Gu Shuhua's collection

The protection and dissemination of calligraphy and painting originated from the collection of books or heroic portraits in Qilin Pavilion in Han Dynasty. Since the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, with the beginning of the era of artistic consciousness, calligraphy and painting have been cherished and protected as works of art. "Han Ming (the emperor) was elegant and didn't open a studio, but he also created a university school that collected exotic art, and the world was full of art." Since then, calligraphy and painting works are not only available for appreciation, but also must be collected. In order to properly collect and protect, mounting was invented, and the collected records were made into descriptive books. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Huan Xuan loved calligraphy and famous paintings, which surprised him. He wanted to make all the world's best products into his own, and these paintings and calligraphy treasures were later owned by Liu Song. Liang Wudi Xiao Yan is good at appreciating, and he spares no effort to search for famous calligraphy and painting. According to Yu, assistant secretary of Chinese calligraphy at that time, only Wang Xizhihe's calligraphy was collected, and there were 24 volumes of coral axes, 24 volumes of golden axes and 50 volumes of tortoise shell axes, all of which were woven with gold characters. This is an excerpt from the table. Among them, the two kings' paper and silk calligraphy methods exist separately, and they are mounted with different materials such as coral, tortoise shell and gold. It can be seen that the inner government of Liang Wudi is rich in books, beautifully decorated and properly managed. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, calligraphy and painting became more popular. Pei's History of Zhenguan's Public and Private Paintings in the Early Tang Dynasty has always been regarded as the ancestor of calligraphy and painting, which records the secret officials' private collections and temple murals at that time. There are 293 volumes of famous paintings and 47 murals since Wei and Jin Dynasties. In the late Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yanyuan's Record of Famous Paintings in Past Dynasties is not only a complete painting history, but also a description of calligraphy and painting. In the third volume, there is also a section entitled "On the Axis after Mounting", which briefly describes the advantages and disadvantages of painting and calligraphy mounting in various periods after the Jin Dynasty, and records the improvements in painting and calligraphy mounting materials and mounting technology at that time, such as removing gluten from the paste used to make it thinner and thicker, adding smoked Luxiang powder to prevent moth-eaten, etc. Also installed a small shaft, the shaft head is made of white jade, water essence and amber, and the large shaft head is made of Chinese fir paint, so as to prevent the shaft head of miscellaneous treasures from peeling off easily and damaging the work. These improvements are obviously very important for the decoration and protection of calligraphy and painting. After the Song Dynasty, Song Xuanhe's Painting Spectrum, Xuanhe's Calligraphy Spectrum, Mi Fei's Painting History Book, Zhou's Painting Boat in Qinghe and Qing Dynasty's Shiqu Baodi are all important calligraphy and painting books collected by the government and private, which are of great significance for understanding this era. The "Thirteen Questions of Back Mounting" in Tao's Record of Dropping out of Farming in Nancun in the Early Ming Dynasty is a concentrated summary of the materials and tools used in painting and calligraphy mounting, and actually we can see the whole process of painting and calligraphy mounting. Books such as Decorative Annals of the Ming Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty are documents that specifically record the decoration of calligraphy and painting.

In order to facilitate the protection and dissemination of calligraphy and painting, before there was photocopying technology in ancient times, it was copied by painting and copying, or the traces of books were engraved and disseminated. For example, Gu Kaizhi's original painting "Luo Shen Tu" in the Jin Dynasty has long been lost, and there are three kinds of replicas that have been passed down to this day. Although the artistic level is different, or it has the meaning of painting style and brushwork of the latecomers, its role is obviously very important. Many ancient masterpieces are. Calligraphy works are described by double hooks, also called "double hooks". Just cover the famous handwriting with oil paper or wax paper and trace it to a bright place in the window, so that you can make several copies. Today, Wang Xizhi's handwriting on the original paper can be said to be all gone, leaving only this book written in Bai Mo. The second is to write directly on the surface of the stone with a pen, which is the inscription that has been engraved on the stone. This process of writing on a stone with a pen is called "calligraphy Dan". Because Dan is red, writing with a pen can be called Shu Dan. Although it is not ink, it retains the shape of famous handwriting, and we can see the main style of calligraphy. Thirdly, the Song Dynasty paste lettering, that is, the outline of the original word is copied from the original trace, and the back of the outline is drawn out with a pen after the back of the paper, and then the pen is pressed on the stone surface, and then carved according to the line. After carving, hammer ink according to the rubbing method, and it becomes black and white calligraphy. The copybook means that you can take the copybook of the method, which is actually a copy made by several more processes. Many ancient masters kept few ink books, but most of them were inscriptions directly carved on stones during the Han, Wei, Sui and Tang Dynasties, and "Fa Tie" carved through many processes after the Song Dynasty. Replicas of these inscriptions and inscriptions have also become one of the precious cultural relics. Today, in the study of calligraphy history, in addition to the original ink book, there are physical materials such as hook books, inscriptions in calligraphy Dan, and copies of calligraphy posts.