"Cold Food Poems" is not only one of the most wonderful representative works in the personal calligraphy career of Su Shi, a great calligrapher of the Song Dynasty, but also a milestone and important work in the history of Chinese calligraphy, especially the development of cursive calligraphy. Later generations called it together with Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion" of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Tang Yan Zhenqing's "Manuscript of sacrifice to the Nephew", and praised it as "the third line of the world", where "first", "second", and "third" actually refer to the chronological order before and after, and can not be simply understood as the difference between the high and low levels of their artistic level. Therefore, to study and examine the Song Dynasty Shangyi calligraphy style to study the development and evolution of the genre of calligraphy art style since the "Second King", it is impossible to bypass the "Cold Food Post".
Interpretation of the artistic conception of the work
These are two poems written by Song Yuanfeng in the fifth year of The Year of Song Yuanfeng, that is, in 1082 AD, when Su Shi was demoted to Huangzhou, on paper, and the original is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. During the Qingming Dynasty in March of that year, Su Shi went from Huangzhou to Shahu Lake, then swam in the water and made a short spring tour, which was nothing more than pleasure in suffering and suffering. In such a difficult and helpless day, he still maintains the childlike elegance of the literati and is full of sincere love for life, which is the cuteness of Su Shi's personality. Because of this, there is also this poem book double "Cold Food Poems". These are two poems, from "I came to Huangzhou" to "The sickness must be white" as the first, and "Chunjiang wants to enter the house" to "The dead ash can't blow" as the second. In the poem, the author describes the miserable and miserable living conditions in the three years since The fall of Huangzhou in Beijing, and expresses his sentimental feelings of wanting to cry without tears. Therefore, we can not simply regard this work as an inkblot, a "good word", before we start to write, we must carefully read the content of the poem, carefully appreciate the author's emotions and state of mind, and feel the rhythm of life when the author is inking at that time and place. After tasting and reading for a long time, we will unconsciously slowly close the distance with the author, and we have always felt that the author is a kind elder beside us, telling us about the misfortune and anger of fate, and the dot lines full of dots have a sense of closeness to us, and "live" in front of our eyes.
Based on this reading experience, we will further understand the extraordinary features of Su Shi's pen and ink from the layout of the entire chapter. The first poem focuses on the fact that "since I came to Huangzhou, I have passed three cold foods", and it rains bitterly every year, so that "the beginning of illness must be white". Emotions are low, the rhythm of pen and ink is also plain and low, the fourth and fifth lines are slightly undulating, and the sixth and seventh lines are calm.
In contrast, the second song is quite exciting and sad, "Chunjiang wants to enter the house" to "empty blisters boiled cold vegetables" three lines with the pen fast, refreshing, sharp, as if a piece of music is about to be pushed to the climax before the preparation of brewing, to the eleventh line "broken stove burning wet grass" is like the strongest sound of the whole piece of music suddenly sounded, suddenly so that the author's indignant and sad emotional mood has been vividly exploded and cathartic. The next few lines went up and down layer by layer, and the days of distress made people forget the cold food festival of burning paper for ancestors, and when they saw the birds going far away, they thought that it was already the Qingming Festival, a heavy courtier who used to go in and out of the court, a literati who was only eight buckets tall, but at this time he lived in another country and far away from home, how did this scene not touch the sensitive heart of the poet, missing his hometown, missing his relatives and ancestors, and could not help but "also want to cry poorly, and he could not afford to blow up the ashes", it was already going to the country and nostalgia to cry without tears. It can be seen that the special significance of this thousand-year-old immortal work is not only the subtlety of its pen and ink, but also lies in the harmony and unity of its poetic ink rhyme and the author's personality cultivation, which is the author's freehand and comfort of human eternal emotions with a compassionate "big heart", so it has a strong artistic appeal that has not been lost for a thousand years.
The poems are related to the mood of the books
We cannot simply copy and apply the understanding of Su Shi's poetry to his understanding of the art of calligraphy, and the understanding of the content of writing cannot replace the understanding of the ontology of calligraphy art.
As a calligrapher, Su Shi was an advocate and practitioner of the Shangyi calligraphy style of the Song Dynasty, and his artistic views of "self-innovation, not practicing the ancients" and "unintentionally being able to do so" had a great influence on the cursive style of the Song Dynasty and even later. A "meaning" word makes us naturally think of such as "meaning", "meaning", "mood", "mood" and other meanings that have not been imaged. Xiong Bingming explains it in the "Theoretical System of Chinese Calligraphy" as "a quiet and pleasant creation", emphasizing a kind of lyricism in creation, which is quite accurate.
Based on such an artistic home, Su Shi's pen skills are more relaxed and natural than the Tang people of his predecessors such as "Shangfa", and they push for adaptability and freedom. This cannot but be said without mentioning his unusual way of writing, the lying penmanship. What is "lying down"? The Shuowen explains it this way: "偃: Stiff also. Whoever looks up to the servant is called a servant. His good friend Chen Shidao should be very familiar with Su Shi's writing, he described it this way: "Dongpo wrote a book with his hand to the case, so that the wrist did not move as a method. ”
It can be seen that "stiff" means "immovable", and "leaning on the servant" means that the sharp edge of the brush is at a certain angle of inclination with the paper surface, rather than upright, and the milli-end of the brush is naturally often in a lying state when transporting the pen. "Arriving at the case with his hand" means that his pen is very low, and the pillow wrist is not hanging from the wrist. Because the pillow wrist is written, it can only be based on the finger, and the maneuver space of the brush is relatively narrow.
