The changeable way of Chinese calligraphy

Author: Li Ying (Lecturer, Department of Chinese Calligraphy, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University)

As the "most condensed materialized form of Chinese traditional culture", Chinese calligraphy art (Zhong Mingshan, consultant of China Calligraphers Association and professor of Xi'an Jiaotong University), is precisely with its unique artistic expression, it is to convey the character, quality, concept and culture of the Chinese nation to the fullest. In the search for the roots of the calligraphy tradition, how can the art of Chinese calligraphy penetrate through ancient and modern times? Why is it that in the change of time series, not only has it not disappeared, but it has become vigorous? The inquiry into "changeability" may construct an interpretation system -

The volatile thinking of classical philosophy

The traditional cultural thought of the Chinese nation takes Taoism and Yi thought as the core, and incorporates the essence of Legalism, Moism, Taoism, Confucianism, Famous Scholars, Yin-Yang Schools and other thoughts, and at the same time integrates the essence of foreign cultural thought, and its main spiritual core is embodied in the two aspects of "Yin and Yang View" and "Changeable View", standing at the philosophical height of the cosmology, world view and methodology of the Chinese nation, and comprehensively grasping the genetic character of the descendants of Yanhuang throughout the ages.

First, the philosophy of "one yin and one yang as the way" is embodied in all aspects of Chinese culture. Neolithic faience ornaments lurk the consciousness of Tai Chi and Yin and Yang that the Chinese ancestors have long had, and the "unified view of Yin and Yang opposites" is exactly "Yi has Tai Chi, which is the birth of two yi." Two Yi gives birth to four elephants, four elephants give birth to eight trigrams", the "one divided into two" cosmic observation concept; As far back as the Western Zhou Dynasty, the ancestors "widely used the Bagua to determine the auspicious murder, judge the matter, and determine the behavior", and the trigram symbol on the bronze inscription of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the pottery inscription" - "Table Yang Yao, "--" is Yin, which is the ancient evidence of the incarnation of all things in Yin and Yang. It is to emphasize the beauty of "neutrality" in the wisdom of Chinese, to govern the country with the way of civility and martial arts, to define words with bold and gentle words, to gain insight into the human body with the difference between cold and heat from fiction and reality, and to demand cultivation with literary quality and politeness. Splitting into two, and merging into one, is the most basic concept of the unity of yin and yang.

Second, the principle of "poor is change, change is flexible, and general is long" has eternal regularity in Chinese culture. "Tianxingjian, a gentleman with self-improvement; The concept of development and change, and the law of "extreme and return", which is also a classic philosophy inherited by the Chinese nation for a long time. In fact, the "neutrality" in the concept of Chinese has never been easy, and the philosophy of changeability is like a weight between the old and the new, creating neutrality because of changeability, and constantly breaking the old neutrality, and a new level of impulse and tranquility can be rebuilt.

"The Tao is a thing, but a trance", permeated with confusion, plausibility and fiction is the diversified possibility of easy deformation of things; "Fushu is born of nature, nature is established, yin and yang are born; Yin and yang are born, the situation is out", nature is the cause, yin and yang are the base, the situation comes out of itself, and it is easy to inherit in disguise. The essence of exploring the changeable way of Chinese calligraphy is to trace back to the "cultural roots" that have been handed down by the Chinese nation for a long time, and this oriental philosophical and aesthetic view is not only applied to Chinese's understanding and grasp of the world, but also applied to the development of the new world, and is clearly reflected in the highly imaged form of traditional Chinese culture that appears on paper - calligraphy art.

The volatile view of the theory of books throughout the ages

Chinese characters are the carrier of Chinese culture, and through the expression of imagery thinking, traditional Chinese cultural ideas exist in the formation process of various writing styles, and also exist in people's cognition of calligraphy art. The theory of calligraphy throughout the ages is a first-hand material for recording the spirit of pen and ink.

Although a particular dynasty had a specific aesthetic concept that prevailed at the time, and a considerable number of words were not quite the same as today, the "dividing into two", the opposing viewpoint, and the valuable consciousness of focusing on both sides of the contradiction have flashed in the meantime, and there are countless volatile philosophies that exist in opposition. In Wei Heng's "Four-Body Writing Situation" in the Han Dynasty, there is the theory of "following things as they please, and there is a constant system", which can still be perceived when read today; Wang Xizhi's "Lady Wei (Pen Array Diagram)" says that "if it is straight and similar, like an operator, the top and bottom are neat, and the front and back are flush, it is not a book, but it has its dotted ears", although this banner text was later proved to be a false work, but the words "like an operator" mentioned by it have long been passed down orally and talked about by later generations, which is enough to be described as a classic work of negative attacks and extreme changes; "Hide the head and protect the tail, the force is in the word; The pen is hard, the beauty of the skin", the hidden Qili is inadvertently pouring on the paper through the strange changing gestures, no wonder Cai Yong sighed: "The momentum is unstoppable, the momentum is unstoppable, but the soft pen is strange! ”

