The line between calligraphy and non-calligraphy is blurred
At present, calligraphy has become a "fighting method within the circle", although the calligraphy circle is very lively, but under the background of the big culture, the social awareness from the cultural height is insufficient. At present, some of the big activities in the book world are mostly focused on the promotion to the society and the popularization to the public, and lack in-depth thinking from the professional position of this art category. These activities have a positive effect on promoting calligraphy to the greater society and promoting social culture. But we think from the perspective of the calligraphy profession, these activities may play a role in generalizing calligraphy, and the boundaries between calligraphy and non-calligraphy are blurred, and the boundaries between calligraphers and non-calligraphers are blurred. Calligraphy has become a popular thing, it is no longer a sunny spring snow, and like pop music, everyone can hum a few songs. But who can hum two sentences of pop music, who can become a musician? No one should admit it. Calligraphy is the same, you can write two strokes, you can produce a collection of works with money, you can do exhibitions, and you can invite famous artists to the scene. Therefore, the line between the bookmaker and the non-book writer is blurred. Then some people who will speculate and wear "official hats" are easy to get the recognition of the market. The unprofessional and vulgar social generalization of calligraphy is becoming more and more obvious, which makes professional "calligraphers" deeply anxious.
How do you appreciate calligraphy today?
In terms of aesthetic tendencies, in ancient times, it was "the unity of heaven and man", "the unity of truth, goodness and beauty", and "the unity of writers and people", and now it is "the supremacy of form". Probably before the Song Dynasty, there was no large paper, and the calligraphy works passed down through the generations were all small pieces, or small pieces of paper were linked together into long scrolls, and when the literati at that time admired these small pieces of calligraphy on the clear and clean books, they "recited their texts orally, and wrote their books in their hands", and at the same time wanted to see their personal style. Oral recitation of its text is to appreciate the beauty of its words and the depth of its meaning; hand-written its book is playful (not necessarily hand-lettered, it will be in the heart) The subtlety of its Hanmo, to experience the persistence, making, turning, and using between the ancients' waving, to appreciate the beauty of calligraphy in the chronological process unfolding along the gestures, what the predecessors called "looking at the ancient people's pen", that is, not only playing with the beauty of the glyph's posture, but also carefully understanding the beauty of the details of the gestures; and then "wanting to see its personal style", through the beautiful words, through the moving Hanmo style, to taste the author's talent and mind Temperament endowment and personality charm. This kind of aesthetic way of blending words, pen and ink and personality is the expression of the concept of the unity of heaven and man, truth, goodness and beauty in classical Chinese philosophical thought, when appreciating a calligraphy work, it is not only the interpretation of the form of skill, the content of the words and the author's temperament and personality will have a presupposive and influential effect on the beauty of calligraphy. Art and man, truth, goodness and beauty are intertwined, influencing each other, causing and causing each other, and together constitute the ancient people's understanding of the beauty of calligraphy. And how do you appreciate calligraphy today? In the vast exhibition hall, there are hundreds of works on display, how to look at the exhibition of these hundreds of pieces? Look at each work for tens of seconds, look at several pieces per minute, the whole process is non-stop! This is a real sloppy view. When you walk out of the exhibition hall physically and mentally exhausted, if someone asks you which work is the best, you may think of one or more works that have left a deep impression, but what these works are written about, in which a few words are written wrong, and even the author is completely unaware of anyone, and only left a deep impression on the form of the work. Among them, the formal beauty of calligraphy art is stripped from the text - writing content and people - the main body of creation, only the form is supreme, reflecting the independence and purity of the beauty of contemporary calligraphy art, in the face of the magnificent works hanging in the exhibition hall, such as walking into the forest of calligraphy, who can read the beauty of the words? Who can delve into the correctness of the text? Who can read the beauty of the details in the back-and-forth of the gestures? All that is concerned is the beauty of the big form.
