How to appreciate ugly books

For a long time, there have been many articles criticizing "ugly books" in various newspapers and magazines, accusing many exhibition works and even award-winning works of "unsightly writing", deliberately ignoring the use of pens, breaking knots, exaggerating and deforming, and so on. I can't agree with these views. I think they have two mistakes in understanding:

First, I don't know that beauty is a feeling of life, a manifestation of will and a vivid image of flesh and blood. Mistaking beauty for beauty will turn biased, unpretentious and charming works into ugliness.

Second, I don't know that the "ugly books" in the history of calligraphy are the embodiment of the spirit of the times and have different contents in different periods, so criticism is dogmatic and has no purpose. For these two kinds of mistakes, the former belongs to the problem of aesthetic theory. Just look at the introduction to art and you can understand it. Needless to say. The latter belongs to the historical view of calligraphy, which has not been discussed by predecessors. I want to talk about my own views.

Existence determines consciousness, and any spiritual phenomenon, including aesthetic concept, has its social reasons, and it is constantly revised, enriched and developed with the changes of social reasons. When a style is accepted by everyone and regarded as the standard of beauty, any new and opposing style must be regarded as an "ugly book". In the early Qing Dynasty, the study of steles, which is opposite to calligraphy, began to rise, which was the origin of the practice and theory of "ugly calligraphy". The development of "ugly books" has been three or four hundred years, which can be divided into three stages.

one

When people talk about "ugly books", they will immediately think of Fu Shan's famous saying: "Ning Zhuo is not smart, rather ugly than flattering, rather the fragments are not smooth, rather the truth is not arranged." This extreme choice of words and sentences shows an artist's anti-trend spirit, which is related to Fu Shan's consistent thought: in the absence of Ni, writing words is precious, there is no proper arrangement, believe what you are doing, give others a secret, and so on. He advocated the purpose of "four nins and four noes". It is nothing more than expressing true feelings, embodying the will of life, transcending the beauty in the general sense and pursuing the beauty of artistic essence.

Fu Shan's words also have context. It said that his studies were deeply poisoned by Zhao Mengfu and Dong Qichang, and then it said: Otherwise, it would not be enough to save the day. The whole article doesn't specifically elaborate clumsiness, ugliness, fragmentation and truthfulness, but with the negative quotations from Zhao Mengfu and Dong Qichang, its content is self-evident. Looking back at the history of post-school, after more than 1000 years of development and evolution, various styles and forms have been fully displayed, and it is difficult to make any new development. At that time, most calligraphers prostrated themselves under Zhao Mengfu and at the gate of Dong Qichang. Their style and characteristics are charming, skilled and fragile.

At this time, Fu Shan's slogan of "Four Ning and Four No's" is undoubtedly a wake-up call, declaring war on the aesthetic standards and creative methods of iron and blood. Moreover, the clumsy, ugly, broken and true advocated by him is the same as the calligraphy style of epitaphs and statues in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, so it can be said that the beginning of stele study was predicted. Calligraphy theory's most famous work in the late Ming Dynasty is Xiang Mu's Calligraphy Elegant Words, which emphasizes neutralization. "Xuan Sheng said' be gentle and courteous, and then be a gentleman', and Sun said' naughty in ancient times, but different now'. Both languages can judge, and with the passage of time, the rules are heartfelt and neutral."

Neutralization is based on impartiality and perfection, and this theory is based on the principle of * * *. Too much emphasis will limit and bind the true colors, leading to the mediocrity of the works. On the contrary, Fu Shan's "Four Ning and Four Nothing" emphasizes the biased development of artistic style, and calligraphy creation need not be comprehensive, but can develop freely according to one's own personality. This shocking view has far-reaching implications. Jin Nong's "the same ability is not as good as single thought", and Zheng Banqiao's "being a teacher for personal use" and "provoking different people" are all derived from it. After the Qing Dynasty, the prosperity of calligraphy on steles was closely related to its spiritual enlightenment.

"Two" talks about ugly books, and then you think of Liu Xizai. He wrote in the Outline of Art? There is a famous saying in the book "Outline": "The ugliness to the extreme is the beauty to the extreme, and the mountains, rivers and valleys in an ugly word are hard to describe." Ugliness in calligraphy art has connotations that are difficult to describe in words. Before this sentence, he said: "A scholar first strives for work without work, and then strives for work without work. Those who don't work are very diligent. Zhuangzi? " Shanmu said: "Carve, return to simplicity", good husband! The two meanings are coherent, and "no" is the specific content of ugliness.

