Author: Hu Qiuping
The art of Chinese cursive writing, from Zhang Cao to Wei Jin to Sheng Tang, has undoubtedly entered a period of gradual maturity to glory. From the simple and thick mode to the clear and handsome, the longitudinal introduction to the majestic and natural, arbitrary, flexible, so that the cursive art has reached the height of relatively free and expressive feelings. Among them, Zhang Xu is one of the important representative figures of cursive writing in the Tang Dynasty.
Zhang Xu derives the concept and law of grass sage and non-sticking grass sage in terms of penmanship, knotting and pen speed, so that cursive writing as an artistic carrier broadens the artistic space of free expression at the level of expressing the spirit of the creative subject, and opens up new frontiers for the future development of cursive. As a cursive calligrapher, Zhang Xu has inspired people to think about this art and explore the possibility of future cursive creation with his works. Therefore, Zhang Xu is a calligrapher worthy of our study, but there are too few documents to examine, and even in many textbooks on the history of calligraphy, he cannot be introduced as a chapter or a section, but only as a section with Huai Su. Here we expect scholars to fill this gap by studying Zhang Xu as a case study in depth.
Zhang Xu's "Belly Pain Post" part
Zhang Xu's "Belly Pain Post" has too few words, a total of 29 characters, and the authenticity of the "Four Ancient Poems" has always been controversial in the academic community. The Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra is thin and flat, and the knife worker has left more vitriol marks, making the breath of this work not as round and thick as other works. Among the various posts handed down by Zhang Xu, the author especially likes the remnants of the "Thousand Character Text", so this article only makes a superficial appreciation of the writing art of the "Thousand Character Text" remnants and encourages the reader.
The remnants of the "Thousand Character Text" are in the form of long volumes of albums, now hidden in the Forest of Steles in Xi'an, because they are carved and old, the traces of knife work and wind and rain are more obvious, which blurs the subtle performance of some actions in the process of writing, and adds an obstacle to the accurate identification of subtle movements of penmanship to the later learning. Despite this, the author still loves the remnants of the "Thousand Character Text" and believes that it is the best of the few posters left by Zhang Xu.
From the opening and closing relationship of the glyph structure shown in the work, the strength of the movement with the pen is undoubtedly different from the clear and handsome style of the "Second King". From the tension of the word and the flowing line, it can be seen that its writing speed is quite improved compared with the writing speed of the "Erwang" cursive, and the performance of this pen tension and the transcendence of the writing speed undoubtedly open up a new artistic aesthetic style of "Erwang" in addition to the handsome and beautiful charm of the "Erwang". This shows that Zhang Xu has a new artistic aesthetic development in the inheritance of the "Two Kings" cursive.
Tang Zhangxu's "Thousand Character Text" Stele (Partial)
Zhang Xu has a strange temperament, an alcoholic, and every time he drinks and gets drunk, he will call for a wild walk, known as "Zhang Qian". The author appreciates his poetic qualities as a cursive calligrapher, and the unique artistic characteristics of cursive writing are very high for the choice and requirements of the quality of calligraphers, and non-poetic temperament of calligraphers cannot be competent. Zhang Xu married He Zhizhang, Li Bai, Li Shizhi, Li Zhen, Cui Zongzhi, Su Jin, Jiao Sui and others as the "Eight Immortals in Wine". Therefore, in his masterpiece "A Thousand Characters of Literature And Stones", we seem to be able to smell a strong poetic wine, and even an irrepressible poetic romantic spirit of Dionysus.
The JiataiHui Chronicle records that "He Zhizhang tasted and Zhang Xu traveled in the human world, and whenever he saw the good walls and screens of the people's halls, he forgot the machine and made a fortune, and the pen fell like a worm and a bird flew, although the ancient Zhang (Zhi) and Suo (Jing) were not as good as it was." "His frank, unruly, and mercurial talent will be beyond the reach of future generations." This poetic talent is now condensed into a breathtaking artistic tension in his cursive works, giving people the same raw passion and appeal to life as Jackson's rock music. Although the two belong to completely different fields and are separated by more than a thousand years, the appeal of artistic charm to people and the summoning power of the passion for human essence and life are the same, but the degree is different and the means are different, the country and the era are different.
Cursive writing is a very rational and extremely romantic poetic art, and extreme rationality is a must have a deep and solid traditional skill; Extremely romantic and poetic is the need for the artist to have a naïve and childlike, outstanding, informal, unrestrained and unrestrained temperament. Admiring Zhang Xu's cursive works, you can't help but feel uplifted. No wonder so many great poets at that time gave him poems and filled in the words, which can be described as a long song and a lonely style. "Sprinkle the walls of the sun, and swing the pen like a shooting star." ...... Those who do not know each other at that time are those who are born in peace. "The pride and wild temperament bloomed at the time of the dot painting between the lines of the remnant stone of the "Thousand Character Text".
