Mr. Qi Gong has an excellent personality, which needs to be clarified first. But good character doesn't necessarily mean that books can't be picky. After the death of Mr. Qi Gong, his calligraphy remains in the world, that is to say, it is independent of his character, or it can be said that his character is not important to young people who study calligraphy, so it is necessary to analyze his books separately. The purpose of my criticism of Mr. Qi Gong is, of course, my attitude towards calligraphy criticism-in order to minimize some of his adverse effects. So what are the bad effects of Mr. Qi Gong? Isn't the bad influence caused by some influential contemporary calligraphers much more obvious than that caused by Mr. Qi Gong? Didn't ancient calligraphers have a bad influence? The question also boils down to, how do we evaluate the good influence and bad influence of a calligrapher, and what is the standard? Before criticizing Mr. Qi Gong's calligraphy, let me explain what I mean by good influence and bad influence.
The first is a wide standard. This is the first criterion for the good influence of calligraphy works. Even if there are obvious defects in calligraphy works, if they can be broadened, they will bring good influence. For example, Wei Yuan's inscription calligraphy (Northern Wei, Eastern Wei and Western Wei) is easy to find its obvious defects, but Wei Bei's calligraphy is extensive, so it has little influence on us to learn from the calligraphy of the Northern Wei people (the inscription of the Northern Wei Dynasty is the most prominent in Wei Bei). However, the bad influence of Tang Kai was much greater than that of the Northern Wei Dynasty. The reason is not that Tang Kai has any obvious defects, but that they are perfect in the sense of pursuing practical and symmetrical beauty. However, because it is not broad enough, it has a great adverse effect, which is manifested in the difficulty of writing official script after learning, thinking that cursive script based on the blueprint is easy to be sweet and vulgar, while learning cursive script based on Korea and Wei Bei has less bad habits. Relatively speaking, Yan Zhenqing is more broad-minded than other famous writers in the Tang Dynasty. However, because his regular script skills are too vivid, it is easy to limit the imagination of learners, while Han Bei and Wei Bei can provide unlimited imagination because of their broad minds. Here we can see what I mean by being broad-minded: for learners, every word provides new ideas, and there is no established routine or procedure. Of course, when I say bad influence, I mean that as far as young people appreciate it, a mature artist (it depends first on his resistance to bad influence when he was young) can turn decay into magic, not to mention the Tang Monument evolved from Wei Bei, he will consciously filter out bad influence, and he can also see the simplicity in the poem, even the flying in The Story of Birds and Insects-but this is a problem that needs to be discussed separately.
Followed by personalized standards. First of all, distinguish between narrow personality and broad personality. For example, Evonne's thin gold book and Jin Nong's lacquer book are all very individual and have reached a state of agitation. However, their characters are too extreme in pen and knot, and extreme people will certainly not be broad-minded, so their characters must be narrow-minded, and narrow-minded characters are easy to form a bad influence. For example, a Gao Shi was born with foot disease. Scholars believe that his stumbling is a characteristic of high fitness, and he regards chronic diseases as his personality. The personality of chronic diseases is narrow and scholars should avoid it. The individualization of Wang Xizhi, Huai Su and Wang Duo is based on a broad foundation. Their calligraphy, like Mozart's music, shows its individuality with endless changes without losing its inherent laws. Their rich imagination makes people appreciate how superb freedom the combination of square Chinese characters can achieve in the plane space, but their quirks and habits have nothing to do with them, so their calligraphy has hardly caused any bad influence. With the above-mentioned personalized standards of width and width-based, let's analyze the gains and losses of Mr. Qi Gong's calligraphy, that is, to analyze what aspects of his calligraphy are easy to bring bad influence to people who study calligraphy.
It is rumored that Mr. Qi Gong is knowledgeable and has a high eye for appreciation, but this is not what I want to evaluate. What I want to evaluate is Mr. Qi Gong's calligraphy. To say that Mr. Qi Gong's calligraphy is "lost", we should say "De" first. Mr. Qi Gong is a man who walked out of traditional calligraphy. He has worked hard on calligraphy and is well aware of the subtleties of traditional calligraphy art. His many textual researches on the origin of calligraphy and inscriptions, quatrains in books and personal oral experiences can prove it, which is universally acknowledged. Although knowing books and writing books are two different things, people who know books may not be good at it, but people who don't know books can't be good at it. Mr. Qi Gong knows books, so he is not an outsider who takes pen as the body and gathers ink. Is this a good book? Many people think so. Where is Jia? The answer is neat, dignified and elegant. It is a modern aesthetic trend to suit both refined and popular tastes. This trend is characterized by calligraphers' pursuit of the established concept that "practical craftsmanship is better than artistic expression". Mr. Qi Gong is not good at metaphysical thinking and has no artistic theory beyond his own experience. We concluded for him that his pursuit is basically within this concept. However, the pursuit of practical beauty and artistic beauty-the "gain" of Mr. Qi Gong's calligraphy has already included "loss" in the artistic expression of calligraphy.