What is the relationship between China's calligraphy and painting?

Calligraphy and painting are two extremely important art forms in China's ancient and modern art categories. They are like a pair of twin sisters with the same root and homology, showing elegant charm on the big stage of China culture and art, so there has been a saying that "calligraphy and painting are homologous" since ancient times. It is found that the important aesthetic links of painting art are related to the aesthetic links of calligraphy art. First of all, China's writing and painting are similar in origin. In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yanyuan first expounded the homology of painting and calligraphy in his book The Origin of Painting. He believes that when creating characters, calligraphy and painting are the same, and there is no division. There are a lot of figures and characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronze inscriptions in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, which have pictographic and referential functions. Exploring the origin of calligraphy and painting art from these pictures and words, we can easily find that China's calligraphy and painting art had painting before Chinese characters; Chinese characters first, then calligraphy. In other words, the art of calligraphy is based on painting and Chinese characters. Calligraphy and painting are sister arts related by blood. Secondly, China's calligraphy and painting are similar in brushwork. One is that tools are the same. The creative tools of China's paintings and calligraphy are brush, ink and rice paper. Second, the brushwork is the same. Both calligraphy and painting emphasize "using a pen", that is, the methods, rules, techniques and rules of painting with a pen. Painting and calligraphy are inseparable from the plastic arts of lines, and the evolution of "using lines" in painting and calligraphy is from simple to complex. The strokes of China's calligraphy and painting-stop, disease-Xu-reflect the ever-changing speed of human emotion and nature. The mood ups and downs, mood swings, where are you going, impassioned and so on expressed in China's paintings and calligraphy are all contained in the line-stop. There are many quips and aphorisms about "painting with books" by famous painters in history. Tang Yin in Ming Dynasty said in "On Pen and Ink Painting": "Meticulous brushwork is like regular script, freehand brushwork is like a saint, but when writing, you turn your wrist skillfully. It can be seen that China's painting has reached a higher level by applying the "pen" of calligraphy to his creation. Third, Mohism is of the same origin. Both China's calligraphy and painting emphasize "Mo Yun". As the saying goes, "ink is divided into five colors." Five colors are generally summarized as thick, light, dry, wet and burnt. The function of "ink painting" is to make the painting lighter, more backward and brighter, while in calligraphy, it is to make the lines more charming, more imposing and more interesting. Gong Xian in the Qing Dynasty said: "Ink (gas) plays a role when you see the brushwork;" When there is ink in brushwork, brushwork begins to have life. Pen and ink are not fortifications. " Wang Shigu of the Qing Dynasty put it more specifically: "To draw a picture, you should use thick and thin pens, thick and thin ink, and dry and wet pens. ".If it is uniform, it will be light! "Third, China's paintings and calligraphy have similarities in artistic conception. The highest level of similarity between calligraphy and painting is moderation, introversion and elegance. And this highest pursuit that runs through it takes "personality" as the ultimate goal. This will inevitably lead to their mutual correlation and interdependence. Tracing back to the literate Sect, China's paintings and calligraphy originated from the golden mean thought of China sages, pursuing the unity of heaven and man and expressing "the virtue of gods and the love of all things". Because China has a vast territory, a long history and profound cultural heritage, poetry, calligraphy and painting, music and dance born in this land have formed this huge cultural system. In the historical evolution, they constantly enriched and developed the oriental civilization through self-restraint, self-correction, self-abandonment, self-criticism and self-innovation.