First, the institute
Second, yes
3. Zhang
Not long ago, I had one more message under my article.
The friend who left the message said that he was very worried that if he started with tablets such as "Yi Ying", "Shi Chen" and "Ritual Instruments", he would be stiff and lack of vitality. He simply gave up these Han tablets and went to write Han Jian instead.
His words made me feel a little emotional, because they seemed to represent a general mentality of resistance to notation at the moment.
The calligraphy style represented by the three steles of the Confucius Temple such as "Yi Ying" is to start and end in a measured manner, and to move and follow the rules. In the eyes of some self-proclaimed "professionals", this can only be regarded as a low level of calligraphy.
It is no wonder that old gentlemen like Qi Gong and Hua Shikui, who write in a disciplined manner, have gradually become "librarians" in today's calligraphy criticism and have been included in another volume.
However, from another aspect, the emergence of this strange situation may also help us understand why "Zhang Qian", which is likely to be the inscription of the lower-level Xu Official's book (as for the level of writing in several streams, there is room for discussion) has gained so much popularity today - because it destroys the uniform and solemn law of Li shu Ting, appearing innocent and eclectic, such as the above "Zhang" character is a typical example.
Since writing this set of "Zhang Qianbei Daily Lessons", I have constantly received questions like this: "I want to learn lishu from the beginning of "Zhang Qianbei", is it okay?" ”
And my response was always, "No." ”
Because the innocence of "Zhang Qianbei" was changed to a beginner to write, it is likely to be written as "no rules" in the end.
Let's take a look at the three gentlemen He Shaoji, Liang Qichao, and Lin Sanzhi who wrote the "Zhang Qianbei" character:
(The three Linbens from left to right in the picture above are he Shaoji, Liang Qichao and Lin Sanzhi in order)
Seeing these three words above, will the friends who are looking forward to innocence be a little disappointed? None of the three calligraphers wrote the innocence on the rubbings, but rather like the believers in the "Three Tablets of the Confucius Temple", writing in a well-mannered manner.
Why do I have to learn the rules first to write?
Because the so-called rules, that is, the laws of universal applicability in the use of pens, structures and rules. Even if our ultimate goal is to acquire some kind of naïve style, it must be achieved by breaking the rules – if you don't have the rules, what about breaking them?
Let's take this "Zhang" character as an example to briefly analyze how it breaks the rules.
A word is a complete organism, and changing any of its local structures will cause a chain reaction that affects the whole body. Therefore, to analyze why this "Zhang" word has become what it is today, we must first find out where its first step to breaking the rules came from.
And in my opinion, the stroke circled in the following figure is where it started:
Compared to conventional writing, the end point of this stroke is obviously closer to the right, so the end of the next horizontal stroke is more protruding to the right.
It's like a man who, instead of taking a normal standing posture, plucks his ass up (technical terms called "flexion"). The ass is plucked up, the center of gravity of the upper body must fall to the left, in order to prevent themselves from really falling, the feet have to be straightened and stretched forward as much as possible.
The reason why the righteous symbol "bow" seems to be pouring over and not falling is actually like this. As for the "long" sound symbol, considering that it had to avoid the "ass" of the "bow" of the righteous symbol, the vertical of the number logo had to be moved to the right, and the shape was slightly tilted to the right.
Once the stroke is tilted to the right, the center of gravity of the "long" sound note also falls to the right. In order to return it to balance, the stroke must be stretched moderately, holding the center of gravity of the pouring again.
And when it is written here, this "Zhang" word has finally taken shape:
In making the above analysis, I actually want to show that we must first establish a set of writing norms in our consciousness, and then we can analyze certain special variants on the basis of it and find out the laws of their changes.
If there is no basis for this set of norms, unconventional glyphs such as the word "Zhang" can only be memorized by rote - but this is actually meaningless. Because even if you memorize this isolated case and change it to another word, it will not work.
Fourth, yes
— THE END —
The text | Prince of Jin
Typography | cream belly
The picture | Zhang Qianbei & Jin Gongzi original