Wang Cheng calligraphy
Wang Cheng, a 76-year-old calligrapher in Henan, has long belonged to the old qualifications in the current book world. He made his debut particularly early, and has experienced almost all the major activities of calligraphy in the new period, and has served as the vice chairman of the Henan Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature and the director of the China Book Association.
Wang Cheng became famous in the book world, starting with winning the first prize in the "National Mass Calligraphy Competition". Don't look at the competition as the "masses", this is the first national calligraphy competition held before calligraphy was revived in the late 1970s. It can be said that the subsequent "calligraphy competition" and a series of modern calligraphy exhibition competitions all began from this.
Wang Cheng's work that won the first place in the "National Mass Calligraphy Competition" is a four-character line book of "Jian Zhen Zhi". From our current point of view, Wang Cheng's calligraphy at that time had the characteristics of Kang Youwei's calligraphy, but the level was not high, and he only wrote four words, which was inevitably suspected of being cowardly.
Of course, the overall level of calligraphy creation was not high at that time, and the calligraphy industry was only in the ascendant after a decade of stagnation. In addition, Wang Cheng was just 34 years old when he won the award, which was only in the beginning of the cultivation of a calligrapher.
Wang Cheng was able to win the award to a large extent because of the uniqueness of his approach. Although Kang Youwei was enthusiastic about politics, he actually had great achievements in calligraphy, and his fusion of inscriptions was heroic and vigorous, and he could be called a generation of masters.
The calligraphers of Wang Cheng's era at that time still focused on the steady and traditional style of writing. Therefore, being able to take the Fa Kang Youwei Book, Wang Cheng undoubtedly opened the first step of the atmosphere.
In 1986, Henan calligraphy was in full swing, and the exhibition "Mohai Lane Tide" held by Henan youth calligraphy, including Wang Cheng, refreshed the national calligraphy community. At this time, Wang Cheng began to enter the stage of personalized exploration. His special love for Kang Youwei and his search for Qing Dynasty epigraphy led him to put forward the concept of "Wei Ti Xingshu" while exploring calligraphy.
However, compared with the practice of creating Wei Ti Xingshu, which has made brilliant achievements since the late Qing Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, the practical value proposed by the concept of "Wei Ti Xingshu" is greater than its theoretical value. Its contemporary book history significance lies in the fact that it has greatly strengthened the conversion of the new era of calligraphy to epigraphy, and at the same time, it also clearly explains the traditional value of Wang Cheng's calligraphy creation.
Kang Youwei's calligraphy has made Wang Cheng, so no matter how much Wang Cheng wants to get rid of Kang Youwei's calligraphy, he can't really resist the influence and temptation from Kang Youwei. In fact, the proposal of Wang Cheng's concept of "Wei Ti Xingshu" has clearly and unmistakably showed that Wang Cheng was continuing to follow the path of Kang Youwei.
Temptation, however, soon becomes a creative shackle. Wang Cheng's famous confession can very well explain his wandering and confused mentality in creation at this time: "Understanding has denied the past, but the future is at a loss. The method of taking Kang Youwei shows Wang Cheng's elegant concept of steleology that is not the same as others, which is manifested in his consistent intervention in the north monument with a round pen and resolute resistance to the square pen. This made him abandon the clumsiness and domineering of ordinary stele practitioners who abused the square pen, and showed the search for the temperament of the book.
Wang Cheng's later calligraphy creations were fine-tuned on the basis of Kang Youwei's calligraphy: strengthening the theological factors, absorbing and incorporating the "Pingfu Ti" and Yan Zhenqing and Zhu Xi's manuscripts. If this is a "change of law" for Wang Cheng, then, frankly speaking, this change of law is not successful.
Kang Youwei's calligraphy began and ended without a trace, shoulder to shoulder and stretch freely, pioneering the atmosphere of the outward brush gesture, but under Wang Cheng's pen, it became a blind right-dragging back protection arch circular brushwork, the character posture was introverted and the tension was insufficient. Because the character structure is always left-leaning, the word situation is unstable, and the overall chapter caused by this breaks the usual grass line and straightens down, and it appears to be heavy and chaotic, and the qi pulse is not clear.
Kang Youwei calligraphy
Although Wang Cheng's brushwork is not lacking in rigidity and thickness, it is too round and mature, less jerky and late, so that it cannot receive the pen, which makes his calligraphy lack the golden stone qi and cliff qi that should be used to take the fa and the body.
Kang Youwei's calligraphy is also mainly round, but Kang Youwei's cleverness lies in the fact that although his book takes the round momentum without returning to the closed, in the asana of the tightening of the middle palace and the opening of the four sides, the extraordinary strokes of the spear euphorbia are applied to break the closure of the circle.
Compared with Kang Youwei's calligraphy, the misunderstanding of Wang Cheng's calligraphy is that it blindly circles, resulting in the closure of the body posture and the lack of outward tension. To a large extent, Mr. Wang Cheng's creation seems to have entered a stereotyped strange circle, and breaking this strange circle requires the creative courage of my destruction of my plastic. (from calligraphy know)