Dong Zhenghe (1951.8-), member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association. Librarian of the Central Museum of Culture and History. Since childhood, he has learned to write with his father Dong Shiliang. After middle school, he entered Xu Zhiqian's door. It was also instructed by Kang Yong, Ouyang Zhongshi and Liu Bingsen. In the 1980s, he studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He specializes in European characters, and also learns Han Li and Xing Cursive. In 1974, he worked at the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Dong Zhenghe, born in Beijing in 1951, is a famous calligrapher of the Palace Museum, a member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, and a plaque writer of the Palace Museum of Calligraphy and Painting, the Stone Drum Museum, the Gold and Silver Ware Museum, and the National Library. Under the name of the European Book of Calligraphy, he also studied the seals of the Grass and the Diamond Sutra of Taishan, and studied under Xu Zhiqian, and was instructed by Kang Yong, Liu Bingsen and other gentlemen. On August 19, 2020, he was appointed as a librarian of the Central Research Museum of Culture and History.
There has never been a standard for what kind of words the Forbidden City needs, but Dong Zhenghe must face this problem head-on, from the day she took over the burden of her predecessor Jin Yumin 44 years ago.
After the founding of New China, the Forbidden City has always had a special "writing person". At that time, there were no computers, and the palace needed to be handwritten, sometimes with pen and ink, sometimes with advertising powder, sometimes with paint, from the newly established exhibition halls, plaques of business departments, and even tourist notices and directional signs.
In the past few decades, Dong Zhenghe has created a dignified and atmospheric calligraphy style with a temple atmosphere based on Ou Kai, written in various palaces and corners of the Forbidden City, creating a set of "visual systems" of the Forbidden City.
Inscription plaques for the Stone Drum Hall and Clock Hall of the Palace Museum
Now, the Forbidden City has a new "visual system": computer fonts. Functional text in the palace is basically replaced by computer printing. Dong Zhenghe has been retired for 9 years, and the third generation has not yet been succeeded, and there may not be such a "writing person" in the future.
Temple atmosphere
When Dong Zhenghe was in his 30s, many people saw her words and thought it was written by an old gentleman.
Dignified, atmospheric, and strict, Dong Zhenghe has always pursued this. A teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts said her words had "temple qi."
Her writing style is atmospheric and tough, without dragging mud and water. She had been groping for at least 10 years with this style.
Dong Zhenghe's handwritten preface to the exhibition
In 1974, the Forbidden City planned to recruit several workers to go to the cultural relics repair factory, and Dong Zhenghe passed the recruitment as a zhiqing. Because of the good writing, the leader of the assigned post decided not to let her repair cultural relics and to sort out the documents of the Forbidden City.
After this work was completed, Dong Zhenghe was arranged to the exhibition department to specially sort out the cultural relics of the Forbidden City. This was originally a place where college students could only go, and junior high school student Dong Zhenghe got the opportunity because of his good handwriting.
In 1976, Mr. Jin Yumin, who specialized in calligraphy at the Forbidden City, fell seriously ill, and Dong Zhenghe was transferred to the art group to take over his position. At that time, the places where words were needed in the palace were all written by people, and the preface to the exhibition was written on half a wall, and the open-air tourists noticed that the wind was blowing and the sun was blowing, and a batch would be changed in three or four months, all written by Mr. Jin.
Dong Zhenghe, 25, is a little nervous, and although she has always been confident in calligraphy, she feels that she is too far behind when she sees the words written by Jin Yumin in the Forbidden City. The old experts of the Forbidden City around her mentioned her, and the word Jin came from Zhao Mengfu. She worked hard for a year to visit Zhao Mengfu and found that she could even write the level of gold. At this time, the old expert clicked again: there is no need to follow the words of gold, you can write better.
Dong Zhenghe later felt that Mr. Jin's words were flowing, but less dignified, she figured out the beauty of the golden characters, and then mixed with ou Kai's modesty, and gradually had the direction to pursue.
Hu Qi, an old friend of Dong Zhenghe and vice president of the China Calligraphy and Painting Collectors Association, believes that the Forbidden City gave Dong Zhenghe the advantage of being blessed with heaven, and he touched and renovated and copied many of the plaques of the Forbidden City at a young age, all of which were written by Lu Runyu and Zhang Baixi, and the elegant book volume "ate" into the heart. "She wrote Ou Kai, very standardized and rigorous, and dignified and luxurious, it can be said that she has a unique court temperament, which ordinary people can't do."