Liu Xizai finally put the process of learning books into practice, which is contrary to the traditional concept. Tang Guoting's Book Score said: "Beginners are assigned, but they seek fairness; Knowing that justice is right, we must pursue danger; Not only can it be dangerous, but it can also be rehabilitated. " Is the highest state of learning books "fair" or "not working"? I think the development and improvement of calligraphy art, personally, is always S-shaped at the positive and negative poles. As far as the development of calligraphy art in China is concerned, the maturity of a font style means that it will never be correct; Its decay means that from positive to incorrect, the styles of old and new fonts are constantly changing, that is, positive and incorrect characters change in turn. Improper font style embodies all kinds of exploration and pursuit, while positive font style embodies a form of perfection and perfection. For thousands of years, the style of font calligraphy has been in a changing era, focusing on mistakes, and in a mature era, focusing on correctness.

Sun lived in the Tang Dynasty under the rule of Zhenguan, and the model method prevailed, taking "no stimulation, no encouragement, but far discipline" as the aesthetic standard, so he focused on "returning to righteousness"; In the late Qing Dynasty, Liu Xizai was in danger, and the study of steles rose, taking "ugliness to the extreme is beauty to the extreme" as the aesthetic standard, so it stopped at "following the work without seeking". The difference in the highest realm of learning calligraphy reflects the difference in calligraphy style and aesthetic standards of their time. Liu Xizai epigraphy declined in the times, and it spread widely. Calligraphers began to shift their eyes from calligraphy masterpieces and classic works to epitaphs and statues of the Six Dynasties.

These works are rough and imperfect in form, but they are bold, fantastic, true and naive, full of true feelings and whimsy, which can stimulate calligraphers' creative inspiration and create new style forms. In this situation, Liu Xizai put forward the aesthetic concept of ugliness in calligraphy and the formal standard of "no work", and strongly recommended the calligraphy of steles in The Outline of Books: "I said that the length of northern steles cannot be hidden from each other, but the power of steles is no longer better than learning", which is obvious and has laid a theoretical foundation for the development of steles.

Sun's aesthetics and calligraphy are elegant and belong to the study of calligraphy, which has been regarded as the golden rule since the Tang Dynasty. Liu Xizai's aesthetics and learning of calligraphy are rough and peculiar, belonging to the study of steles, which has a great influence on the development of the study of steles. Soon after, Kang Youwei wrote Two Boats of Light and Righteousness. It is believed that the North Monument has ten beauties: "First, it is vigorous; second, it is muddy; third, it is leaping in brushwork; fourth, it is solemn and heavy in stippling; fifth, it is fantastic and carefree in artistic conception; sixth, it is full of spirit; seventh, it is full of interest; eighth, it is bold and unrestrained in structure; and tenth, it is rich in flesh and blood." He also thinks that "Weibei is good, and the poor stockade brothers have statues, but their bones and blood are steep." The spiritual essence of these expositions comes down in one continuous line with Liu Xizai's theory, but the aesthetic objects and formal standards of ugly books are more specific.

"three"

In the past twenty years, under the theme of reform and opening up, a large number of innovative works have emerged in Charge, which broke through the traditional aesthetic habits and forms of expression in many aspects to express the thoughts and feelings of contemporary people, so it is regarded as an "ugly book". However, its causes and manifestations are different from the previous two stages. Since the reform and opening up, the function of China's calligraphy is changing, and it used to focus on self-cultivation. Pay attention to text content, and now emphasize aesthetics and visual effects. Its living space is also changing. First of all, the previously popular vertical or horizontal curtains must be shortened in height and width to become square or quasi-square before they can enter thousands of households.

In the past, the forms of tens and hundreds of words were too trivial, so they must be more concentrated and strong, so as to meet the requirements of modern residential layout for integrity and great effect. Secondly, if calligraphy works want to enter the exhibition hall and hang on the wall, they must stand out from hundreds of works. These changes make calligraphy increasingly a pure visual art, and its scale, content and form have to be changed. The goal of the change is to enhance the visual effect. The method adopted is to emphasize the form composition, "only look at the brilliance, not the font", and regard Chinese characters as a combination of several visual elements. Calligraphy is the combination of stippling and knot, which injects the spirit of the times into the traditional decomposition and composition, revealing the contrast between the thickness of stippling, the size of the front of knot, the density of composition and the dryness of pen and ink, and combining them to give people the strongest visual impact in the most concentrated and exaggerated form.

Undoubtedly, such innovative works have broken through the general aesthetic concepts and creative methods. Moreover, this is generally not the charming style of Zhao Mengfu and Dong Qichang faced by Fu Shan, nor the aesthetic standard and fair form of Tiexue faced by Liu Xizai, but the traditional aesthetic concept and creative method including Tiexue and stele, which will be a major breakthrough.