It is also said that his skills are close to the Tao
Lu Hongxing
I have been writing for more than 20 years, and I can’t just write in a daze even if I think about it. Although I am a disciple of the ancients, after all, the ancients are insignificant and cannot teach through words and deeds. I have to use my own brain and hands to seek support from some theories and methods. Along the way, I also read various calligraphy theories, and I just took it a step further. The so-called "riding on a donkey to read the songbook - wait and see". In this process, I also accumulated something that I am very sure of; for example, the phrase "skills are almost as good as the Tao", I firmly believe in them. Skills are techniques, methods, perseverance and perseverance, and the hard work of turning your elbows into calluses and grinding them through with iron inkstones.
Everyone in the past dynasties has a process of diligent practice and a quantitative accumulation: Zhong Yao went to Baodu Mountain to practice calligraphy, and the wood and stone were all black; "Exhaust all ink"; Monk Zhiyong "retired his pen and turned it into a tomb"; Zhao Mengfu practiced calligraphy for ten years without going downstairs... There are countless examples like these. A person in the Jin Dynasty even wrote an article attacking people who were obsessed with practicing calligraphy. The name of the article seems to be "Feicao". The article said that people who write cursive script stay up late at night and write with bald pens and dry inkstones. They are so obsessed that it is almost ridiculous.
Seeing this kind of thing always makes people sigh in despair. I practice this way myself. Sometimes when I practice, I feel like I don’t know how white the east is. Think about the fact that you still have to deal with the work of eating tomorrow, so go to bed quickly! This is basically how I have written over the past twenty years. I feel that I am not very talented and cannot take the path of enlightenment. Stupid people have stupid ways. If you write ten pictures, I will write a hundred. You write for an hour every two days, and I will write for two hours a day. This is my "stupid uncle" experience. If the saying "genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration" is true, then my experience may be reasonable.
When I was in the military academy, there was a machine gun shooting instructor named Ding Jiati. The most famous "gun king" in the entire army, the machine gun is used as a sniper rifle. Incredibly precise. Machine gun shooting is the most difficult among gun types. It’s not easy to shoot! We were so envious of Ding Jiati's unique skill that we all asked him for tips. He said: practice! Then he told us: "Classmates, I have been practicing machine guns for more than 20 years. The secret is the truckload of bullets. My marksmanship is fed by the bullets!"
Zhuangzi said a very good thing The story of killing a cow - the cook Ding explains the cow. The cook in the article killed the ox so well that it was astonishing! There is a sentence in it: "The knife was used very little, but it was already dissolved, just like the soil was thrown into the ground." The meat was piled on the ground like soil dumped on the ground. It’s no wonder that Chef Ding was so proud that he “stands up with the knife in hand and looks around for it.” It's no wonder that Wen Huijun asked: "Hey, that's great! Is your skill like this?" It means: "It's wonderful! How can it be so good?" Cook Ding threw the knife away and wiped his bloody hands. : "What I like is Tao, which is advanced by technique." What Cook Ding means is that it doesn't matter whether he is awesome or not. Now my research is at the level of discovering patterns. Are there any rules in calligraphy? Is there any sexual intercourse? So how to find it?
A few years ago, I was talking about calligraphy with Mr. Li Song in Beijing. Someone here mentioned that there is a serious phenomenon of following the trend in calligraphy circles today, with similar styles and lack of individuality. This is a big problem. Everyone likes to say it. At this time, Mr. Li Song interjected: I think what is lacking in today's book world is not something personal, but something radical. This was an unfinished sentence. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but later I slowly realized that the radical things Mr. Li talked about were not the most basic techniques that students should master. If you talk about personality before you have mastered and mastered the basic techniques, is it just building castles in the air? Of course, technique is not the same as art. When it comes to the level of art, there are many factors. But good art must be supported by superb techniques. Techniques are the foundation. "If the foundation is not strong, the earth will shake." Regardless of temperament or style, if you don't master solid techniques, everything means nothing. As the saying goes, "the form and quality are already there, the temperament can be seen." If the form and quality are not present, there is no need to talk about temperament. Therefore, Zheng Banqiao said: "With a single-minded spirit and decades of hard work, gods will tell you, ghosts will tell you, people will enlighten you, and things will develop. If you don't work hard and seek quick results, you will only end up being arrogant for a few days, and only for a long time." It’s just embarrassing.”
The ancients understood this truth deeply, so they attached great importance to the training of techniques. They do not participate in competitions, join book associations, or compete for seats. The heart is calm, fame and fortune are thrown away, the water in the pool is dark, and seize the day and night.
Wen Zhengming lived to be ninety years old. He "learned calligraphy for a few days and taught himself the Thousand-Character Essay every day." It shows the degree of hard work. Many of Wen Zhengming's exquisite regular scripts came from his later years. He wrote "Return to the Past" when he was eighty-two years old, and "Qian Chibi" when he was eighty-six years old. It is said that when the old man died, he was still sitting in front of the writing desk, writing a petition. Before his death, Huang Binhong chanted with hand-drawn words: "What kind of things are there to envy people? Apricot blossoms in February and laurel in August; who urges me? The lights are on at the third watch and the chickens are at the fifth watch." These sages are really examples of living and learning. From here we can see why the ancients wrote so exquisitely and purely. It was because they were well versed in the techniques and used them, which ultimately enabled their works to reach the highest realm of art.
Technique is a kind of skill at hand. Writing Yan Liu well is one kind of skill, writing Er Wang well is another kind of skill. Both real grass and official seal scripts have different technical requirements and require different skills. This This kind of skill is actually the ability to control the brush: press it down, lift it up, make it as square as possible, as round as possible, as elegant as possible, as powerful as powerful... How to create this ability? One is to learn from the past, and the other is to learn from difficulties. The techniques passed down by the ancients are the result of long-term research and are also proven artistic laws. They have gone through the waves of history, and all the bad ones have been washed away, while the essence has remained and become classics and models. What's more, "the ancient quality is now beautiful" and "the ancient quality is now thin". It is not difficult to understand why calligraphers of all ages have advocated learning techniques and gaining nutrition from ancient classics. The reason why the masterpieces of ancient masters have become classics is because they practiced their techniques and perfected them to perfection, reaching a height that is difficult for ordinary people to reach. Therefore, I would rather simply think that techniques with higher difficulty coefficients are advanced techniques, the richest and most exquisite techniques. Experience makes the greatest calligrapher, and if you want to become such a great calligrapher, you must first be a technical superman. < /p>
Su Shi himself also said: "If you write a mountain of pens, it is not enough, and you will have to read thousands of volumes before you can understand the spirit." This truth has also been proven by history.
However, how dare people who didn’t even write about baldness believe Lao Su’s words!
People like Su and Huang, whose words are full of "the spirit of learning and writing", first mastered the art to suit the heart, then mastered the heart, and finally achieved the ease of mind and hand. Having a smooth heart and hands means reaching the point of "tonghui". "At the time of Tonghui, people and books are all old", "just like their learning, their talents, and their ambitions". In this way, "skills" will eventually advance to the "Tao" stop.