On the surface, China's calligraphy art is ordinary, but in fact, it is just writing Chinese characters on Xuan paper (of course, other writing carriers are sometimes used) with a brush dipped in ink. It seems that everyone can do it, and there is nothing mysterious and unique. But on the contrary, art that looks so simple in form is not easier to master and understand than those that look much more complicated in form.
Her superficial simplicity contains infinite richness.
First of all, simple control is complicated.
The form of calligraphy art is the simplest-only Chinese characters, only the combination of black and white, plus the change of paper color and mounting form and the collocation of red seals at most. However, in this simplest form, it contains infinitely varied and infinitely rich forms. As a part of a complete work, the forms of seal cutting and mounting art are also rich and varied.
Second, be quiet and move.
China's calligraphy is an artistic form that appeals to vision, and his works are finally embodied in the form of paper. Whether hanging on the wall or on the desk, it is a static appreciation. Good calligraphy works always give the viewer a sense of movement. Any work of art is the materialization of the creative process, and it is possible to find traces of the movement process from its final form. However, the dynamic process of Chinese character writing is unique: it has clear directionality, non-repeatability and irreversibility. There are basic norms for the beginning, line and collection of stippling writing, as well as the stroke order and composition arrangement of font writing, and its movement direction is clear to any writer who has been trained in Chinese character writing. Its motion process is often not allowed to be repeated and irreversible, so its directivity is quite clear. This feature is very close to music and dance.
Third, there are images both vertically and horizontally.
Chinese character is an abstract symbol, and its structure and stippling are unrealistic from the beginning. After the gradual transformation of characters, various writing forms have been developed, especially after cursive script, official script and regular script, the remaining "things" in seal script have completely disappeared. Although the horizontal, vertical, left and right sides of regular script have their own images, they are not replicas of natural images. As for each word, it is more likely to contradict the appearance characteristics of the object itself. For example, the word "sun" has become a square, which is completely different from the circular characteristics of the sun image.
At the beginning, the glyph of Chinese characters was established on the basis of pictographs, but in the concept of ancestors, Chinese characters were created by saints who "looked up at the round music of Kuixing and looked down at the image of turtles and birds, drawing on all the beauty". This concept has a far-reaching influence, which has aroused people's demands for calligraphy art: writing images with shapes. I hope to show or appreciate the great beauty of nature in abstract points, structures and even rules.
In the stage of ancient Chinese characters, especially before the seal script, Chinese characters followed the glyph, and the form of natural images remained in the appearance of Chinese characters in a relatively intuitive way. This feature is easy to make people associate with the beauty of nature when reading, so it is possible to go beyond the meaning of words and directly enter the appreciation and pondering of formal beauty, and then require the expression of natural beauty in words.
Fourth, books draw for the heart.
Yang Xiong said: "Words are also sincere; Books, heart paintings. " This sentence was originally used to describe the meaning of the article, but later it became a classic exposition of the relationship between calligraphy and people. Liu Xizai's book overview; He said: "The Yangtze River takes books as its heart, so books are also learned." Raise it to the definition of the aesthetic essence of the whole calligraphy art.
Art is the creation of human beings. Calligraphy, like all other arts, inevitably reflects the characteristics of the creative subject's mind, temperament, cultivation and even technical ability. As early as the end of the Han Dynasty, when the artistry of calligraphy was initially recognized by the society, Zhao Yi had already pointed out this point: "Every mortal has different qi and blood and different bones and muscles. Close-minded and clumsy. The ugliness of books lies in the heart and hands. " It is said that what Zhong You did was more concise: "Handwriting is also a world; Beauty is also a person. "