After experiencing the formation and evolution of the five types of writing, behind the mysterious imagery is the fluctuating law cognition of Chinese philosophy that "cathode produces yang, and yang produces yin"; A closer look at the basic elements of each calligraphy shows that the way of flux is more prevalent: in the brush rules of Chinese calligraphy, contradictory concepts such as "middle side", "concealment", "light and heavy" and "longitudinal harvest" have already embodied Chinese's mature ideological consciousness of the opposition and integration of yin and yang; Talking about the situation and arrangement of the rules and regulations, Zhang Huaiqiao of the Tang Dynasty once quoted more than 20 different writing methods of "of" in the "Orchid Pavilion Preface" to start the discussion, and it can be seen between the words that people pay attention to the different personalities of characters and characters, and pursue the concept of "unevenness" under the general situation of "fairness"; The theory of "collusion" of the relationship between words, especially the multi-character situation of being in the relationship between the top and bottom, and the left and right, precisely represents the great importance that cannot be cut off from the "book situation" - Cai Yong's "Nine Trends" clouds "Whenever the pen is knotted, the top is covered with the bottom, and the bottom is carried on, so that the situation reflects each other, and there is no force to back", Xiao Yan's "cursive writing" says that "vertical and horizontal like a knot, the connection is like a rope", "oblique and corrected, broken and connected", Li Shimin's "The Biography of Wang Xi" in "The smoke is dewy, the shape is broken and connected; Phoenix Dragon Pan, the momentum is like oblique and anti-straight" and other theories, all of which are the embodiment of attaching importance to the organic relationship between words; There is also an aesthetic thinking about the "qi" in the book, "breaking and connecting" seems to be related to the specific technique when composing words, but in fact, the meticulous thinking of "breaking the silk connection" is exactly an aesthetic concept that is very in line with the psychology of Chinese, through this kind of obscurity between the lips and the desire to say and rest, and the eyebrows are full of affection, conveying an endless mood.

"Dragon jumping through the heavenly gate, tiger lying phoenix que", "Birds swim in groups, migrate in streams"... Such allegories of living beings are very common in ancient writings. Just as calligraphy originated in nature, the raw material of ancient calligraphy writing originally came from the concern for the creatures in nature, and a worm and a beast were its source, and these living beings written into the theory of calligraphy art were themselves vigorous, and what flowed out between the head and the tail was completely the vivid change of Gu Pansheng's posture, and there was no lack of movement and coordination that involved the whole body.

The mutable logic of modern creation

In the creative exploration of modern calligraphy, we are always accustomed to looking for answers from the characteristics of culture itself. China and the West have extremely different cultural personalities, different from the "balance" absolute balance of the West, Chinese culture is more with the help of traditional "weighing" thinking, in the seemingly uneven, through the subtle shift of the scales to achieve a new balance in psychological cognition, changeability is the essence.

In fact, in a huge coordinate system of space and time, each form of calligraphy follows the mutable logic to get its current position at that time - a small number of words is like a solo dance, which is a model of emphasizing spatiality to the extreme; Array-style works with a large number of words are the opposite, and the spatial composition of each individual in the matrix is relatively weakened. Not only that, the art of calligraphy also changes with the environment at any time to produce different adjustments than in the past, such as the change of couplet form - under the ancient social living environment, practicality determines that it must be distributed on both sides of the door, calligraphy is relatively strict at the end, and the range of change is small; In modern exhibitions, the changes in the combined exhibition columns determine that they need to have a greater contradiction and echo relationship, that is, the inevitable changes brought about by environmental changes. It can be said that the changeable logic of modern calligraphy creation is by no means static, and it is always in a random and endless flow and change.

Today, we call for modern calligraphy creation to return to "intellectual writing" that fits people's daily lives, in fact, we want to record the most real and changing fragments of life with calligraphy, find the appropriate calligraphy language and the best configuration of the subject's current emotions, and pursue the most vivid personality and mental portrayal in the thick ink.

Chinese calligraphy art shows the spirit of traditional Chinese culture on paper in an image-like form, and through the curved and straight dots and lines, light and heavy square circles, you can peek into the philosophy of life Chinese walking the world. From ancient times to the present, what changes in pen and ink is the line, knot and trend, and what remains unchanged is the concept of learning nature; What is easier is the thickness, strength, lightness, and urgency, and the insistence is to know the black and keep the white, put it properly, and the beauty of neutrality built by one yin and one yang; Hair growth is a colorful feeling that appears between pen and ink, and what is guarded is the profound connotation and essence of traditional Chinese culture, and the beautiful sentiment of Chinese.

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily