Is China's traditional calligraphy abstract or vivid?

China's calligraphy is a unique traditional expression of Chinese characters in China, which conveys human wisdom and thoughts and feelings. Calligraphy in a broad sense refers to the writing rules of language symbols. In other words, calligraphy refers to writing with its brushwork, structure and composition according to the characteristics and significance of words, making it an abstract aesthetic form to express people's inner thoughts and feelings. China's calligraphy is the original abstract expression of the aesthetic feelings of the Han nationality, which is called the abstract beauty higher than art: poetry without words, wireless dance; Painless paintings, silent music.

China's calligraphy began at the beginning of recording "oral language" with descriptive symbols, that is, the generation stage of Chinese characters: "Sound can't spread in different places, but stays in different times, so characters were born. Writer, so it is the trace of Italian sound. " (The Book of Lin Zao, edited by Ma Zonghuo) As a result, words were produced.

The earliest calligraphy works were not words, but some descriptive symbols-hieroglyphics or picture words. Symbols depicting Chinese characters first appeared on pottery. The primitive depiction symbol only represents a rough concept of chaos and has no exact meaning. More than 8,000 years ago, the cultures of Cishan, Fiji and Khan Lee appeared in the Yellow River basin, and there were many similar words on the handmade ceramics unearthed in Khan Lee, Fiji.

From description to writing, it is the key link of calligraphy thoroughly remoulding. The emergence and evolution of brush and scroll are of decisive significance to the occurrence, development, gradual maturity and typification of calligraphy, that is, to realize the perfect expression of oral language objectification.

From Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, through the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, to Qin and Han Dynasties, the historical development of more than 2,000 years also promoted the development of calligraphy. In different periods, various calligraphy styles appeared one after another, including Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, stone carvings, bamboo slips and silks, and Zhu Mo calligraphy. Among them, seal script, official script, cursive script, running script, regular script and other fonts were stereotyped in the screening and elimination of hundreds of miscellaneous characters, and calligraphy began to develop in an orderly manner.

Calligraphy is a traditional cultural treasure of the Chinese nation and is still full of vitality today. Exquisite calligraphy is rich in connotation, extensive and profound, with natural spirit, delicate fragrance and condensed wisdom. People can get aesthetic enjoyment, philosophical enlightenment and spiritual beautification through appreciation. Practicing calligraphy can enrich people's mind, improve people's overall accomplishment, cultivate lofty spirit, accumulate profound talents, acquire the spirituality of heaven and earth, absorb the essence of everything, and create a world where things and I are one.

"Modern brushwork" different from classical traditional calligraphy

Calligraphy is a typical traditional Chinese character in China. Chinese characters in China were created by working people and began to be recorded by pictures. After thousands of years of development, it has evolved into today's writing. Because our ancestors invented the brush, calligraphy came into being. Throughout the ages, Chinese characters were mainly written with a brush. As for other forms of writing, such as hard pen and finger calligraphy, its writing rules are quite different from China's calligraphy.

Calligraphy in a narrow sense refers to the methods and laws of writing Chinese characters with a brush. Including writing, calligraphy, stippling, structure, layout (distribution, lines, composition) and so on. For example, the pen refers to the palm and the five fingers are Qi Li; The pen carrying center is unfolded; Stippling is the same as a pen; The structure is shaped by words and echoes each other; The distribution is intricate, the density is appropriate, and the virtual and the real are born together, and the whole chapter is full of gas fields; Every word is ancient for literacy, and every word is big and small, and high is not as good as low.

Calligraphy in a broad sense refers to the writing rules of language symbols. In other words, calligraphy refers to writing with its brushwork, structure and composition according to the characteristics and significance of words, making it a typical writing style with abstract aesthetic feeling.

With the development of cultural undertakings, calligraphy is not limited to using brush and writing Chinese characters, but its connotation has been greatly increased. For example, in terms of using tools, there are many kinds of pens alone, such as writing brushes, hard pens, computer instruments, and spray gun branding tools. Pigment is not only black ink block, but also ink, adhesive, chemicals, paint glaze and so on. In the past, Four Treasures of the Study-pen, ink, paper, inkstone, its meaning has also been greatly expanded, with so many varieties.

From the way of writing, some people write with their hands, others with their feet, and many people write with other organs. Some people don't even use pens at all, such as "pointing at books" and "squeezing books". As far as writing style is concerned, it is not a kind of Chinese characters; From the point of view of style and composition, in addition to the authentic traditional calligraphy school, there is also an "Italian" school in China, which is called "modern calligraphy". On the basis of traditional calligraphy, it is a technical change of writing with painting elements, which makes his works become a "modern writing technology" that subverts tradition and deviates from "classical calligraphy".

In Japan, many calligraphers abandoned the language of writing and established the "image" of writing, and the school of "ink image" came into being to write various writing images with the weight of the pen, the opening and closing of Ji Xu and the nib, and the change of writing posture. Contrary to nature, they deliberately carved and added many non-verbal symbolic "gild the lily" things. However, Chinese characters are not all "images", so they are deviant and limited everywhere.

These (of course, not only these) can be seen. Traditional calligraphy classics, like other traditional things, are impacted and challenged by modern writing technology manufacturing industry. All this must be highly valued by people in the calligraphy field.

"The book is the most successful by Jin people, and it is also the most prosperous by Jin people. The Book of Jin, as well as Tang poetry, Song ci and Yuanqu, are all so-called generations. " After investigation, this sentence comes from the first of volume 6 of Lin Shu's Creation on page 42 of the thread-bound book.

Ma Zonghuo (1897- 1976) compiled the Annotation of Shu Lin Zao, which is a compilation of critical materials of calligraphy in past dynasties, arranged chronologically and numerically. From the legendary era of Cangjie word-making, Mo Qing stopped, and * * * received 28 17 words. In addition to a large number of selected books and local chronicles, there are 367 kinds of cited documents, which shows that the compilation of this collection is meticulous. There was an introduction before each dynasty, which made a comprehensive analysis and comment on the calligraphy of each dynasty and put forward many incisive opinions. Therefore, this is not only a reference book, but also a history of calligraphy.

Cursive appreciation

Cursive writing is a convenient way to write. "Shuo Wen Jie Zi" says: "There are cursive scripts in Han Xing". The cursive script began in the early Han dynasty, and its characteristics are: keeping the outline of characters, damaging the official rules, rushing away and rushing away quickly. Because of the meaning of grass, it is called cursive script.

(A) the characteristics and appreciation steps of cursive script

Appreciating cursive art is a noble artistic enjoyment. If you want to appreciate the cursive art, you must first understand the characteristics of the cursive art and where the beauty of the cursive art lies. Some people say that the form of cursive art has two aspects: the beauty of surface appearance and the beauty of deep meaning. Some people regard the beauty of cursive art as ten points: flying strokes, interesting brushwork, changeable structure, vivid composition, beautiful lines, connected veins, natural charm, ups and downs, magnificent and unique. In short, the beauty of cursive art is like a poem without words, a dance without movement, a colorful painting without color, and a musical melody without words.

(2) cursive appreciation standard,

There is no fixed standard for appreciating cursive (running script) works of art.

For the same cursive art work, different people will have different standards because of different times, different concepts, different lives, different qualities, different experiences and different understandings; The standard of the same person can also be different because of the differences in early age, middle age and old age. Nevertheless, through long-term practice, predecessors have summed up the standards for appreciating calligraphy. Some people sum it up as four: charm, material selection, ink color and back decoration. Some people also classify it into six items: body, courage, attitude, genre, talent and meteorology.

The following five aspects can be used as the appreciation standard of cursive (running script) art:

1. Beautiful lines.

Calligraphy is the art of lines. Calligraphy lines, especially cursive lines, are more obvious. Not only the shape and direction are different, but also the astringency, dryness, flatness, quality and strength are different. The strange and unpredictable lines of cursive art can best express the subtle inner feelings of a cursive writer. So, what kind of lines are bright and pleasant, giving people a sense of beauty?

The power of lines. All aesthetic lines are powerful and three-dimensional lines. Sense of power is also called "pen power" in traditional calligraphy. Ancient and modern cursive learners repeatedly emphasize the correct "brushwork", in the final analysis, in order to make the calligraphy lines show rigidity and flexibility (internal strength performance). The lines of calligraphy should be like "clockwork", not like "noodles cooked in a soup pot", which is a metaphor for "the art of strength"; Tell us that calligraphy is the power of lines and the life of cursive art.

The emotion of lines. "Books, express delivery also". The dots, pens and lines in China's calligraphy are full of vitality, sense of rhythm and sense of rhythm, which shows the expressive beauty of people. The so-called beauty of expression is the visual aesthetic experience of calligraphers and appreciators. A successful cursive work is the author's concentration, emotional accumulation and emotional expression. "Taking emotion as the person and taking emotion as the book" is an important factor that can not be ignored in the success of calligraphy.

The rhythm of the lines. "Between a painting, Feng Yu's changes are ups and downs; In a little time, this is very frustrating. " If the cursive script is uniform in thickness and rhythmic in lines, it can't give people aesthetic feeling. The so-called cadence, lifting and pressing, is all paper and clouds. Although it is silent, it has a musical melody, which is precisely one of the important reasons why cursive art is loved by people. Calligraphers in past dynasties paid special attention to the primary and secondary contrast of lines, and often took the strokes that best expressed the calligrapher's personality as the "main pen" to show their unique aesthetic feeling. For example, Yan Zhenqing is full of needles, the Yellow Valley is full of twists and turns, and the vertical hooks in Mi Fei are unique. In addition, there are many contrast techniques, such as size, vertical and horizontal, back to back, tilt, density, thickness, shadow and Fiona Fang.

The echo of the line. "Starting writing is an appeal, and accepting writing is a response". The function of echo is to connect the original independent lines into an organic whole. The lines echo, just like the air is flowing, just like being given life. Traditional calligraphy is called "painting qi" and "blood", so it is better to "echo from beginning to end and connect up and down" For example, Zong Baihua, a modern aesthete, said: "You can look back around, and the yin and yang rise and fall, just like the branches and leaves of a tree, each giving way;" When the running water is mixed, it will come down one after another. " This word is a stream of life, a dance and a piece of music.

2. Beautiful structure

The general understanding of the appreciation of the structure is often whether the structure is neat or not, which is not completely correct. Although balance symmetry is the basic requirement, structural beauty pays more attention to the change of balance symmetry, whether its change is innovative or not. The successful cursive art structure is balanced and symmetrical, and all parts are in contrast and care; There are also various innovations in length, size, width, density and verticality, thus forming a diverse and unified harmony.

3. Beautiful composition

Composition is whether the spacing between words and lines is appropriate and the size is appropriate. A well-organized cursive work can show the artistic effect of caring for feelings, flying spirit and running through the whole chapter.

4. Mo Yun is very beautiful.

The cursive art mainly uses ink lines to express its beauty. Whether a work looks like it depends on whether the pen and ink are elastic: that is, the whole line and the whole article should not be exactly the same in shade, weight, dryness, brightness, thickness and turbidity.

5. Beautiful artistic conception

After appreciating the brush and ink structure, we need to further grasp the unique artistic beauty of the whole work.

The artistic conception beauty of cursive script refers to the artistic realm that works show the author's spirit, aesthetics, style and appeal to the audience.