The Story Behind Qi Gong's Cursive Thousand Character Essay

Qi Gong is a famous contemporary Chinese calligrapher whose calligraphy, elegant and poetic, is loved by the public. On the second anniversary of Mr. Qigong's death, in order to remember the master, we interviewed Mr. Jin Yu, a student of Mr. Qigong, and asked him to tell the story of the creation of this precious piece of calligraphy, Qigong's Cursive Script Thousand Character Essay. In fact, Mr. Qigong didn't formally accept any calligraphy students, Jin Yu told the reporter, but there are thousands of people who have been taught by him, and I am especially lucky to have been taught by Mr. Qigong himself. Jin Yu still remembers the scene where Mr. Qigong taught him calligraphy, and he personally corrected his calligraphy work with a pencil. Unfortunately, I was uninformed at the time, so I took a brush and sketched out the corrections according to Mr. Qigong, but I wasn't able to save the precious manuscript. When Jin Yu first met Mr. Qigong, he said that the gods of fortune favored him. Before studying calligraphy with Mr. Qigong, Jin Yu had studied seal carving, calligraphy and button carving with Mr. Jin Yumin. Mr. Jin Yumin was a famous master of seal carving and was y influenced by Mr. Shoushigong. Under the influence of Mr. Jin Yu, he showed great interest in seal carving and calligraphy. When Jin Yu was in middle school, he went to a used bookstore in Xidan one day to buy books on painting. As he was picking out the books, a man came up to him and said, "Little boy, you like painting, don't you? I'll introduce you to a teacher, okay? Jin Yu looks at this kindly stranger with a puzzled look on his face. The bookstore owner says, "This is Mr. Jin Xiezhong, a famous painter in Beijing. Jin Yu happily agrees. Later, Mr. Jin Xiezhong introduces him not to Mr. Qigong, but to Mr. Ma Jin, a famous master of brush painting, but after a few lessons, Jin Yu decides that he doesn't like the finer details of the painting, and tells Mr. Jin Xiezhong, who says, "Well, then, I'll introduce you to Mr. Qigong's place to learn landscape painting! Unfortunately, during the anti-rightist period in 1957, Mr. Jin Xiezhong's promise was not yet fulfilled, and he was sent down to the Xinjiang Museum, and the matter was thus delayed. Ten years have passed since then. Through usual contacts, Jin Yu was surprised to find that Mr. Zhao Yuanfang, a bibliophile who lived near his house at the west entrance of Cuihua Street, was good friends with Mr. Qigong, and in 1967, after being introduced to him by Mr. Zhao, Jin Yu finally met Mr. Qigong, whom he had admired for a long time, and when he told Mr. Qigong of his previous experience, he laughed and said, "We can't do the same thing as the others. From then on, Jin Yu and Mr. Qigong became increasingly close, and Mr. Qigong would often give Jin Yu a few pointers on calligraphy and painting. In the 1970s, Mr. Qigong lived on Xiaoshang Lane in Beijing's West Side, just a ten-minute walk from Jin Yu's residence on Cuihua Street, and he sometimes came over to chat with Jin Yu. When I was not at home, Mr. Qigong would often come over to have a look at my collection of paintings, and when I went home, I would push the car to take Mr. Qigong back, and the two of us would walk and chat. Once, when we were walking next to a big tree at the west entrance of Xiaoxian Lane, Mr. Qigong looked up at the tree and sighed, 'Trees have four seasons, yin and yang, it would be good if you could paint them well. Mr. Jin Yu smiles and describes to the reporter what happened. Jin Yu smiled and described the scene to the reporter. Jin Yu collected an authentic painting of Wen Zhengming, a great calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty. Mr. Qigong saw the scroll at his home, and took it back to his apartment, where he inscribed a paragraph at the end of the scroll, which made Jin Yu so mesmerized that he sighed that there were people in the world who could actually write such a beautiful character! Out of his admiration for Mr. Qigong's calligraphy, Jin Yu intends to ask him for a piece of calligraphy so that he can study and copy it on a regular basis. So Jin Yu takes out his own treasured Japanese rolled paper, studies vermillion ink with his own hands, dips a small red brush in vermillion, and draws a vermillion line on the rolled paper, comparing it to a ruler. Mr. Qigong was very happy to see the rolled paper that Jin