The advantage of this method of writing is that the swing of line dot painting is very affirmative and plain, refreshing and healthy, such as the hanging needle vertical in the four words of "year", "middle", "reed" and "paper", which is written very sharply and fiercely, cheerfully and vividly, and cracks the dull and depressing feeling of Su Zi xi as a flat posture, which plays a role in the finishing touch in the whole work. The disadvantage is that the knot time is urgent and not stretched enough. Huang Tingjian sneered at The Su characters such as "stone pressed shrimp toad", and said: "Or Yun Dongpo made Godo into a sick pen, and the wrist was lying down, so the left show and the right withered." ”
Dong Qichang also said in his "Essay on Painting the Zen Room": "Po Gongshu has many pens, which is also a disease. Therefore, when we are writing this post, we must not fail to pay attention to these characteristics, and we must be familiar with Su Shi's more special method of using the pen, not only to strive to write like a god and have both gods and forms; but also not to apply the effect of the east, to imitate its skin in vain, and finally the spirit cannot be captured, but a bunch of problems are left behind.
Four major points for the pro "Cold Food Post"
We know that pro-post contains "to be", "to be", "to be", to be", to be "to be present". Let's start with Pro, specifically pay special attention to the following aspects:
1, for the typical lying gesture of the dot painting, such as "come", "yellow", "two", "burn", "that", "die" and other words are about to write, can not lead to excessive demand for momentum and lead to the dot painting bloated and unfocused, when transporting the pen should be moderately raised pen slowly, especially the skimming turn should be properly tightened.
2, the glyph is mostly flattened, and the left is low, right is high, left shu right, and it is oblique. Horizontal drawing at the beginning of the pen more use of shunfeng, not hidden. When writing, we must grasp these characteristics well, and we must strive to cut and be flat, and not make it sharp and weak. In addition, there are also some longitudinal words, such as the "year" character in the second line, the "middle" word in the fifth line, the "inside" word in the tenth line, the "stove" and "reed" word in the eleventh line, and the "paper" word in the thirteenth line, which is in sharp contrast with the overall tone of the whole article. When writing, we must pay attention to these changes, especially the hanging needle vertical of the four words "year", "middle", "reed" and "paper", and the pen should be full of ink and ink, showing an irrepressible momentum.
3, pay attention to the size of the glyph changes, the size of the glyph of this post changes greatly, the contrast is strong, the small ones such as "has", "go", "again", "rain", "white", "wanli", etc., the big ones such as "year", "broken stove", "poor way", etc., the difference is several times or even more than ten times, interspersed, as if the big beads and small beads fall on the jade plate, natural and vivid. When writing, pay attention to the small ones to make full use of the sharp tip and strive to be flexible; the big ones should be decisive and fierce, so that they are full of strength and emotional connotations.
4, the outstanding feature of this thesis chapter method is that the word spacing is tight and the line spacing is loose, such as the fourth, fifth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, fourteenth line, there is almost no gap between the word and the word, especially the vertical bottom end of the four hanging needles and the following words are almost interspersed together, which is extremely rare in the famous posts of the past, this tense and oppressive space atmosphere is very consistent with the emotional tone in the author's poem, and should be carefully appreciated when writing. In addition, it is also necessary to pay attention to the positive and oblique swing of each line of the axis and the tightening change between the rows, this change makes the work as a whole full of a strong sense of rhythm, such as the first line of "Huangzhou" diagonally to the right, the word "Three Cold" diagonally to the left, the eighth line is also first right and then left, the thirteenth line "The Deep Door of the Paper" obliquely to the left, and the fifteenth line is obliquely to the right and tightened.
From the perspective of the change of line spacing, the first seven lines and the first song are more uniform, and from the eighth line onwards, they are suddenly loose and tight, with the trend, and the sense of movement is strong. In the temporary, in addition to grasping the above aspects, in the choice of tools and materials, we should also pay attention to the use of wolf or healthy pens, and the paper should be selected half-raw and half-cooked antique paper in order to control the excessive deepening of the ink.
It is equally important to be aware of the Cold Food Post
Writing this post, it is very necessary to write the reality of the pro, otherwise we will not be able to appreciate the subtleties of the details of the original post, and we will not be able to solve the problem of learning the techniques of the ancients.
However, the study of the "Cold Food Post" makes more sense in terms of the meaning between its similarity and dissimilarity, for the following reasons:
First, cursive writing is different from the static style of the seal, the sense of movement is extremely strong, the writing process must maintain a certain speed of writing, with the situation of the shape, with the shape of the momentum are extremely natural, it is difficult to make the writing and the original post to do the same, as Huang Tingjian said after this post: "Try to make the east slope revert, not necessarily this." ”
Second, Su Shi's pen method is more special, this kind of low-management three-finger "lying down" brushwork, in Su Shi's case may be a crooked "turning decay into magic", in our case, it may become a problem, at least not in line with most of our writing habits, deliberate imitation is really unnecessary. Third, the study of books should be based on the ancients as the guest and me, this is the experience of the predecessors, after all, the post is the means rather than the end, from the taste, understanding and practice of the classic inscriptions of the ancients to realize a kind of enlightenment, find a way, practice a set of techniques to apply to our own writing and creation, is our most fundamental purpose, is the most meaningful.