The calligraphy in the exhibition hall today is redesigned
From another point of view, we can say that the ancient art of calligraphy is not pure and independent, and the ancient art of calligraphy carries the content of wen and people, that is, the ancient art of calligraphy is subordinate to wen and people. In the eyes of the ancients, calligraphy is "the rest of the literati", is "strong man does not do", Sun Guoting's "Book Genealogy" will be listed side by side with fishing, chess, that "Yang Xiong is a poet endowed with a small way, a strong man does not do, the situation is drowned in the millimeter, the degenerate Han ink is also!" "Calligraphy is a subordinate of the text and the people, a tool for carrying the Tao," not a simple artistic creation. The calligraphy creation of the ancients was "unintentional to Jia Naijia" and opposed to deliberate contrivance, while today's calligraphy is deliberately operated in form, striving to pursue creative effects and pursuing unique and unique formal beauty. The ancients emphasized the tempering of the classic teaching methods and techniques in calligraphy, and Wang Duo's method of "one day to post, one day to ask for help" is a typical example of ancient calligraphers, and when waving ink and facing a piece of white rice paper, the accumulation of scrolls in the chest and the bottom of the wrist are transformed into a chaotic piece, following the gesture, changing with the vitality of fate, entering the stream of consciousness realm of "trance, there are elephants; trance, there are things in it", to "concentrate on the spirit, such as the supreme", to "concentrate on meditation", to forget both things." Haoran listens to the wrist", which is a kind of natural swing of "non-creation". The calligraphy creation in today's exhibition hall is redesigned, from the selection of content, book style, form to paper, ink and even the position of the seal cover after completion, it must be carefully designed. The ancients wrote books to seek "elephant", this "elephant" is a kind of mental image, through the personality expression and cultural association of pen and ink, while today's calligraphy creation focuses on "shape", focusing on the feeling of the beauty of the form of the work.
From the perspective of the role and value of calligraphy, the ancients believed that calligraphy is a science, is calligraphy, through the art form to reflect the metaphysical "Tao", today people think that calligraphy is art, pay attention to metaphysical "technology". The calligraphy of the ancients stood on the self- man. Enjoy the process, through the pen and ink lyricism, speech, pleasure, health, do not care too much about the feelings of others, do not have to think about whether the judges can give me a vote, if you can win the award can make more meat in your own bowl and so on... The calligraphy creation in today's exhibition hall is based on the formal expression of objects, works, attaches importance to the visual feelings of others, and attaches importance to the ability to stand out between many works.
From the perspective of the creative attitude of calligraphy, although the ancients regarded calligraphy as "Hanmo Trail", but this is relative to self-cultivation, Qi family, governance of the country and the world of university questions, great strategies, great causes, but calligraphy is after all a unique part of culture, the ancients are respectful of words, culture, civilization, warring states Ji language seal has the word "honor" seal, this is the ancient people's attitude to calligraphy. When one wants to write a book, one should have a righteous heart and be like the Supreme Being, and the book should be in the middle of the right chong and like the instrument of the Lu Temple. Literati and scholars worship the former sages in their hearts and revere the classics in their eyes, and this attitude towards the sages and classics is actually a reverence for traditional culture. Although the ancient literati calligraphy also seeks to create and express individuality, its basic point is to emphasize inheritance, acceptance, and the commonality of calligraphy art, and on this basis, it seeks to create and express. A history of calligraphy written by the literati is not only a history of innovation and development, but also a history of inheritance and accumulation, which are intertwined and inseparable. Let's look back at the attitude of calligraphy creation in today's exhibition era. The calligraphy creation in today's exhibition hall has a clear artistic independent quality, and the calligrapher is very serious about the calligraphy creation, and the time, energy and mind invested are no less than those of the ancients. However, due to the opposite of the inheritance, acceptability and commonality of the ancients in terms of creative concept, we strive to express our personality, strive to be different, be different from the ancients, and create different styles from the ancients, and the only way to change the ancients is to respect the only way. Characterized by self-expression (theorist's name is "exalting the spirit of the subject"), self-centered to point out the ages, and to see the eight directions.
