Author Lin Xiu from June 5, 2006 to 2006 10.
After Tomb-Sweeping Day last year, I had the honor to visit the new work "The Book of Zhou Dunyi's Love for Lotus" by Mr. Xia Xiangping, a famous old calligrapher. His books are full of energy, elegant and ancient, and his intuition is convincing. After the exhibition, I used my interest to write four words and four sentences at the end of the volume. The poem says: "People and books are ancient, elegant and unique. The literary mood is interesting, it reflects light. " This poem is my evaluation of his "elegant and unique" artistic works of official script, and also expresses my sincere respect for an "old and old" calligrapher.
I have known Mr. Xia Xiangping for twenty-five years, and we are in the Standing Council of China Book Association. He is frank and honest, treats people warmly, talks rationally and has a lot of insights. People often call him "Xia Gong". Summer Palace is the kind of person who can pour out his heart without considering euphemism and caution. As the earliest rising calligrapher in the contemporary world, he is good at all kinds of works, especially Bafen, and has a unique style, so he has a far-reaching reputation at home and abroad.
In my contact with the Summer Palace, one thing has impressed me so far. It was in the spring and evening of Renshen (1992). At that time, Quyuan Forest of Monuments in Guluo, Hunan Province planned to carve the book Lisao into a huge mound, which was erected as the main monument for a long time, and sent someone to Beijing to draft it. Because of the great task and the pressing time, calligraphers in Beijing and Tianjin dared not agree, but the Summer Palace accepted it happily. It took more than half a month from searching information to writing a book, and * * * wrote a four-foot announcement of 16. Zhang Bi's overall view, magnificently, as if in one go. To turn Li Sao, a 2,500-word masterpiece that shocked the history of the town, into a masterpiece requires not only skill, but also the artist's valuable courage. As an artist, without such courage and verve, it is impossible to reach a new peak in his artistic journey. Since then, the book world has become more and more awed by the generosity and boldness of the Summer Palace.
The mainstream trend of contemporary China's calligraphy creation is still to strive for flexible innovation on the basis of inheriting tradition. It should be said that the keen pursuit of novelty has become an opportunity for contemporary calligraphers to rise up and change. Therefore, whoever can seize this opportunity, construct and realize his new aesthetic ideal of change and transformation, and contribute more excellent works to the contemporary, may be called a real contemporary calligrapher.
Summer Palace began to pursue new changes with its unique official script style in the 1980s, and made great efforts. Today, the ancient and interesting works of Li Shu that we see are precisely the success of Xiagong's calligraphy. It is not difficult to interpret his deep thoughts and good intentions in thinking and changing.
The reason why Xia Gong has made such great achievements today is, I think, first of all, that he turned to benefit from many teachers, only focused on art, and was able to establish his own artistic image of calligraphy on the basis of rich traditions. The study of official script in the Summer Palace never sticks to a monument or a post, nor to several common Han Li models. He is far-sighted and broad-minded, regardless of the times, sects and books, thus absorbing more artistic nourishment. He not only studied inscriptions on inscriptions on bronze inscriptions, bamboo slips and cliff carvings, but also studied Erguan, Song Gaoling Temple Monument, Mount Tai Diamond Sutra and Zheng Daozhao Monument for a long time. Whenever he comes across a book that he thinks he can learn, he will ponder it over and over again, regardless of ancient and modern times, regardless of predecessors and successors, regardless of domestic and foreign countries, regardless of tradition or modernity or even avant-garde, and earnestly copy it to gain a thing or two. Because Xia Gong studied official script from Han Li for decades and made extraordinary efforts, on this basis, he not only mastered the basic techniques of official script, but also mastered the general law of official script changes. Finally, he can follow his own aesthetic pursuit, take the spirit from the appearance, turn vulgarity into his own, and form his own personality of official script. Compared with the method that most Chinese learners are familiar with, that is, learning only one monument without thinking about other things, this undoubtedly requires more efforts. However, broadening one's horizons and collecting books of various schools regardless of the times have made the appreciators feel the charm of a new artistic image of official script, which integrates Han bamboo slips and inscriptions and has the style of cursive script. This is the success of the Summer Palace.
Secondly, he accumulated a lot of funds, mastered these funds, and explored a successful road suitable for the development of artistic personality.
Over the years, in the practice of calligraphy creation, Xiagong has constantly appreciated the profound meaning of Bao's "pen is close to seal, body is close to truth, and book is also official". From then on, the Summer Palace attacked from both inside and outside the characters, learning the brushwork of inscriptions on bronze, seal script and ancient characters, while learning from Wei Bei, Jin Cao and Tang Jie. At the same time, he strengthened the accumulation of external work, made in-depth exploration in philology and literature, and finally achieved great success.
All artists know that it is easy to get the likeness of calligraphy and painting, but it is difficult to get the likeness, and it is even more difficult for people who get the likeness to be superb and self-contained. The Summer Palace knows that "it is better to have a body than to have a brushwork; It is better to get the brushwork than to get the day "(see Hanlin Cui Yan), so he learns to inherit the tradition only to get its essence; Thick accumulation and thin hair, just for mastery. After a long time, what I see is based on emotion, and I can't see a beautiful dress with a monument or a post, which has its own charm. For example, in the overall layout of his works, in order to cultivate a dignified and elegant atmosphere, he often makes a slight adjustment to the word structure of official script, blending it with the brushwork, lines and brushwork interest of cursive script, hoping to create feelings with interest and move people with feelings. Therefore, in recent years, the works of official script have changed from skillful to familiar in the changes of upright, vertical, irregular and scattered. In addition, in order to reflect his artistic pursuit of advocating simple Gu Zhuo and vigorous, he paid special attention to the word "astringent" in his works. Sese, that is, late submission and slow entry, is a way of writing. It requires that when writing, the pen tip must complete writing in the action of lifting and pressing, which seems to be non-linear. Using a pen too fast will drift, and too slow will affect the posture, consistency and charm of using a pen. There are both moderate recognition and skillful operation here. Only in this way can the sense of power of official script and the rhythm of pen gestures be corrected, which is really impossible for an old hand.
Reading the calligraphy works of the Summer Palace not only gives us beautiful enjoyment, but also leaves many enlightening thoughts for contemporary calligraphy art creation. Calligraphy is profound and has a long history with Chinese characters, which is incomparable to other arts. Any kind of calligraphy in the field of calligraphy has a long history, from birth, development, social recognition to inheritance from generation to generation. Without the generous riverbed of traditional culture that lasted for 5,000 years, it is superficial to understand this ancient and youthful calligraphy artist. Therefore, people who study any kind of calligraphy in isolation and are complacent about their slight achievements will slow down the development of the essence of calligraphy because of shallowness, and ultimately have no chance of success. From this point of view, the success of the Summer Palace is not unrelated to his insight into the art of calligraphy. Only by interpreting the calligraphy works of the Summer Palace from this perspective can we truly understand the Summer Palace.
Writing about this, I suddenly remembered the famous saying "My heart is unclear, I have no way to see, my ambition is inaccurate, and I have no work" in Lin Bu's Trouble Record in the Song Dynasty. The pure and indifferent character of Xiagong, which is easy to write super-style, is the best display of his way as an artist. Although he has entered seventy years, he still has the ambition to seek up and down and change his mind, which is really respectable. I think we can use "the beauty of a hundred schools of thought can't be surprised by one person" (Liu Kai's Writing with Ruan Yuan in Qing Dynasty) to evaluate his achievements of "all books are old and all books are new".
China Art Newspaper, June 5438+10.