How to Study Ou Yangxun's Inscription of Liquan in Jiucheng Palace?
According to the inscription of Liquan in Jiucheng Palace, in the summer of the sixth year of Emperor Taizong's Zhenguan reign (AD 632), Li Shimin found a sweet spring named Liquan in Jiucheng Palace, which was a summer resort. Wei Zhi wrote an article and Ou Yangxun wrote a monument, which stood in Jiucheng Palace. The current address is located in linyou county New Town, Shaanxi Province, with a distance of xi 'an 163km. Although the palace Ganquan no longer exists, the tablet of "Jiucheng Palace Liquan Ming" has been preserved by future generations because of its high artistic value of calligraphy. It is now stored in the northwest hillside of Tiantai Temple in linyou county, and the local people's government has built a tablet pavilion for proper protection.
Jiuchenggong Liquan Inscription is one of the masterpieces of Ou Yangxun's calligraphy, and it is also a wonderful flower in China's regular script series. It is the pinnacle of regular script for more than a thousand years and occupies an extremely important position in the history of calligraphy in China. Beginners of this monument can trace back to the calligraphy of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and get a glimpse of the famous calligraphers after Tang and Song Dynasties. No matter what kind of calligraphy they turn to, it is more convenient. Therefore, it is not only valued by scholars of past dynasties, but also a model for learning regular script, which has great influence.
1. The main characteristics of Li Quanming's paintings in Jiuchenggong
(1) Horizontal painting is flat when the pen is closed, which is different from horizontal painting of regular script in Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan. The lower part of horizontal painting is relatively flat, the radian is not obvious, and there is no pen angle. Such as the word "up". The ratio of short cross and long cross is very different, which forms a strong contrast, resulting in compact middle and stretching around.
(2) The unique brushwork of European regular script is that his hook painting retains the rigid shape of the official script "goose tail", and the hook is natural, stretching, warm and not slippery.
(3) The turning point of the folding painting is mostly written as a square folding, and the folding angle is clean and neat, but there is no obvious prominent folding angle (that is, "shoulder").
2. The main features of the Ming structure of Jiucheng Palace.
The structure of Jiucheng Palace is almost impeccable. It not only meets the requirements of "parallel equidistant", but also has more variety and even stroke spacing, avoiding being dull by changing the thickness of strokes themselves, that is, there is irregularity in order, which increases the sense of flexibility. For example, the right half of the "dragon" becomes three horizontal points; In the right half of "query", "day" is to the left; The two vertical lines in the middle of the word "dot" have changed.
3. The structural features of Liquanming in Jiuchenggong are as follows.
(1) left contraction and right relaxation, seeking middle penetration and right penetration.
In order to adapt to people's sense of visual balance, the structure of Chinese characters is generally from left to right and from top to bottom. Ou Yangxun put more emphasis on this technique, stretching the right part of horizontal painting or other strokes, making its structure more distinctive and even creating a feeling of "crossing". For example, the main stroke of the word "Nian, Ti" is drawn more horizontally on the right than on the left, but it does not affect the beauty of the word at all, but adds a little interest.
(2) Chinese characters are slender in shape.
Generally speaking, European styles tend to be vertical. Some people commented that his book was "Ge Ji Sen Lie", referring to his slender handwriting, which gave people a sense of integrity and solemnity. The left and right vertical pens, tight at the top and wide at the bottom, often make the middle part protrude to the center of the word, and the spirit is quite strong. Take the words "Ge", "Bi", "Tai" and "Lao" as examples. After measurement, the aspect ratio of these characters is close to 0.6 18, which accords with the golden section ratio and belongs to formal beauty. It doesn't look good when it's longer.
(3) Central contraction, stretching around.
Contraction and extension are contradictions of unity of opposites. European fonts are slender and straight, which has a lot to do with reasonable expansion and contraction. Only stretch, not stretch, irregular and unsightly. Central contraction means that all strokes are concentrated near the center, and the middle part is written tightly and densely, so that the surrounding positions are vacant, so that the horizontal and oblique strokes as the main strokes may extend, forming a tall, towering, slender and tall posture. At the same time, because of the large extension space, the font can be smooth or dangerous, resulting in association. For example, the word "Wei" is long on the left and short on the right, which is formed by stretching: the "Yu" part of the word "Jian" is close to the left and stretched to the right.
(4) Contrast exaggeration
If you look carefully, it is not difficult to find that some words in Jiuchenggong Liquan Ming are particularly large, some words are particularly small, and the small words are mostly thick strokes, while the big characters are thin because of many strokes; There are also differences in the length and thickness of a word, which constitutes the characteristics of strong structural contrast and moderate exaggeration in European books. Generally speaking, words with more strokes are larger, and words with fewer strokes are smaller. This is similar to the Northern Wei Dynasty's Monument to Zhang Menglong.
Another example is the small horizontal line in the middle of the word "spring". The contrast is extremely obvious, but it does not affect the structural proportion. If we treat the ratio of "dedication" and "six" equally, it will either look bloated or delicate. The word "Wu" is consciously written with a long hook, which is exaggerated and unique.
Visible, Ou Yangxun deserves to be a master of structure. His regular script is not only rigorous in overall composition, but also unique in style. At the same time, he skillfully mastered all kinds of scripts and left an eternal reputation for this immortal "monument".