The Origin of Calligraphy Education in China

Calligraphy is an extremely important part of China's language system, and its appearance is as long as the birth of Chinese characters. Or: 8000 years, or 5000 years, the latter refers to the late Neolithic Yan Huang era, Yangshao, Dawenkou, Longshan culture period. According to archaeological discoveries in Banpo and Jiangzhai, literal characters (descriptions) were widely used in pottery long before the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC). Guo Moruo thinks: It can be said with certainty that (this) is the origin of China characters, or the heritage of China's original characters.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Zhong Dingwen, which appeared in Shang Dynasty, are recognized as ancient Chinese characters with a complete system in academic circles. Mr. Dong Zuobin, through the study of many Oracle bone inscriptions, thinks that inscriptions on Oracle bones in Shang Dynasty "put words first". Similarly, Zhong Ding characters have to be made into "models" after being "written" by craftsmen and cast on bronzes. The early calligraphers, known as "Ren Zhen" or "Witchcraft History", belonged to the senior intellectuals at that time, and there were one or two hundred famous calligraphers who could be tested. The art of calligraphy began at this time.

The primitive calligraphy education, like other primitive cultural and artistic forms, is just a kind of inheritance of "family learning" or "teacher learning" which is passed down from mouth to mouth, and does not have universal educational significance. Until Confucius appeared in the sixth century BC.

Confucius opened a private school and listed "calligraphy teaching" as "six arts", which became a compulsory course for scholars. In the next 2500 years, calligraphy was an important part of children's enlightenment education, and it has not changed so far. With the "ten-year cold window" of thousands of generations of students, it has also become the most common and ultimate cultural and artistic skills and spiritual enjoyment of hundreds of millions of literati.

The ancient children's enlightenment course "Saint Amethyst" mentioned: "Rites, music and shooting, imperial books, ancient six arts, nothing today. Only books are learned, and people can learn, read, talk and talk. " It can be seen that even in the dark ages when "respecting Confucius and reading classics" was popular in Ming and Qing Dynasties and see no evil became a chronic social disease, calligraphy education was still the only "classic" study in the "Six Arts" education. In thousands of years of boring "Confucian classics" education, it has brought a little pleasure to the readers, and it has almost become the only sustenance for them to express their cultural and spiritual personality.

A calligrapher who paints with heart-Yang

When talking about calligraphy, Liang Qichao, a famous scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, said with deep feelings: "An element of art is to show individuality; And the most real way to develop personality is writing. If it can represent personality, it is the highest art, then all kinds of art, writing is the highest. "

It is precisely because of this that calligraphy can develop into a unique treasure of China culture and become "the most representative spiritual symbol of China culture" in the history of calligraphy in China, Tianshu Zhu.