The ancient calligrapher was first and foremost a cultural man, a calligrapher and his life, and his moral strength, and his cultural achievements and social achievements closely integrated into one piece, not alone. Contemporary calligraphy art is becoming more and more independent, and calligraphers are also flaunting the artistic attributes of calligraphy more and more independent. Calligraphy relieves people of their constraints, and character has little to do with calligraphy. The restrictions of the text are relieved, and the relationship between the content of the text and the calligraphy is diluted. In this way, calligraphy strips people, strips literature, and becomes an art independently. In this case, all techniques closely related to form are expanding, and all ancient techniques that are not closely related to form, such as the brushwork of ancient calligraphy, the delicate gesture relationship of ancient calligraphy are gradually fading. Ancient calligraphy attaches great importance to gestures, and the ancient calligraphy mentioned here mainly refers to the Thesis school represented by the two kings. What is a potential? My understanding is that things in the world are interdependent, the unity of opposites. For gestures, that is, the dependence between dot paintings, Mi Fu because of the "eight sides out of the front" of the dot painting shape has a "wind and tree array" gesture, gestures can be reflected through the details of the brushwork, and now in the creation of ignoring the brushwork, naturally lost the beauty of the so-called gestures of the ancients, liberated from the traditional Thessian calligraphy brushwork mode after the current calligraphy creation, pay attention to the search for different characteristics of the dot painting texture, pay attention to the various technical means closely related to the modeling, rather than the ancients of the independent meaning of the brushwork.
Contemporary calligraphy is either divorced from traditional culture or divorced from the public, and the award-winning works are often incomprehensible to the people, and the cultural people cannot understand them, but the people in the calligraphy circle compete for glory. What should we reflect on when people can't understand it? Social identity, historical identity, public identity, this ultimately depends on cultural identity.
In addition to the inheritance and development of art forms, calligraphy should be inherent in a spiritual inheritance and cultural inheritance. In the national calligraphy exhibition, each author will dig out his mind, strive to have a new meaning in the form of the work, strive to distance himself from others, and have a strong desire for expression. Then, when competing in form and style, its cultural significance has moved towards a similarity. When we walked out of the exhibition hall, our minds were dazed, and we felt that they were all the same, all the same. Why does everyone change so much and then flow into the unity of the whole? Because contemporary creation focuses on creating the individual's formal style in the work, and ignores the inherent cultural style and personality charm contained in the work, the ever-changing formal style and the convergence of cultural style make the contemporary calligraphy creation as a whole have a sense of similarity. Appreciate the ancient works, as if many former sages stand in front of the contemporary people peacefully and solemnly, the mountain look up to the feeling of spontaneous, in the works of careful reading, the careful play of the gestures, there is a feeling of "meeting in the room" with the ancients, although here show different calligraphers' different brushwork, different postures and even different aesthetic feelings, but there is not much form of publicity, and through the pen and ink naturally reveal different cultural styles and different temperaments of the calligraphers and even personality charm. The cultural styles of each literati in ancient times were far away from each other. This cultural style is not something that can be grasped at once, and this cultural style is not designed. It is the comprehensive embodiment of learning and personality, and the result of the unity of heaven and man. The ancients marked the style of cultural significance, not the superficial formal style. So it is not intended to be good, this kind of good is a kind of cultural sense of good. Contrary to contemporary creation, the calligraphy of a certain era in ancient times showed cultural stylistic differences in the overall convergence of form. At present, what calligraphy is lost is the cultural style, which is marked by the formal style. In this deep sense, it should be very worth thinking about.
Calligraphy should be the least professional
History has developed to this day, and it is impossible to go back and repeat history, it is impossible to come back. But we have to have that awareness. It's what we pass on, what's missing? What has developed in our contemporary world? Du Fu has a saying that "people do not love the ancients", which should be my attitude.