Yu took over and praised him: You have drawn this grid seriously, and it's not easy for you to draw it like this. In this way, Mr. Qigong accepted the scroll. Two or three months later, Jin Yu went to Mr. Qigong's place one day, and Mr. Qigong brought him the scroll. Before opening the scroll, Jin Yu didn't know what Mr. Qigong would write, but he guessed that with a scroll more than a zhang long, Mr. Qigong wouldn't be able to finish it for a while, and he would probably write a poem one day and a phrase the next. I opened it and saw that it was actually 'Cursive Script Thousand Character Essay'. I was overjoyed and took it home to read it over and over again, and I just couldn't get it out of my hands, Jin Yu said happily. According to Jin Yu, Mr. Qigong's writing of this piece of calligraphy coincided with the fall of the Gang of Four. During the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Qigong, like many intellectuals in China, experienced a lot of unfair treatment, which he endured in silence, even joking that his calligraphy was practiced by copying large-character posters during the Cultural Revolution. After her death, Mr. Qigong's poems and conversations all showed his endless longing for his old partner. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Qigong's cervical spondylosis was very serious, and Jin Yu often saw Mr. Qigong walking on the road with a plexiglass cover in front and a hoop at the back, holding his neck up and struggling to walk on the road, and when his condition was serious, Mr. Qigong fainted on the side of the road. After the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Qigong's cervical spondylosis miraculously recovered, and Mr. Jin Yu was in a very comfortable mood, and often told his friends, "The Gang of Four has collapsed, and my cervical spondylosis is also better. It can be seen that his happy mood at that time. It was also after this historical process that Mr. Qigong's calligraphy became more fluid and dynamic. Jin Yu's request for Mr. Qigong's Cursive Script Thousand Character Essay was written under such a situation and mood. Jin Yu told the reporter that cursive script is the best carrier to express one's feelings through strokes. Mr. Qigong also talked about his own creation process in the inscription after the scroll, saying that he dropped out from time to time, but this does not affect the integrity of this work in any way, the whole piece looks like lines and lines, words and words are all in one, and the beginning and the end of the echo, as if a breath of fresh air, it is completely Mr. Qigong's mastery of calligraphy and the natural flow of the mood of pleasure. In addition to his profound artistic achievements, Mr. Qigong's cursive thousands of characters are even more precious due to their scarcity. Jin Yu said that Mr. Qigong's running script is very common, but his cursive script is rare, and his complete cursive thousand-character script is even rarer. At the memorial service for Mr. Qigong's death, Jin Yu wrote an elegy for Mr. Qigong: "Forty years of love between teacher and student is as deep as the sea, and thousands of teachings are refreshing to the heart". This couplet aptly expresses the deep affection between Jin Yu and Mr. Qigong, as well as Jin Yu's mourning for Mr. Qigong's death. When my mother was alive, she would bring Mr. Qigong some of the dishes she made for New Year's Eve, such as rice noodle meat, meat jelly, and fried salty food. Every year at this time I would give Mr. a year seal, then as long as I touch the pocket, Mr. Kai will know I sent him another seal. Jin Yu said, counting his total **** to Mr. Qigong engraved more than thirty square seals, these seals Mr. had used during his lifetime, especially like the floating light and shadow building is commonly used seal, which makes Jin Yu feel immensely honored. Before Mr. Qigong's death in the year of Yiyou, Jin Yu engraved the last seal of the year for Mr. Qigong, which became a permanent reminder of him and Mr. Qigong. In the winter of 1995, Jin Yu went to Mr. Qigong's home to discuss the publication of the book, saying, "I want to publish it, I'll do the work, and you'll get the fees. Mr. Qigong shook his head and said no. He then took out a note and wrote: "This work is a gift from me to Mr. Jin, let him decide how to deal with it". In determining the inscription on the cover, Mr. Qigong broke the traditional rules and insisted that Jin Yu, who