Hu Qiuping Festival Pro Zhang Xu's "Thousand Character Text"
First, the penmanship is informal, the rules are indulgent, and the arbitrariness is arbitrary
Zhang Xu's "Thousand Character Text" remnant stone posters with pen presses, sudden setbacks, and twisting movements are more exaggerated, and the contrast is strong, which is more majestic, resolute and unrestrained than the brushwork of the "Second King" Qing Ya Xiuyun. On the basis of inheriting Wang Xian's outer extension brush method, the pen method of twisting and external rotation is used, such as the horizontal rotation on the right side of the three words of "throwing skill", generally speaking, the outer extension is the pen edge wrapped inward and the outer rotation, and the twisting method is the pen edge wrapped inward.
Another example is the "hidden" and "stele", "Yi", "You", "奄", "宅" characters in the stele, mentioning that the pen edge is pressed deeper, and the "Weidan Ripe Yingyuan Gong" with the relatively convergent font next to it appears to have a strong contrast between light and heavy, the size is dense and echoed, and the contrast between black and white is obvious, which is rarely seen in the previous "Two Kings" Law Theory has rarely seen such exaggerated and contrasting brushwork, and its pen strength is rarely "Two Kings" Gentle and Elegant, a School of Tang Dynasty.
Second, the knot body is adaptable to the adaptation, and the opening is majestic
The fragments of the Thousand Character Text are in units of single characters, and occasionally in groups of words, and their orthography itself is more simple in the continuous and smooth passage of rapid writing, presenting the beauty of the characters in the flow of lines. Enhanced visual impact and touching effects. Cai Xi commented in the "Treatise on the Book of Laws": "Zhang Xu is isolated, his voice is in the middle, the image is strange, he cannot but complete his ancient system, and the king (Wang Xizhi) is more simple and simple, or there are hundreds of characters and five crosses, the last form of the characters, the majestic weather, is for the heavens and the longitudinal ..."
Part of Zhang Xu's "Thousand Character Text"
Zhang Xu's font structure, in terms of expressing the visual impact of the majestic heaven and longitudinal, surpasses the inner mi mode of the "Two Kings" cursive and tends to be simple and open, which is the change in the strength and simplicity of the pen action after the speed increase. This kind of informality is also the inevitable result of his poetic talent. Otherwise, Zhang Xu would not have chosen to use cursive writing to express the true nature of his life. From this point of view, choosing which book style is a conscious choice or an unconscious inevitable choice that a book writer constantly discovers, recognizes, finds, and expresses himself in the process of learning books, which is caused by independent aesthetic tastes and thoughts, which is a choice that others cannot replace and cannot replace.
Jiang He said: "The magic of the real place is born out of the virtual place." 笪重光 said: "The whiteness of the Kuang Kuo, the uniformity of the hand cloth; Scattered folds, eye cloth symmetrical. It points out the relationship between "eye" and "hand", and "scattered" is higher than the aesthetic realm of "Kuang kuo". Mr. Shen Peng said in "Calligraphy, In Comparison": "Calligraphy is indispensable to black and white, the problem is good at distribution, and the distribution of black and white is not beautiful with 'homogeneous', and 'homogeneous' can only produce the effect of "like an operator". As for 'symmetry', according to the meaning of heavy light, when it is commensurate with 'scattered', 'scattered' is not a mess, it is a change in unity. In this way, the most conditional embodiment of virtual reality in all kinds of writing is cursive characters. ”
The change in the font structure of Zhang Xu's cursive writing is a change in "unity" in the "scattered" allusion. First of all, it is the dense opening and closing of the one-line font itself. For example, the slender and elongated word "Kuanghe" and the word "Ji" in the stele, the inclusion of the word "weak support" and the bold opening and closing of the word "leaning" all form a sharp contrast, which seems to be scattered but is a high degree of "change in unification". This contrast of bold opening and closing goes far beyond the structural balance and gentle rhyme of all of Wang Xizhi's codexes and inscriptions.
We know that all changes in brushwork, even the slightest difference, will inevitably bring about changes in the structure of the font; Then the change of font structure will inevitably bring about changes in the style and charm of the work; Because of the one person and one sex, the difference in temperament leads to the difference in the aesthetic taste of the brushwork, and the difference in the taste and aesthetic of the brushwork will inevitably make the structural shape change.
The contrast and exaggerated changes in the glyph structure of the "Thousand Character Text" remnants, as well as the visual impact expressed in aesthetics, are enough to shock people's hearts. Second, it is the contrast between rows and rows. For example, the line of "Han Cheat" only writes two large characters, and mostly uses square pens, folding pens, deformation and elongation, strange mistakes arise, and the right side of the "Huimeng He Zun Covenant Method" line of six characters, structural convergence, dense staggering, and the left line only writes four words of "annoying punishment and cutting" more use of twisting pen method echo, the dense change of this page spacing and the change of font size and the deformation of the glyph structure stretching and opening, it seems to be a school of "scattered", but this intentional and unintentional "scattering", but it is an organic change in unity and visual aesthetic harmony.
Another example is "reading and playing the city" and the left "allegory bag box is easy to fear the sick ear", the exaggeration of the word "reading", the last stroke of the word "city" picks up the third word close to the left line, this pen is extremely bold and dangerous, which modern calligraphers dare not do. Modern writers generally pick down or to the right, and rarely dare to pick up to the left, which shows Zhang Changshi's eclectic and wild temperament.
