As we all know, among the art systems of various countries around the world, China is not the only one that has calligraphy art. In English, there is the word calligraphy. The English dictionary explains it as: beautiful handwriting. The Chinese translation is calligraphy. In Arabic, there is also the word calligraphy. Because I have never studied Arabic, I don’t know how he says it. But we can see some pictures showing that calligraphy is also widely used in the Islamic cultural system. So what is the difference between our Chinese calligraphy, Western calligraphy and Arabic calligraphy? Through these pictures, we can see that Latin calligraphy and Arabic calligraphy are phonetic characters, so their performance is very limited. Because letters are used repeatedly and arranged horizontally, their performance is limited by phonetic writing.
What about our Chinese calligraphy art? Because our Chinese calligraphy is based on Chinese characters, and each Chinese character has a different shape, and the shape of the characters is ever-changing. In addition, our Chinese writing brush is tapered, and it can attack from all sides while writing. At this time,
through changes in speed, weight, dryness and wetness, very rich pen and ink images can be created. This is the art of calligraphy of Chinese characters, which greatly surpasses phonetic characters in performance. It is for this reason that in the world art system, whether it is Latin calligraphy or Arabic calligraphy, they have not become as popular as Chinese calligraphy. An independent art of this nation.
In Chinese history, calligraphy was the mainstream art. Chinese literati arts, including poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal writing, calligraphy plays a very important role. It is a pure art alongside music, dance, painting, poetry, and sculpture. We cannot see such an artistic status in Western countries. In Western countries, calligraphy is only a type of font decorative art. It exists in the discipline of printing technology or art design. She is a very small one. branch. It cannot be considered a great art alongside music, painting, and sculpture. Therefore, when talking about calligraphy with colleagues in the European and American art circles, it is difficult for them to understand that calligraphers are artists and calligraphers' writing is artistic creation. In China, calligraphers, like painters and musicians, are a very important part of Chinese art. It can even be said that Chinese calligraphy forms the basis of Chinese plastic arts.
Because Chinese painting also uses dots and lines as the basic language foundation. The spiritual charm of brush and ink pursued by the lines of Chinese calligraphy constitutes the basic language element of the expression of Chinese painting. Therefore, those who study Chinese painting must practice calligraphy, and calligraphy has become the basic subject of Chinese painting. So some people say that in Western art, sculpture is a basic subject, and our Chinese calligraphy can be said to be equivalent to sculpture in Western art, and it lays the foundation of Chinese art. It can be said that the entire Chinese art uses the brush and lines as its basic modeling elements to construct a rich art form in terms of expression.
In the history of Chinese art, the art of calligraphy has a very wide impact and can be said to be a feature of Chinese culture.
There are three main reasons why Chinese writing with Chinese characters can transcend practical decorative art and become a pure art:
First, as mentioned just now, Chinese characters have natural artistic quality. Because Chinese characters represent meanings, sounds, and at the same time are graphic characters. Its basis is form. Initially, you draw something when you see it, and then gradually become abstract and become abstract text symbols. In the process of her transformation, the original pictographic meaning gradually faded, and the abstract characters became more and more abstract, forming a symbol, but the symbol itself has its own unique image. For example, the image of the sun and the sun, and the image of the moon and the moon, although they are all abstract characters, seem to have no connection with the original form of objective things we see. But in fact, because the origins of each of their characters are different, the images of each of their characters are different. Therefore, some foreign artists say that Chinese Chinese characters themselves have very rich graphic beauty. Each Chinese character is like an abstract sculpture with natural artistic qualities.
The second is the Chinese writing tool brush. It has a special structure. It is different from Western oil paint pens and oil painting brushes. Oil paint brushes are flat. But the Chinese writing brush is a tapered shape. The middle pen is the longest, the tallest and strongest, which is called the middle pillar. The central column and the secondary casing form a cone, so its elasticity is also different. The movement in different directions, the way of placing ink, and the intensity of the lines displayed are all different. Such a special tool is the potential possibility of artistic modeling such as Chinese calligraphy. With the support of the tool, there is a very large space for expression. .
Third, in Chinese history, our ancestors, our entire intellectual class, were the literati, calligraphers, and painters who used brushes. When they wrote, they not only regarded the writing of Chinese characters as A record of life. In the process of writing, they discovered that Chinese characters have so much graphic beauty, and the dots and lines of the brush have such rich expressive functions, so they consciously wrote the words of life and expanded them artistically. .
For example, there are many such legends in history: when calligraphers and scholars observed nature, what they saw and what kind of beauty they felt, they tried to express it through dots and lines. For example, it is said that Wang Xizhi’s teacher Mrs. Wei, I once wrote an article called "Bi Zhen Tu", which said that "the points are like falling rocks from the peak" and "the horizontal direction is like clouds forming a thousand-mile formation". That means that when writing a point, I found that it has a unique form of beauty, so how to make it more beautiful and expressive? Find inspiration by observing various phenomena in nature. When he sees the rocks rolling down from the mountains, he is most infectious when the rocks are in motion. Therefore, he said that when we write something, we should pay attention to refer to a form such as "peak stone falling" to make it dynamic and beautiful, instead of letting it turn into a geometric shape in Pinyin text, which is single and rigid, like "Calculation". When writing horizontal drawings, look at the broad plateau in summer and the very broad clouds above. Mrs. Wei saw such a natural phenomenon, and in the process of writing, she was inspired by nature and obtained "formal nutrition" from nature. It is precisely because our ancestors conducted different explorations in the early history of calligraphy. They made subjective and active efforts, through observing nature and life, drawing inspiration for form and shape from natural life and integrating them into the writing of Chinese characters. Their creative wisdom is the modeling possibility of the square glyphs of Chinese characters. Supported by the rich expressiveness of the brush tool, the three are combined together to make the writing of Chinese characters move from a practical level to an artistic expression. level. It can be said that this is where our Chinese culture, Chinese art, and Western writing are very different from the phonetic writing of other nations.
In our modern times, some people have also raised doubts about whether calligraphy can become an art. Because in modern times, we have referred to the Western cultural system to sort out “national heritage”. During this process, someone discovered that in the Western art system, there is no such independent art as "writing". In their art schools, calligraphy is not taught as an independent art. So some people question whether Chinese calligraphy should be regarded as an art? It is said that this discussion lasted for a long time, and even after the founding of our country, experts and scholars still raised such questions. The China Federation of Literary and Art Circles has art, drama, music, dance and other associations, but there has been no calligraphy association for a long time. The Calligraphers Association was only established in the early 1980s. Why? Just because there has been such a twist in history, some people think that Chinese writing is just writing, isn't it? How can it be an art? There is no such art in foreign art systems, so they questioned the artistic nature of Chinese calligraphy. In fact, this is completely unreasonable. Because Chinese culture has its own cultural system. Chinese writing, as an art, has developed for thousands of years. Moreover, the role of Chinese calligraphy art in the entire art system is completely different from that of Western letters, which are merely used as font decorations.
Excerpted from Baidu netizen, thank you.