For example, Zhang's "Moonlit Night on the Spring River". There are two different ways to appreciate the title: one is to divide the title into two phrases or two beats, that is, Chunjiang is one beat and Moonlight is one beat. According to this rhythm, "Chunjiang", as a phrase, emphasizes "Jiang" and "Spring" is only a modification; "Night" is the protagonist, while "Flower" and "Moon" are both supporting roles in "Flower and Moon". There are only two such objects of appreciation: river and night, while "spring", "flower" and "moon" are all ignored. Another way is to take spring, river, flowers, moon and night as the objects of appreciation, so the feelings obtained by this way of appreciation are completely different. For example, when enjoying the moon, emphasize the beauty of the moon. If the "moon" is regarded as a decoration, that kind of beautiful feeling will not come out. Therefore, only by taking these five images as the objects of appreciation can images and images appreciate each other. When Zhang emphasized the moon, he said, "The flowers on the moon are like graupel.". Under the control of the moon, the whole flower forest seems to be looming, changing the nature of flowers. "Frost doesn't fly in the air", and the thin cloud in spring is gone; "There is no white sand in Tingshang", and a large area of white sand in mainland China disappears. Flower forest, frost and beach are integrated by moonlight, which highlights the artistic beauty of moonlight.
This reminds us of the appreciation of calligraphy. Wang Sengqian said, "Look is the most important thing, followed by form and quality"; When he arrived at Zhang Huaiqi, he said, "Look at the spirit, but you can't see the font." Calligraphy is expressed in Chinese characters, but Zhang Huaiqi said, there are no words, why are there no glyphs? Because hieroglyphics participate in the creation of spirit, hieroglyphics are unified by emotions. What is touching is the relationship between stippling and stippling, and the relationship between knots. People's appreciation has shifted from the visual level to the psychological level, which is the charm of calligraphy, that is, the enjoyment gained from calligraphy appreciation: the feeling of existence does not exist; Something that doesn't exist feels there. Only in this way can what exists be discussed in artistic and aesthetic essence, and what does not exist can be appreciated and recognized by us.
For another example, in Li Bai's Difficult Road to Shu, five of the first seven words "Alas, the danger is too high" have no specific meaning. How can we highlight "difficulty"? Then, "it is difficult to get through the Shu Road, and it is difficult to go to the sky" suddenly appeared a sigh of "difficult". If we appreciate this poem, although the first seven words are all function words except "danger" and "height", they give people unlimited imagination and grasp the difficult scene of Shu Dao as soon as they come up. As for the arrangement of these seven words, I have seen different versions. Some connect the first three function words together and add a comma after them. Some separate the first three words with a comma in the middle. Some put the first three words in a line, one word in a line, to strengthen the exclamation. The last arrangement leaves room for imagination, because it emphasizes the difficulty of "Shu Dao". Therefore, while lamenting the moonlight, Zhang also filtered out the images of flowers, frost and sand, and melted these images into the moonlight and people's memory of the moon. So is calligraphy. The reason why "only look at the spirit, but don't see the glyph" is because the glyph participates in and enters the spiritual creation.
According to the above methods of Tang poetry appreciation, back to the theme of calligraphy appreciation, I think there are five transition periods of calligraphy today:
First, the appreciation of calligraphy art has entered a transitional period from looking to looking. The combination of ancient calligraphy and practicality, practicality, reading is of course the first. Nowadays, most of the calligraphy is dedicated to calligraphy creation, with the purpose of hanging or displaying, which is of course the first. Practicality means writing articles, poems, letters, etc. The author's attention is mainly on the choice of words and sentences; Specializing in calligraphy creation, such as exhibition, collection for others or giving to friends, the author's attention is mainly on artistic creation, highlighting the aesthetic feeling. This feeling of beauty is seen, not read. Since it is a transitional period of two ways of appreciation, it shows that both ways exist at the same time. The difference is that from the original reading to reading, it began to change to reading first and then reading.
Secondly, the appreciation order of calligraphy art has entered a transitional period from stippling, structure to composition. The ancient people's appreciation of calligraphy was generally from small to large, that is, first look at the pen, then at the knot, and finally at the composition. This is because there are fewer ancient works. Although the works gradually became larger after the Song Dynasty, they were not as grand as they are today. Moreover, after the ancient works became larger, the calligrapher's sense of composition was not as strong as it is today. With the development of social productive forces and the change of thinking mode, the development of calligraphy has gained momentum. When creating, calligraphers first consider the overall effect of the work, focus on the overall situation, and emphasize the thoughtfulness and harmony of the composition. Therefore, to appreciate calligraphy, first look at the rules, and then look at the knot, stippling and pen. The composition is closest to people's hearts and directly reflects the spirit of the times.
Third, the appreciation of the details of calligraphy art has entered a transitional period from looking at the pen and painting to looking at the contrast. Details determine the style of the work. However, the understanding of what details are has changed a lot. In the past, we looked at the nuances of pens and the layout of structures. Today, look at the contrast between square and circle, right and horizontal, fast and slow, closed and released, open and closed, sparse and dense, broken and continuous, dry and wet and many other elements. The richer the contrast, the more harmonious it is, the deeper the connotation and the more touching the details. The details of the past are the essence, and the details of today are the contrast.
Fourthly, the appreciation angle of calligraphy art has entered a transitional period from simply looking at pen and ink expression to looking at blank expression at the same time. In fact, from the perspective of color, calligraphy is composed of black and white, but for a long time, people have seen more black, less white and even white. The white in the works is like the green space, park and water surface in the city. How can a city live without "white"? Calligraphy is the same. Without white, there would be no calligraphy. Calligraphy is white, tangible, meaningful and affectionate, and it can talk and breathe. White is fun, the Buddha is empty, and there is no Tao.
Fifth, the theoretical construction of calligraphy art has entered a transitional period from empirical analogy to rational speculation. Our society has entered the information society, but our calligraphy theory still stays in the classical Chinese stage, in the world of figurative metaphor, such as cracks in the house, sand painted on the cone, broken hairpin, Yin Yinni, Longmen Yuelong, Phoenix Que Crouching Tiger, mountains and rivers, the sun and the moon, etc. These not only puzzled foreigners, but also puzzled China people. Then, there is an urgent need for calligraphy to adapt to the people's growing cultural and spiritual needs, for calligraphy to go abroad, for improving the construction of calligraphy theory, for theoretical speculation, and for many excellent theoretical articles in this field.
In short, calligraphy has entered the public space from the study, and calligraphy creation and appreciation must adapt to this change.