Recently, a calligraphy expert said in an interview: Huai Su was a monk in the Tang Dynasty, because he did not do his job well before writing, so we believe that his calligraphy level is not high.
Huai Su, a monk of the Tang Dynasty, cut his hair as a monk at the age of ten, because he later liked calligraphy very much, he had a high achievement in calligraphy, famous for his wild grass, his representative work is "Self-Narration", etc., he and his contemporary Zhang Xu and called "Upside Down Crazy Su", is a very great cursive master in the history of calligraphy.
The expert said in an interview that the monk's job is to cultivate and recite the scriptures, but Huai Su did not make great achievements in this regard, but he deviated from the road and ran to write.
For this statement, on the surface, it seems to have a certain truth, he also gave examples of some historical figures and events, such as Li Shutong is also a monk, but the "main business" of the family is a monk, and the "hobby" is writing, painting, etc. In his lifetime, Master Hongyi sorted out the classics such as the Nanshan Vinaya sect that had been lost for many years, and was praised as "the generalist of the world". For him, calligraphy is a natural effect.
The reason why what this expert said has a certain truth is that his statement is roughly similar to that of the ancients, and the ancients also had methods in this regard, they believe that calligraphy is a matter of "self-cultivation and family governance and peace in the world", so the ancients called calligraphy "yushi". Thinking of Huai Su, he may have been silent in the matter of calligraphy all day, so he delayed the monk's "right karma".
However, calligraphy is also developed step by step, the ancients after discovering the joy of writing, they step by step in it to find the meaning of calligraphy in the writing, and the ancients did not advocate calligraphy as a main business to do, thinking that this is "playthings lose their minds" things, which is contrary to "self-cultivation and family governance and peace in the world".
"Books are contemporary". Nowadays, calligraphy has developed to a rapid development, as far as some colleges and universities are concerned, most of them have set up calligraphy majors, and also trained certain calligraphy undergraduate and graduate students, which is the need of society and the need for talent employment. There are also some calligraphers who quit their jobs to write, these people are called professional calligraphers, are specialized in the study of calligraphy.
It can be seen from here that the calligraphy of the ancients is far different from that of contemporary calligraphy, and we cannot generalize. There is a saying called "survival of the fittest", and some people may think that there are not so many calligraphers and professional calligraphers in contemporary times, but they can survive in society, perhaps it is a need, we can not take everything to a ruler to measure.
The calligraphy expert said that Huai Su was "not doing the right thing", but he left people with a valuable wealth in the world of wild grass in calligraphy, and opened up another path for future generations to learn calligraphy.
As far as the essence of calligraphy is concerned, it is not only the pen strength of people when writing, but also the pride of people, we do not understand what kind of pride Huai Su wrote immortal works, but the cultivation, emotion and skills of the writers contained in the wild cursive calligraphy are not able to do by ordinary conformists. If Huai Su had recited the scriptures well and spent all his energy here, then there would be no such thing as him becoming a mad weed.
In short, everything that wants to succeed mainly comes from two aspects: one is to develop towards one's own interests, and only by doing a good job of what is of interest can things be done well, and can things develop in a broader and deeper way and achieve results. The second is to adapt to changes in the environment, to adjust their own strategies, if you blindly follow the principle of "self-cultivation and family governance and world peace", calligraphy will not develop to today, let alone today's prosperity.