The goal of Yu Youren's "Cursive Cursive Movement" is to standardize all kinds of irregular cursive scripts written for thousands of years, formulate a standardized cursive script that is easy to understand, easy to write, accurate and beautiful, and widely promote it, so as to save time, facilitate use and promote China's culture and art (see the preface to Yu Youren's "Normative Cursive Script, Normative Cursive Script and Hundred Words Preface"). This goal is clear. )
Did he achieve his goal? We can almost say with certainty: No, don't say that people who write cursive script now rarely create calligraphy according to the standard configuration of "standard cursive script", that is, at that time, apart from the sages of the standard cursive script society, the standard cursive script had little impact on society, let alone popularization.
As for the high popularity of Yu Standard cursive script, it is mainly because Yu Youren, as a modern calligrapher, has a high popularity, which has little to do with the intrinsic quality of the standard cursive script itself. This is the reality that we should face.
Of course, "standard cursive script" itself is valuable. Judging from Yu Xiansheng's original intention, it is undoubtedly a failure to take cursive script standardization as a "movement", which should also be the basic standard to measure it. As for the demise of the standard cursive movement related to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, this cannot be a reason to deny that the "standard cursive" itself has congenital defects.
Reflection 2: Can cursive script become a "proper body"?
Yu Youren's "standard cursive movement", whether as a movement or as an "idea", is impossible to succeed.
This mainly depends on the "normal" philology or calligraphy art law of cursive script. Since the Zhou dynasty, the word "Zheng" has been commonly used in society in all dynasties in China. Generally, these figures have to be sorted out by special personnel, and then promulgated and implemented by government forces.
There are biographies of teachers during the reign of Wang Xuan, biographies of Qin Dynasty (including Carving Stones on Mount Tai), Li Shu in Han Dynasty (Xi Shi Ping Jing in Han Dynasty), regular script in Tang Dynasty (Kai Shi Cheng Jing in Tang Dynasty), simplified characters of New China in 1950s, etc. 15. However, it is not difficult to find that the "seal script" or "simplified characters" of Xiao Zhuan, Li Shu and even New China are all "official scripts" in a broad sense, that is, the strokes have clear shapes, clear stippling, no linkage, readability and exemplary.
The reason why fonts will continue to evolve and develop is related to the convenience of daily writing and the continuous planting of grass in orthography, but the establishment of orthography in the next stage is to "shape" on the basis of planting grass. For example, people think that the writing of seal script is too complicated and difficult, so the daily writing is careless, so ancient Chinese characters appear. After the "format" of Qin and Han Dynasties, a complete official script (especially the "eight-part essay" here) was established. Although Yu Youren's Standard Cursive Script introduced the principle of "symbol", which reduced the "twining" in the characters and made the characters independent, it was still a cursive script without being standardized. It is an extravagant hope that such a font can be remembered and widely used by ordinary people. At this point, Yu Lao is somewhat idealistic.
Comparatively speaking, many simplified characters promulgated in New China are taken from ancient cursive script, but after being standardized, they become a kind of "norm". This can fully reflect the reason why the "standard cursive movement" could not succeed.
Reflection 3: Aesthetic Connotation of "Grass" in "Cursive Script"
The reason why Yu Youren's "standard cursive script" can't be popularized among ordinary people is clear, so what is the reason why calligraphy learners don't accept "standard cursive script" as a standard configuration? In other words, from the perspective of calligraphy creation, everyone will refer to the "standard cursive script", but it is another matter to actually write it.
Although there is a "beauty" in the four standards of standard cursive script proposed by Yu Lao, realistically speaking, as an artistic creation, the configuration provided by standard cursive script is not beautiful-we can't simply say that Yu Youren's own cursive script is not beautiful. Yu Xiansheng's cursive script is free, simple and simple, with a heroic spirit. Inappropriately speaking, Yu Youren has the power to "reinvent himself". Most people use the standard cursive configuration, but it is difficult to write a decent cursive.
Why? The "standard cursive script" is written in one word, and the characters are independent and unconnected, and the connections within the characters are also minimized, and each character is the same size, even and neat. This is against the spirit of cursive script. Cursive script should be a highly artistic style, showing a free, transparent and exquisite artistic realm in the changes of surrounding associations, the correct size, the shaping of characters, the dryness and wetness of light and shade, and the opening and closing. If we must standardize this style, it must be at the expense of artistry, which is not in contradiction with Yu Youren's original intention, mainly for practical purposes. We can even say that Yu Youren's idea is similar to that of many scholars influenced by European and American cultures who advocated abolishing the Latin movement of Chinese characters in the first half of last century.
The fourth reflection: the value of "standard cursive script"
Although we think that Yu Youren's "standard cursive movement" is a failure as a movement, we can't deny the full value and significance of Yu Youren's "standard cursive movement". Yu Youren's "Standard Cursive Movement" series of works is actually a work to sort out and determine the cursive script of modern cursive script system in China in the sense of configuration.
Therefore, its significance is first of all the value of studying China's cursive forms. Secondly, as far as the significance of learning calligraphy is concerned, the standardized form of "standard cursive script" and the concept and method of "standardization" are of great value for us to understand and master cursive script, especially for beginners.
There have been similar books in history, such as Hundred Rhymes of Grass Tactics in Ming Dynasty, Doubt of Grass Tactics in Ming Dynasty, Sage of Grass in Qing Dynasty by Zhu (Shi Gu) and Doubt of Grass Tactics by Wang Youdun. Later, Hundred Rhymes of Grass Tactics was updated and adapted into 400 words. Comparatively speaking, Yu Youren studied and arranged cursive forms the most deeply.
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