was a generation younger, inscribe it. Jin Yu is naturally aware of this; according to the rules, it should be inscribed by Mr. Qigong's teacher or a celebrity of the same generation, and he, as a student, is not qualified to inscribe the title of the book to Mr. Qigong. The first time the matter comes up, Jin Yu politely declines Mr. Qigong's suggestion, hoping that Mr. Qigong can find Mr. Zhao Puchu or someone else to inscribe the book. After a while, when Jin Yu asked Mr. Zhao to inscribe the bookmark again, Mr. Qigong said angrily, "If you don't write it again, I'll put it on the big lead. Although Mr. Jin Yu knew that Mr. Qigong did not agree with the use of lead characters to decorate the cover, he still refused again and again. Later, Mr. Qigong's nephew, Zhang Jinghuai, says to Jin Yu, "You two have this kind of bond, this kind of emotion, so you should write it! Jin Yu sees that it's no good to push back any longer, and only then does he sincerely inscribe the cover of the book "Qi Gong's Cursive Script Thousand Character Essay". Speaking of which, Jin Yu exclaimed: "This is Mr. Qi Gong's way of lifting up his students, and at the same time, spurring them on! Mr. Qigong is not only a master of national education, educator, paleographer, poet, calligrapher, painter, and cultural relics connoisseur, his attainments in calligraphy are especially outstanding, and he has the greatest influence on the descendants. Jin Yu said, Mr. Qigong's calligraphy advocates nature and contains profound connotations, which is the crystallization of his many studies. Once Jin Yu asked Mr. Qigong: "There are so many imitations of you out there, how can they look so fake, why don't they look like you? Mr. Qigong explained that calligraphy is a natural expression of a person's temperament, which varies from person to person, so how can the words written be exactly the same? In the course of studying Mr. Qigong's works and writings over and over again, Jin Yu's understanding of what Mr. Qigong said about natural calligraphy became more and more profound. You see, Mr. Qigong wrote me the Thousand Character Essay, although it is a copy of Zen Master Zhiyong, but it only retains a certain font and structure of his style, but it is mainly Mr. Qigong's own strokes and style, so Mr. Qigong's cursive script, in addition to being a natural outpouring of his solid skills, is a kind of reinvention, which ultimately forms a distinctive 'qi style'. Jin Yu said, after giving him the cursive thousand character script, Mr. Qigong also specially instructed: you don't write according to me, from where I learned, you also learn from where. This is also one of Mr. Qigong's important views on calligraphy education. Later, Jin Yu directly copied Master Zhi Yong's real cursive Thousand Character Essay, which was indeed a great benefit. Mr. Qigong was also a very good teacher in life. Jin Yu exclaims that Mr. Qigong lived an extremely simple life, and although the salary of a university professor was not low at the time, there was almost nothing in his house. There was a time when wooden furniture was very popular in Beijing, such as sofas and wine coolers, and Jin Yu saw others doing the same and was about to hire a carpenter when Mr. Qigong asked him: what's the point of doing this? Mr. Qigong asked him: "What are you doing this for?" Jin Yu thought carefully: "Right, what are you doing this for?". So he dismissed the idea of making furniture to catch up with the trend. As a connoisseur, Mr. Qigong can also be called a generation of teachers. He had no attitude, and what was even more remarkable was his willingness to look at paintings. Jin Yu said that Mr. Qigong used to come to his home to look at the paintings and analyze them in detail. Sometimes when Jin Yu was not at home, Mr. Qigong would take a pencil and write some small notes after looking at the paintings, explaining which one is true and why. Which one should be how? Mr. Qigong would draw question marks to indicate that there were problems, and so on. Jin Yu still keeps those precious notes. Sometimes, Jin Yu introduced Mr. Qigong to his friends' homes to look at paintings, and Mr. Qigong would gladly go there. Mr. Qigong often told people: I am willing to look at paintings! In his opinion, only by constantly looking, pondering, and then thinking and studying, can he truly understand the difference between genuine works and forgeries, and his appraisal ability will be improved.