Su Dongpo's famous sentence: "Calligraphy is prepared in the right book and overflows in the grass." He also said, "Real growth leads to growth, and growth leads to grass. It' s really like standing, walking like walking, and grass like walking. No one can walk without standing. " The general meaning of these two sentences is that to learn calligraphy, you should learn regular script first, then running script, and then cursive script.
Extended information Huang Tingjian once said a sentence to this effect: "If you want to learn cursive script, you must be proficient in real books". However, if we carefully scrutinize Su Dongpo's and Huang Tingjian's writings, we will find that they emphasize the main purpose of learning regular script, which is the necessary prerequisite for learning cursive script well in the next step. However, since then, it has gradually evolved into: "Regular script is the only choice and the only foundation of calligraphy. If you don't write regular script well, you won't master calligraphy. ……"
In fact, the introduction of regular script originated from the history of China's calligraphy style evolution. As we know, regular script was originally formed in Wei and Jin Dynasties, especially after the Western Jin Dynasty, and gradually became the mainstream writing. In the Tang Dynasty, regular script reached its peak, and the evolution of calligraphy style ended here. After that, there was no new font in China's calligraphy, which eventually evolved into the concept that regular script was suitable for the introduction of calligraphy from Tang Dynasty to Song Dynasty.