Kang Youwei said in "Guangyi Zhou Shuangyi": "The ancients discussed books, taking 'potential' as the first. Zhonglang Cai Yong (中郎蔡邕曰'nine trends' Wei Heng 'book posture', Xi Zhi 曰 'stroke'. The meaning is the same. If you get the 'potential', you have the odds. Although calligraphy is a kind of plastic art based on words, the production of "shape" is inseparable from "potential", so the predecessors on calligraphy are all based on "potential". The generation of "potential" depends on the pen to complete and at the same time rely on lines to reflect.
"Gesture" occupies an extremely important position in calligraphy, the definition of "gesture": Chinese characters are composed of dot paintings, the so-called "accumulation of dot paintings, is its characters". Between dot painting and dot painting in every word, between words and words, and between lines and lines in each work, there is no isolated existence. They all have a certain internal connection between them, thus forming a complete unity, and this connection is done through the role of "gestures". Therefore, the so-called "gesture" is the intrinsic (intangible) or external (tangible) connection between pointillism and pointillism, word and word, and form and form. The connections between the characters that run through each line are called "line qi" in calligraphic terms. Qi is an important component of the category of "gestures".
"Gesture" is also called "tendon" and "bloodline" in calligraphy, only when the tendons are connected, the blood circulation, and the eight sides of the pen are used to make the calligraphy work produce a sense of life, and finally produce a complete and unified calligraphy work. Obviously, Wang Duo's mastery and use of "gestures" is successful, which is manifested in the work to achieve the effect of using a unique pen and an overall strange rhythm.
The specific use of gestures in the art of calligraphy
(a) Folding and matching posture: when closing the pen, the pen is "folded", and the counter-trend dew is said to be "hitched" when the pen is written. Jiang Kui mentioned: "At the beginning of the next pen, there are those who tie the edge and those who fold the front, and the body of the word is set at the beginning of the pen. Where writing, the first word is mostly folding, and the second and third words carry on the gesture, mostly the front. The big thing is to fold more spirits, to hide the good and subtle, and to be wonderful at the same time."
(b) Take the trend of the stroke: the word has the shape of nature, there must be a natural trend, and the situation will arise spontaneously when the number is stroked. This is the method of taking the position of the left and right reflection belt, up and down.
(c) Because of the wave trend: it is a gesture generated by the fluctuation of the dot painting. Whether it is italics, lines, or sketches, it is more expensive than being able to do it, and the words can appear vivid and lively. However, the "force" is not obtained by the straight and stagnant arrangement of the dot painting, too flat and too straight, but it appears weak, and the ancient mountain writers belong to the "curved trend and straight". This kind of pen method of seeking flatness from unevenness and not seeking straightness in straightness is not only easy to produce pen force, but also easier to produce gestures.
(d) Shrinking gesture: The so-called "shrinking gesture" means that in some strokes that should be "stretched" and "opened", their gestures are not displayed, and the strokes are used instead of "shrinking" and "closing", such as arrows on the string, full of bows, then the gesture is infinite. The purpose of convergence is to store "momentum", as if punching, and the action of closing the arm is to punch the fist out more quickly and powerfully. This method of taking the long and avoiding the short and shrinking into the extension is very common in Wang Duo's cursive writing.
(e) Taking the side as the "side" means the whole or part of the glyph that is partial to the structure. Taking the side not only makes the glyph change in posture, but also is a very important means of generating gestures. The gestures resulting from the change of the sides of the knot body are also called "posture" in calligraphic terms. In some calligraphy, we often see that there is no obvious echo relationship between some words and character dot paintings, and the font turns to the left and right, reflecting the belt, which is the so-called "unstoppable, unstoppable, which is mainly the role of "body posture".
"Posture" can be said to be ever-changing in Wang Duo's cursive, while "posture" is generated by gestures. The most common manifestations are: "left extension and right contraction, left contraction and right extension, left and right swing, left and right jumping, pitching posture, and change according to the situation." However, the fonts are different, the body posture performance is also different, deliberately neat, or intentionally changed, are all ways to die. "Wang Duo got it through painstaking study in a lot of practice.
According to the above explanation, we can understand that these methods can produce "potential", but which of them produces the greatest effect is not clear in three words. The author believes that "folding and taking the momentum" is a method of generating "word groups" after connecting up and down. However, compared with the cursive wrapping in a string, it seems that the effect is not as good. However, excessive arc wrapping around the process, into too many curves, will cause soft, smooth, and reduce the visual impact. "Because of the wave potential" is to use the irregular shaking of the line to produce the feeling of "dilemma and difficult behavior", which produces a hard-won line connotation, which makes people cherish the weight of the line "staying". "Shrink pen" is a sudden "braking" effect in the smoothness, which has a strong force to refresh the momentum, and has the effect of changing the rhythm and enhancing the vision. "Flanking" is a common tactic used by bookmakers, but flanking must be combined with "considerable confidence and speed" to produce results.
For example, Zhang Ruitu's calligraphy is the best illustration. The above five parts use each other, plus the size of the font opening and closing, the straightness and curve of the axis to make irregular changes, in order to achieve a more obvious effect. Visually speaking, font size, ink color, and spatial whiteness (because of changes in the axis) are a kind of macroscopic "potential" performance; the flanking, folding and folding belt, and shrink pen belong to the microscopic "potential" performance.
