"Manduo" is a word that Mr. Sha Menghai gave him when he was 40 years old. The original intention is to hope that his goal is big and far-reaching, to know the details in life and to know the details in learning. Since then, Mr. Zhu Guantian has kept in mind the teachings of Sha Lao and devoted himself to art.
Understand Mr. Zhu Guantian's life experience and academic research, and then examine Mr. Zhu Guantian's calligraphy works, you will deeply feel that this is a calligrapher who has made great achievements in calligraphy creation, and strives to put theory into practice, pursue high taste and form a unique style. Mr. Zhu Guantian started with tradition, followed the footsteps of his predecessors and tried to reach the peak of tradition. He is indeed an admirable artist who has thoroughly studied the ancient tradition of China's book circle. All his creations, like his artistic views, are unique and insightful.
Zhu Guantian is a rare artist in China's calligraphy field. He followed the traditional track and was down-to-earth. With his profound pen and ink skills, erudite talent and extraordinary creativity, he created the unique artistic style of China's calligraphy. His works are full of elegant or clever interest, permeated with his rich spiritual world and the light of his personality core.
Looking closely at Mr. Zhu Guantian's works, I feel so elegant. His calligraphy creation emphasizes seeking novelty in differences, seeking fairness in danger and seeking unity in diversity. Unify Gu Zhuo's taste with the charm of beauty, and seek novelty and naivety in the majestic and ancient.
Mr. Zhu Guantian's works attach great importance to the creation of formal beauty of calligraphy. Contrast and unity are the main principles of formal beauty, and a calligrapher's pen and ink skills and artistic skills are often reflected in formal beauty.
Using a pen is the most critical part of calligraphy. In Zhu Guantian's works, the pen is full of interest, with three-dimensional sense and texture. Its pen and ink flow freely, and its glyph is graceful and broad. In the contrast between points and lines, it is ingenious and clumsy, and everything is strange, giving people the beauty of neutralization. Its structure emphasizes the contraction, abduction, left and right, and harmony with nature. He is good at writing books with a round pen, which shows his simple, implicit, vigorous and prudent style. It is a kind of beauty of "hiding bones and holding tendons, containing literary quality".
The beauty of strength in Mr. Zhu Guantian's works can be summarized as the strength and courage based on brushwork and the beauty of Fuyang. As can be seen from his works, he is good at exerting himself, and he is calm in pleasure and calm in silence. This requires a calligrapher to have a very skilled ability to control pen and ink, and Mr. Zhu Guantian is obviously handy.
In composition and layout, his works are full of words, clear-cut and spiritual reunion. He is used to spacing, which makes the characters long and flat, scattered in size and full of ancient rhyme. The turning pen breaks the meaning, the momentum is connected, and it is very stone-like. And always embodies the rich connotation of beauty.
What I appreciate most is the unique style beauty in Mr. Zhu Guantian's works. That embodies all his spirit, is the natural expression of his artistic personality, temperament, implication and emotion in his works, and is a spiritual realm that runs through the whole works. It is the perfect unity of law and meaning, form and spirit, reason and interest, personality and face.
Generally speaking, there are two main sources and tracks that form the unique aesthetic feeling of Mr. Zhu Guantian's calligraphy creation. One is to focus on Cao Zhang, and the other is to pursue simplicity.
The simplification of bamboo slips in Zhu Guantian's calligraphy is highlighted in the simplification of bamboo slips themselves, both in structure and brushwork.
Perhaps, when he took Cao Zhang as the main object, he not only secretly loved his teacher, Mr. Sha Menghai, but also yearned for the noble and majestic charm of Cao Zhang.
In addition, Cao Zhang's art plan itself is not perfect, which only gives future generations a variety of development possibilities. Mr. Zhu Guantian keenly perceived and absorbed Cao Zhang's pen and ink form suitable for his spiritual characteristics, academic mind and aesthetic taste, thus forming his own artistic characteristics: "The structure is strange but not strange, the pen is heavy but not stagnant, smooth and loose, and endless." While pursuing simplicity, Mr. Zhu Guantian also pursues escape, which is becoming more and more intense in contemporary books. Mr. Zhu Guantian advocates "harmony is the most important thing", which can also be seen in his works. According to his own words, it is "turning over a new leaf." In fact, Mr. Zhu Guantian, with his profound knowledge and solid skills in seal script, took a road of combining the quietness of stele study with the elegance of two kings. Therefore, Mr. Zhu Guantian's pen and ink not only pursues elegance, but also contains elegance. Mr. Zhu Guantian is also good at printing. As the vice-president of Xiling Printing Society, he never forgets the theory advocated by Mr. Pan Tianshou that "art is not unique, but universal, not limited to three unique skills of books, paintings and poems, and stone should be added as four links".