Traditional Chinese painting is the art of line, and it pays attention to the technical requirements such as translation and twisting in the process of writing. The specific expression of brushwork in form is the five-character formula of "flat, round, staying, heavy and changing", which emphasizes twists and turns, takes landscape as words and paints with words.
Chinese painting is an aristocratic art, but it is not the kind of aristocrat with court background in the traditional sense. Court aristocrats are bound to power and always pursue something seemingly perfect, but the aristocratic spirit of Chinese painting is from the heart, in the bones and purely spiritual.
Chinese painting is an art of annealing. Annealing requires age conditions, and being full of vitality is unfavorable to the creation of Chinese paintings. The perfect Chinese painting pays attention to the convergence of qi into an internal force, something that is not very eye-catching at first glance but has a taste, that is, inner beauty.
Chinese painting is the art of pen and ink. Huang said that Chinese painting "pen and ink are nothing more than beauty", and pen and ink are extremely important, but most contemporary people pay attention to schema, or specific techniques, and stress visual impact. For example, when it comes to the seal cutting of the old man Baishi, everyone's eyes are often focused on his single-knife carving method, and they often ignore the aesthetic information about culture such as dignity, fortitude and strangeness, but only unilaterally understand the "happiness" feeling of the old man Baishi and the so-called contrast between density and density. Of course, this is related to the contemporary reality, because calligraphy and painting have changed from the art of study to the art of exhibition hall, and the original notes and scrolls played by friends have changed into the art that can be displayed on any occasion. This situation has never been encountered before. Then, I lost a very important thing, and that is the power of introspection.
Zhao Mengfu, a Yuan Dynasty man, put forward that "painting is expensive and has ancient meaning" in order to revitalize and restore the essence of China's painting tradition. When Dong Xuanzai was young, he often argued with Zhao Mengfu that his calligraphy was too familiar and close to vulgarity. In his later years, he felt that Zhao Mengfu was superior to him and was completely convinced. Huang advocates "ancient meaning", which can be traced back to the origin of the ancient three generations, that is, mottled, clumsy, old and spicy bronzes produced by rust, which is a simple, primitive and simple aesthetic feeling. It contains both internal beauty and internal force, which makes it possible to overlap, leak marks and draw sand into a cone. Although the two are different, they both pay attention to reservation and introversion, using ancient methods in secret, having laws but not showing them, seemingly powerless, and dying. Have the same effect.
If Nami still needs to resort to vision, then the internal force needs to resort to feeling. Pencil power permeates the back of the paper, which is the second beauty of using a pen. The first beauty is that the pen is on the paper and you can hold the paper. Painting mountains can be heavy, painting water can be light, and painters can live, that is, holding down paper. When using a pen, the force in the wrist should be hidden in the pen and not exposed outside. The front should be hidden, not exposed, and don't show strength in the painting. On the surface, it seems to be sloppy and weak, but in fact, it is not hard, the power blooms from the inside out, and the brushwork is full of tension. Of course, the brushwork should not be too rigid. If it is too rigid, it will be hard. It will never disappear or shrink. Will be subtle, without showing emotion. This shows the importance of calligraphy to painting, that is, the depth of calligraphy skill determines how far a person's artistic path can go, the quality of his works and the level of his artistic achievements.
(Editor: Liu Xian)