What you must have to produce a gesture
To produce gestures, it is necessary to master the methods of writing and wrist movement. If you can write a book with your wrist hanging, the gestures are unlimited. Ming Fengfang's "Book Tips" said: "Books have tendons, bones, blood, and flesh, tendons are born in the wrist, and the wrist can be suspended to connect the bones and bones and have power", which is actually an empirical talk. The force must be backed by "force". Slow and weak writing makes it difficult to produce gestures. If the dot painting is vigorous and the blood veins are smooth, the whole picture will appear imposing. Tang Taizong's "Treatise on the Book" said: "In the book of the ancients, I do not learn its situation, but seek its bone strength, and obtain its bone strength, and the situation is born of its own ears." "Gestures are also produced in skillful pen and ink techniques, including wrist movement, pen use, knots, chapters, etc., which is one of the important conditions for generating gestures. Liang Tongshu's "Treatise on pinluoan" pointed out: "Writing must have qi, and qi must be obtained from the book." There is a momentum of qi, the size of the length, the height and the order, the essay, the natural penetration into a fragment. Of course, this is not the ultimate goal of the book. If the whole work is to have momentum, it must also have the idea of "intending to write first". As Wang Duo said: "The cover word must first be formed in the chest, and when it is about to be written, the divine qi will be spilled out, not the lord is the same, there is no certain law, but the ear of the pole." ”
Momentum
The requirements of Chinese calligraphy for "potential" actually include "momentum", and although there are long-term requirements for "potential" in calligraphy, almost all of them belong to an abstract appreciation or a description that tends to be subjective. As Sun Guoting said in the "Book Genealogy": "As for the evaluation of the various families, they are mostly involved in flashy, and they are not only external in shape, and mysterious on the inside." The study of "dynamic potential" is mainly based on form, with the perspective of visual psychology.
The meaning of "potential" in calligraphy is a "posture" or a "trend", and it also vaguely indicates that it has a sense of movement, and the emergence of motion is based on the first two. In psychology or the psychology of art, "visual tension" is used, and this tension is considered to be the main psychological cause of movement or movement. The main condition for motion is "motion", which is the strongest visual attraction, which usually refers to the unknown change of something and the environment, but some things can be observed with the naked eye, and some things are not so easy. There are several dynamics:
(a) Overall momentum
The so-called movement or dynamic of plastic art is that the artist does not regard a thing as a static object, but prefers to grasp it as a moving event; and the relationship between the parts of the picture is not geometrically arranged, but as an arrangement that can produce mutual effects, so that the movement will arise. The reason why the whole composition produces movement is that the momentum of each part is very reasonable to match the overall momentum. Therefore, when the movement of the various parts of a composition is logically integrated into the entire work, the dynamic sense of the composition can be successfully realized.
The emergence of the overall momentum is based on the principle of the overall sense of power presented by the picture, generally speaking, the process of appreciating the lines of the seal, the li, and the letter can be isolated, so it can be partially appreciated, and it is also relatively lacking in momentum. The lines of line and cursive make us feel the speed of the gallop, and the jumping of the pen, creating a sense of movement, but also the full width of the joint play a positive sense of movement.
(b) Momentum on deformation
The distortion and exaggeration of the shape is another main reason why Wang Duo's cursive can produce "momentum", but the treatment of deformation requires a lot of experience to be completed, and it must be just right in the form, so the deformation is not really impossible to grasp the next last resort, but the adjustment made at the last resort. Under this principle, the conditions it requires must be more complete and flexible in order to have a way to process the whole picture. Because the uncertainty of this constitutive relationship is far greater than that of traditional calligraphy, because each stroke produces unexpected and unexpected unanticipated effects, and each stroke is related to the consideration of balance, and at the same time, this consideration focuses on the word itself, but also cares about the whole text. In general, this deformation can be divided into two types. That is, the momentum generated by the change of font size and spacing and the momentum generated by the overall chapter formed between lines and lines.
(c) The dynamics generated by changes in font size and spacing
Chinese characters are mainly squares, so they have elements of balance, symmetry and harmony, and their unity is easy to produce, but the effect of momentum is not easy to express. When a certain supernatural collocation appears, it will tend to be nervous visually, and this visual tension can generate momentum. Especially in cursive performance, it is not exaggerated, twisted, dangerous and other ways to change the text as much as possible, it destroys the normal proportion and normal shape of the text, and appears in an unexpected posture, so the change of the glyph is almost unpredictable, but the tension of the deformed glyph will run out of the word and form an unpredictable momentum.
(d) Tilting momentum
Tilt direction is probably the most basic and effective of all methods of obtaining directional tension. The tilt of the word can be seen spontaneously as a vertical and horizontal feeling, which is a visual effect. It is sometimes pulled by the frame, sometimes pulled apart or pushed away by the frame, and even sometimes rejected, and the tension of the direction is generated in this sudden movement. "Therefore, the calligraphic momentum generated by the tilt depends on the degree of detachment from the normal position of the matter more stable. Taking Wang Duo's "Cursive Poetry Scrolls" as an example, the center of gravity of most of its words deviates from the conventional centerline, such as when looking at a single word alone, the center of gravity of the entire word has the feeling of overturning, and even a whole line of words has a tilt to the right, when this situation is particularly serious, there are some words that deliberately tilt to the left, although in the end it can achieve a harmonious result, but the tension generated by the process occurs from time to time, so it can produce a strong momentum, which is also one of the reasons for the momentum.
(e) Continuous momentum
From Wang Duo's wild grass strokes, we found that a word is not finished, a word starts again, so that one and three times continue to move, one line is written and the momentum is not exhausted, the second line rises again, giving the viewer a feeling of being overwhelmed, so there is a sigh of "full seat loss of voice can not see", this is because the wild grass is "qi" to do, a shot and can not stop, so in the appreciation, our vision is often pulled by it, it is fast with it, it is slow with it, word after word, line after line by its drive, so the admirer's emotions are also infected by it, From the perspective of appreciation, a momentum will be generated.