Third, the vertical drawings of some words, such as the vertical hook of the handle, are no longer as straight as Wang Xizhi's vertical hook. For example, the handle of the word "pick up" in the stele, the vertical painting has a slight curvature in the middle of the oblique, and the "cup" word is also oblique next to the wooden word. The vertical painting on the right side of the character "绛" in the stele is also oblique and curved, and the linear flow of the word "绛" is in sharp contrast with the thickness of the cut pen and square pen of the word "fluttering" and "single" on the right. It's just that the three words of "Flutter", "Alone", and "绛" all belong to the words that are deliberately emphasized in the opening of the glyph, and these three words are the first leading words of the line, so they are a little antagonistic visually, and the lower half of the "Wandering Vulture", "Yunling Mo" two lines of thin lines, the font layout of the slightly smaller font contrast appears to be a little heavy above, and a little lighter below.
Of course, cursive writing is the art of instantaneous writing, and it is also a very good thing to want to express all the calligraphy, structure, and layout perfectly in the rapid writing of the moment. In a quick one-off writing, it is sometimes inevitable to lose sight of one or the other. Therefore, cursive writing is also the art of regret, instantaneous one-time writing in the process of rapid travel, although there are rational laws as the basis, but sometimes it is subconscious adaptability to walk along the edge of the pen.
Therefore, no matter the ancients and the present, there will be some unsatisfactory places in the one-time writing. Fourth, the connection between the post and the word is close, the line spacing is greater than the word spacing, the line and the word are relaxed and the thickness and weight are harmonious, and the point and line are matched. For example, the long line of "Wei Desert Chi" and the short point, short horizontal and twist of "Yu Danqing Jiuzhou Yu hundred counties" are visually staggered and coordinated, and the aesthetic artistic effect of dark and orderly in cursive has been achieved in an unprecedented disorder of cursive writing.
When we study traditional inscriptions, although we have a pious mood, we must not blindly follow them, but must use our own eyes to aesthetically. Carefully copy, witness, and carefully understand and analyze. Classic good, why good, how can we do it well, regrets where things are caused and how we avoid them.
Zhang Xu's "Thousand Character Text" remnant stone poster is a one-piece difficult to copy. The main difficulties are:
First, it is difficult to change the font structure. For example, "the meal is delicious and full of food", its nine words are basically short paintings without long lines, and its dot paintings are round and thick, and the speed of its pen can be seen from the brush meaning of its lifting and pressing, so that the dot painting of some words is jumped off or the penmanship is simplified.
For example, the word "rice" could have been connected into lines to form the flow of lines, but here this word has formed seven points and short paintings, and the strength of its line pen is enough to penetrate the speed of the pen, and its speed is fast and the strength is full, making the breath of the work flow free and full, with a sense of completeness. There is also the word "full", the right side is oblique to the right, and the left side is oblique to the left, so that there is a blank space in the middle of the word of this left and right structure, but the word "full" below is close to the word "full", filling the blank in the middle, showing the loose modal beauty and the change of scattered gathering, which is a higher realm than the balanced beauty.
Second, it is difficult to express the speed of the pen and the strength of the pen. For example, in the stele, there are four words" of "wall with food". The vertical lift next to the earthen character on the left side of the "Yuan" character is broken and cut with a cutting pen, and the vertical lift next to the earth character of the "wall" character below is used to express different brushwork and speed. On the right side of the word "Wall", I don't know whether the knife carving or the reason for the weathering of the years makes the turn appear resolute, and the cutting pen is folded horizontally and contrasts with the round pen on the right side of the "wall" word below.
Third, the remnants of the years have made some handwriting vague, which affects our careful observation and study of the pen to varying degrees. For example, on pages 26-27, the middle line is very small, the "Main Yunting Yanmen Purple Plug" glyph is small, the strokes are short and simple, and the broken strokes make the traces of the pen turning action insignificant. The four characters of "Jitian Akagi" are extremely thin, and the edges of the lines also have traces of peeling, which have created obstacles for later scholars.
Fourth, to study the remnants of the "Thousand Character Text", there should also be a certain basic skill of writing and cursive writing. If we do not have a cursive foundation to write this post directly, we will not know how to start, so it is best to have a certain basic skill of writing or cursive characters before learning cursive. Fifth, it is difficult to grasp the radiance and charm. Generally speaking, if you learn cursive writing, if you divide the action into slow speed to write, it is difficult to write its charm and charm.
After mastering the glyphs and strokes, it is also necessary to increase the speed, and to try to be as close as possible to the writing situation of the original post and the original post in terms of penmanship, glyph shape, speed, etc., only in this way can it be possible to achieve both form and god and approach the original post. I hope that young and talented students can deeply and deeply understand its essence, perfectly express its charm and brilliance, and reproduce the Dionysian consciousness of Zhang Xu's cursive art.
【More exciting, stay tuned】
(The article is reproduced in: Youth Calligraphy, No. 20, 2009)