Compared with other plastic arts, calligraphy should be the least professional, it should be so. Once calligraphy is professionalized, it may promote the prosperity of the contemporary calligraphy industry, and the calligraphy team, the calligraphy market, and publishing education can all be driven. But the calligraphy itself is not the taste of traditional calligraphy, it has mutated. It seems that the wheat we grow with a lot of chemical fertilizer now does not have the wheat aroma of past flour. Today's calligraphers create purely artistic calligraphy from a professional standpoint. This does not refer only to calligraphy as its social professional, but includes authors who engage in calligraphy with professional creative methods and creative concepts, which specifically refers to the creation method of calligraphy exhibition and the creation of visual art as the creative characteristics. In the scene of the exhibition, between the contrasts of many works, calligraphy is no longer like its people, its learning, its aspirations, no longer people-oriented, but the supremacy of form, the concretization of form supremacy is the supremacy of technology, when the form and technology of calligraphy become the core or even the only, when the art of calligraphy becomes an independent and pure visual art, it is far from cultural responsibility and far from people-oriented.
Professional calligraphy creation is only a competition in the small circle of calligraphers, and calligraphers have become frogs at the bottom of the well, far from society, far from culture, just at the technical level. The evaluation of calligraphy has also become a matter in the calligraphy circle, and the public is confused about the calligraphy in the exhibition and feels inexplicable about the award-winning works. Confucius's "wandering in the art" has become the "imperative" of contemporary calligraphers, and the role of calligraphy "self-cultivation" has become the pleasure of form on visual impact. When calligraphy is "pure" in form, and the creative mentality of contemporary calligraphers loses the "purity" of the ancients and becomes face-to-face utilitarianism, the calligraphy creation in the exhibition becomes a professional competition, and professional calligraphy is closely related to the author's reputation, status and even economic life. The different "official positions" of calligraphers and the number of awards they have won are trademark symbols of their market value, and the fundamental reason for the disconnection and dislocation between market value and artistic value of works is that the market lacks cultural support. The core of the contemporary calligrapher's creative orientation and value judgment of the work is the beauty of the form, and away from the truth and goodness, the "Tao" carried by traditional calligraphy creates a new obstacle to the form.
At present, the formalization of calligraphy works and the professionalization of creation are mutually causal and mutually supportive, not only in artistic creation, but also in academic research. The first attribute of the ancient calligrapher was the cultural man, and the calligrapher was also a politician, writer, and scholar. The calligraphy theory works handed down through the generations are also from the hands of these literati calligraphers, not from purely professional calligraphy theorists. From today's point of view, although his treatises can show profound ideological nature under the support of rich calligraphy creation and aesthetic practice, they are not standardized, rigorous and pure academic papers, but mostly prose essays of prose and perception, which are integrated with gorgeous literary style. Like the current calligraphy creation, calligraphy research also shows a professional state, calligraphy research is centered on colleges and universities, in accordance with the requirements of discipline, normative requirements for calligraphy research, its research results need to be quantified, and its degree, position promotion and change is closely related. Scholars have buried themselves in the literature, combed and summarized, and written many book monographs, and fruitful case studies have become the new "academic growth points" at present. Scholars' time, energy, and intellect are all devoted to completing the research results that need to be quantified, and they have no time to take care of the art of calligraphy. Compared with the ancients, the current new generation of calligraphy researchers lack the deep experience of calligraphy art creation and accurate judgment ability of art, and the standardization and professionalization of academic research have made the academic itself far away from the calligraphy art ontology, and at the same time away from the person itself. The situation of "marginalization" of calligraphy research groups centered on colleges and universities in various calligraphy creation exhibition activities should arouse our deep thinking. The refinement of the knowledge structure and social division of labor between the new generation of calligraphy art creators and calligraphy researchers makes these two author groups lack mutual understanding and support from society to profession, scholars regard calligraphers as "no culture", and scholars say that scholars do not understand art, and the current calligraphy creation cannot provide valuable argument materials for calligraphy research, and the results of calligraphy research are difficult to have a direct effect on the current calligraphy creation.
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