Guanxinglu calligraphy

Wen Duan Honggang

Because of its scarcity, "prodigy" often gets much higher attention and praise than ordinary children. If a "prodigy" appears somewhere, it will immediately become the focus of everyone's attention, and everyone wants to see his style.

There have been various "prodigies" in history, such as Cao Chong, the third son of Cao Cao, who was famous for his resourcefulness when he was young. At the age of seven, he accomplished the feat of "Cao Chong as an elephant". In his childhood, Sima Guang was also a wise man. At the age of 7, he saved his playmate with "Sima Guang smashing a jar". Wang Anshi's Fang Zhongyong was taught by himself without a teacher. He can recite poetry at the age of four and is known as a "poetic prodigy". The painter Wang Mian was called a "painting prodigy" when he was a child. He has an extraordinary talent for painting and often doodles at will, which makes adults sit up and take notice.

As can be seen from the above four prodigies, each prodigy is one in a million. If they are properly taught and strictly restrained, they are likely to become pillars of talent. If not properly taught, it is likely to become another "injured Zhong Yong".

At present, there is a "calligraphy prodigy" born in Macao after 00, named Guan Xinglu. He began to practice calligraphy at the age of 5, and his calligraphy talent is very high. He mastered the writing skills of regular script, running script and cursive script after only two or three years' practice.

His regular script, in particular, is well written and decent, and has won many awards in domestic calligraphy competitions. At present, he is the youngest member of Macao Calligraphers Association and the youngest director of Macao Hard Pen Calligraphy Association.

For a child, it is not easy to achieve these achievements, and the applause won can no longer be quantified by specific figures.

Many people sincerely believe that this child will have a bright future.

However, when we calm down and carefully examine Guan Xinglu's calligraphy, we will find many problems. The biggest problem with his calligraphy is that Tian Yingzhang's regular script is almost the same, and it is completely a "printed" copy.

Tian Yingzhang's regular script is ridiculed as "Tian Kai" by people in the industry, which is characterized by steady, rigid and plain strokes, stylized and mechanized overall style. He only made a fuss about the arrangement of font frame structure, but he knew nothing about the change of brushwork. Many strokes are completely repeated, as stiff and cold as those printed by a printing machine, and there is no emotion at all.

If such regular script is regarded as the standard, it must be the sorrow of calligraphy.

The reason why calligraphy can be passed down in China for thousands of years is that the change and innovation of brushwork are the foundation and the basic guarantee to bear the calligrapher's emotion and temperament. Future generations should stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, integrate their brushwork, ink method and composition, try to figure out their psychological state in the process of writing, and then seek some changes on this basis, integrate self-awareness and enrich the expression language of calligraphy, thus promoting the continuous development of calligraphy art.

Just like a river, if you don't want it to dry up, you must inject fresh tributaries into it all the time to keep it alive forever.

On the other hand, Tian Yingzhang's calligraphy has some merits in structure, but it can be said that it is useless in brushwork, aesthetic connotation and emotional changes. Whoever learns such calligraphy will go astray.

However, on the other hand, Tian Yingzhang's regular script is still helpful to beginners. At the very least, beginners can master the most basic structural arrangement skills of calligraphy and shape the basic shapes of Chinese characters.

However, beginners should stop learning his calligraphy. If they worship blindly, it will inevitably make beginners stick to a mode of thinking and only know how to turn around on the level of writing skills, which can be said to be of no help to understand the artistic laws and aesthetic norms of regular script.

If Guan Hanglu wants to be a calligrapher in the future, I still suggest that he copy and learn more ancient works, so as to avoid many detours, such as the running script of "Two Kings", the regular script of "Liu Zhao of terns", the running script of "Song Sijia" and Wei Bei, which are the essence of China's calligraphy and good targets for copying.

In the long run, it is much better to stick to copying the classic books and posts of ancient masters than to learn from Tian Kai, and to enter the door of calligraphy faster and better.

After the appearance of Guan Xinglu's calligraphy works, it quickly aroused heated discussion among different appreciators.

His calligraphy is almost unanimously praised by the general public, and all kinds of praises are endless.

Some people say that he is the most beautiful boy in the country, and his calligraphy level exceeds that of calligraphers, even better than calligraphers.

Some people say that it is amazing that Guan Xinglu has such extraordinary understanding and comprehension ability to calligraphy at an early age. He is really a calligraphy prodigy.

Unlike the one-sided praise of the general public, the professionals in the calligraphy field are not optimistic about Guan Xinglu's calligraphy.

A director of China Calligraphy Association said: Guan Xinglu's calligraphy belongs to the standard "printed style" and has no artistry. He still has a long way to go if he wants to make a difference in calligraphy.

After the expert's words came out, it immediately attracted controversy. Many people can't accept it emotionally, and think that experts only measure a child by the standards of adults, which is unfair to children.

In my opinion, although the expert's words sound mean, they point out the essence of the problem, just like the truth that "advice at the most unpleasant time is good for action, and good medicine is good for illness." Good words may not sound good, but they are definitely useful. Good words are a good way to promote people's growth, and anyone should accept and adopt them with an open mind and a broad mind.

Compared with ordinary children, Guan Xinglu's calligraphy still has many remarkable places, which is his advantage. While affirming his advantages, we should guide him to understand the advantages of traditional calligraphy more comprehensively and deeply. Only in this way can his calligraphy become wider and wider.