength and elasticity of hardness. It can be dyed, scratched, hooked and pointed, and it is easy to master with both rigidity and softness.
The ratio of soft and hard bristles of double-stranded brush directly affects its performance. The names on the pen container often indicate the matching proportion of various animal hairs. For example, the hard brush made of rabbit hair and wool is "nine purple One Sheep" and "Seven Purple Three Sheep", and the softer one is "Five Purple Five Sheep". Wolf hair and wool are combined into "nine wolves and one sheep", "seven wolves and three sheep", slightly soft "five wolves and five sheep" and "white clouds" of large, medium and small sizes. Baiyun Pen refers to a double-stranded brush with wolf hair as the column and wool as the cloak, which is suitable for general painting and calligraphy, and is characterized by moderate hardness and more ink storage. In addition, horse hair or rabbit hair is added to the hard brush post to make the nib hard.
The best long front, long front, medium long front and medium short front have different performances. Long feng is easy to draw beautiful lines or write fluent cursive script, while short feng is easy to draw dignified and accurate lines or thick regular script, which is both in the middle and is commonly used by most people.
Four standards of writing brush
In the old days, the wool of Hu Pen was subdivided into many grades. Today, few people can meet the standards of the past.
There are four basic criteria for making and choosing pens, namely, four natures, namely, uniformity, sharpness, roundness and health, also known as the four virtues of pens.
"Qi" is the basis of the nib, and "Qi" means that the nib is flush at any angle. The unevenness of the front directly affects the sharpness, roundness and health of brush strokes, while uniformity makes the brush strokes of calligraphy and painting easy to change. The quality of fur can also be seen on the new pen. Good fur is straight and flat, while inferior fur is dull, uneven and of different lengths.
"Tip" refers to the pen tip, which should be sharp and smooth. Because the nib is made of animal hair, it is mostly thick and thin when weaving. After the pen tip is closed, it gradually tapers from the root. The pen tip should be sharp from the root to the front, and a few are thin at the root and slightly thick in the middle. The nib should have a light-transmitting "oil peak", which is composed of the tip of animal hair. It's obvious when facing the light. The longer and sharper the better. This not only shows that the pen selection process is fine, but also shows that the pen tip is good. The pen tip is the guarantee of painting and calligraphy.
"Circle" is the overall symmetrical circular shape of the pen tip at rest. It is easier to see the shape of a new pen that has never been opened. The contour line from the tip to the root of the pen must be symmetrical, smooth and round, and the belly of the unopened new pen should not be obviously raised, otherwise it will swell after opening, and it will be easy to crack when painting and writing, making it difficult to use.
"Jian" means that different strokes have their own moderate firmness, firmness and durability. A good brush will have a certain resilience after the tip of the brush touches the paper. This rebound force can make the lines full of strength and toughness under the control of the painter's body, arms, elbows and wrists. A bad pen has no elasticity, and the nib will "lie" on the paper after touching it, which is often difficult to use.
The ancients said, "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first." . Among the painting and calligraphy tools, the brush plays the most important role, with the largest number of manufacturers and the most common users, and the quality of the brush itself has also changed the most. In the early 60 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the brush industry experienced several ups and downs, from individual and private to public-private partnership, to collective ownership and ownership by the whole people, and then to individual and private ownership. It is undeniable that individual and private pen makers can make better brushes now, but the overall level of the pen-making industry has generally declined.
Selection and collection of brushes
In the past, it was commonly known as "old pens are like grass and old ink is like treasure". The current investment boom in the collection has made "an old pen like a treasure".
After 1949, the writing brush, as a daily writing tool, continued to be produced by the ancient method. However, after the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan in the 1970s, the writing brush, as a commodity earning foreign exchange through export, was exported by the foreign trade departments of all provinces and cities in China in a unified quota. At this time, the quality of brush is for the purpose of earning foreign exchange through export. Among the "pens, ink, paper and inkstone" produced in the same period, the market price is the lowest and the appreciation rate is the smallest. The price of the best four-foot rice paper produced in 1980s can be close to 2000 yuan, a piece of the best oil smoke ink can be sold to 1000 yuan, a piece of end-dipped inkstone can be sold to several hundred thousand yuan, and a piece of the best "delicate and smooth front" brush is only about 100 yuan, which is used for collection.
Today's brush production is developing in the direction of gift and luxury. People demand that the nib is easy to use and the pen is beautiful. Pens by Princess Hongxiang, Lu Mei and Ivory are very popular.