The plaque of the Palace Museum of Calligraphy and Painting is written by Dong Zhenghe
A large part of the characters written by Dong Zhenghe in the Forbidden City are functional, and they need to be seen clearly by the people and feel beautiful. But as a professional calligrapher, her pursuit goes far beyond that.
She used to discuss with her lover, the painter Yang Gang, whether calligraphy could be appreciated with elegance and customs. Dong Zhenghe still has no answer, and what he strives to do is that experts can see the power behind it, and ordinary people will also feel beautiful and think that it is better than computer words.
Teachers
Dong Zhenghe's calligraphy comes from a family. His grandfather Dong Yukun was a famous doctor in Beijing and proficient in calligraphy, and his father Dong Shiliang was also a calligrapher who once served in Rong Baozhai and the famous "Zhang Yiyuan" plaque was written by him.
When she was a child, she trained her to write, and in the summer of the second grade, she wrote "The Secret Tower" in a similar way. She gained self-confidence from calligraphy very early on, and never thought that practicing calligraphy was hard.
After joining the team at a labor reform farm in Inner Mongolia in 1969, Dong Zhenghe left pen, ink and paper, and his calligraphy skills were used to write envelopes for classmates to write home letters, or to help the farm produce blackboard newspapers. But even in these daily writings, she was figuring out how to write well.
The first teacher to guide her was Xu Zhiqian, a calligrapher from Rong Baozhai who led her to Ou Kai's path. After entering the Forbidden City, there were more predecessors who guided her. Xu Bangda, Liu Bingsen, Ma Ziyun all pointed out her in calligraphy, and cultural relics experts such as Zhu Jiazhuo, Zheng Minzhong, Luo Fuyi and other predecessors also taught her a lot of knowledge.
In 1977, the first anniversary of Mao Zedong's death, an exhibition was held in the Forbidden City, and Dong Zhenghe wrote the entire foreword to the exhibition for the first time. After the opening, she heard a voice with anger rebuke: "Who wrote this preface, and wrote it like this?" Colleagues said that this old gentleman was Ma Ziyun.
When his father heard this, he was overjoyed and said that Ma Ziyun was a Jinshi Chuantuo Taidou, and you should go and consult with him. A few days later, Dong Zhenghe went to Ma Ziyun's office with a few words. Ma Ziyun held out a copy of the "Shi Chen Monument" from his collection and asked her to take it back to see. "That's a priceless treasure, no one else has the chance to touch it, so Mr. Ma gave it to me like this."
Xu Bangda, a tycoon in the book industry, also took the initiative to come to her and instruct her to put the golden stone inscriptions away, write more letters, and cultivate the atmosphere of the books. Liu Jiu'an took out a Qing Dynasty note worth comparable to a cultural relic for her to write, and gave it as a gift to the Forbidden City when she went to Hong Kong for exchange. At that time, there were too few young people, and the masters wanted them to grow up quickly and take over.
A generation has a generational responsibility, and Dong Zhenghe's special responsibility came in the 1970s: simplified characters. This is a turning point in the era facing the calligraphy world. Compared with the field of calligraphy art, the change of writing directly to the public is the most urgent. Liu Bingsen sighed to her: Brother (he has always called Dong Zhenghe), this simplified thing is better for you to do.
Dong Zhenghe wrote the stone drum text on the collection of the Stone Drum Museum of the Forbidden City in italics
Simplified calligraphy does not even have a copy to learn from, and many special interstitial structures make calligraphy a completely new creation. For example, the traditional "class" belongs to "how to write is beautiful"; while the simplified "class", in the words of Liu Bingsen, is "three legs", top-heavy. For the special structure brought about by this simplified word, Dong has made countless painstaking efforts, one by one.
She was the first generation of people in the Forbidden City to write simplified calligraphy, and can also be said to be a pioneer. "I think I tried my best, and I don't think anyone who writes simplified words can look better than me." Since entering the Forbidden City, this is one of the few things that makes her feel confident.
——Excerpt from "Using a Brush to Shape the Forbidden City's "Visual System" (the original text has been deleted) / Beijing News reporter Ni Wei
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