Su Dongpo calligraphy and painting is forming a hot spot, and gradually from the industry to the public. The ongoing series of exhibitions for the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the National Art Museum of China will be led by Su Shi's "Xiaoxiang Bamboo and Stone Diagram"; Unveiled in the new exhibition "You Mu Chenghuai - The Humanistic Journey of the Northern Song Dynasty Scholars" in the East Building of the Shanghai Library, there are 14 inscription works related to Su Shi; "Hello Su Dongpo" immersive Song Yun art exhibition is on tour in Changsha; The Sichuan Museum held the "Alpine Looking Back at the Eastern Slope - Su Shi Theme Exhibition" some time ago; Going back further, the "Ancient Figures - Special Exhibition of Paintings and Calligraphy Theme of Su Shi in the Palace Museum" held by the Palace Museum three years ago was even more sensational.
▲ The authentic work "Wood and Stone Diagram" by the Chinese Song Dynasty writer Su Shi. Photo by China News Agency reporter Xie Guanglei
Su Dongpo is most well-known for his literary achievements, but people may not know that this is actually a name that cannot be avoided in the history of Chinese calligraphy and art.
Art history admits that Su Dongpo was the first person to formulate the rules of literati calligraphy and painting: calligraphy opened the "Shangyi Calligraphy Style", ranking first among the "Four Song Families" Cai Xiang, Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu and others; Painting created "scholar painting" ("literati painting"), which had a great influence on the aesthetic orientation of the paintings of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing scholars.
Su Dongpo's calligraphy and painting reject means and transcend form, pay attention to the artistic logic of daily application, and emphasize eclectic fun and soul. The life of the individual creator coexists with the "Shangyi Book Style" and "Literati Painting", which highly abstractly interprets the life trend and interpersonal ecology of a great figure. This is also Su Dongpo's major contribution to traditional Chinese aesthetics.
"Dongpo Mood": A lyrical narrative that replaces language with pen and ink
Before the Song Dynasty, the daily application of Chinese calligraphy was mostly based on the "two kings" (Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi). The "beauty" between the lines and kai in Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Lanting Collection" is recognized as having the universal meaning of "natural beauty" and "artificial beauty". Mountains and rivers do not exist because of people, but the beauty of mountains and rivers is passed down through people, and the two are highly compatible and coordinated. Wang Xizhi's structure and seal more reflect the beautiful relationship between the eyes and nature, and the form of calligraphy has become a kind of expressionism that is self-cleansing and indisputable to the world.
With the emergence of the "Four Song Families" represented by Su Dongpo, time has become important, and calligraphy has finally ushered in an era of innovation. Lines are the flow of time, and rules are the laying out of flow. Time is not used, but represented – a direct reflection of the artist's history of inspiration and sublimation. It places special emphasis on process. What dominates the process is generally understood as emotions. Emotions shine again because of the "I" disposition. People began to be tired of Wang Xizhi's "universal significance" aesthetic fatigue, and liked the awkward and novel "Dongpo mood": leaning to the right, like an elderly patient suffering from severe rheumatic frozen shoulder, "upside down", "restless" and "kinked", subverting the aesthetics of "uniformity", "stability" and "harmony", like a new trend of the doctors - fighting in perfection and expedient in struggle.
Su Dongpo's "Shangyi Book Style" can be seen from "West Building Suthee", "Alder Scroll", "Begonia Poem Scroll" and "Cold Food Post".
"Xilou Suthei" first appeared in the fourth year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1168), by Su Shi's fan Xinzhou Yushan native (that is, Jiangxi Yushan native) Wang Yingchen (1119-1176), who served as an envoy in Sichuan and also knew the Chengdu Prefecture, and ruled the West Building in Chengdu Prefecture. "Xilou Suthee" contains more than 60 articles in 30 volumes of Su Shixing, grass, kai poems and letters, covering the period from Su Shi's 29 to 66 years old, and is the first Su Shi calligraphy series. Among them, the famous ones are: "Table Zhongguan Monument", "Huanglou Post", "Northern Journey Post", "Second Rhyme Qin Tai Void Seeing Drama Deaf Poems", "Skyrim Dark Cloud Post" (partial)... "Xilou Suthee" as a whole shows Su Shi's profound basic skills in Tang Dynasty calligraphy, just limited to ancient methods, how can it be? So he created a unique way to create a set of "Shangyi" theory. For example: "The method of writing, shallow understanding, narrow understanding, and insufficient learning, can not be perfect, but I have the heart, eyes, and hands." (Song Li Zhaoxuan's "Le Jing Collection" Volume 9 "The True Works of Badongpo" quotes Su Shi on the language of writing) Three points of kung fu, two points of learning, and one point of skill. When Su Shi said this, he was actually modest, low-key, and despised show-off skills. "Insufficient learning" is easy to understand, and in order to reach "shallow" and "narrow", it requires philosophical cultivation. For example, the "meaning" or "Tao" of calligraphy, which Su Shi strongly advocated, is not metaphysics - it is actually integrated with pointillism and brushwork, always accompanying and integrating, and must not be divided and interpreted as such.
"Alder Scrolls", also known as "Alder Poems of the Ministry of Shudu Works", was originally stored in the Lanqian Mountain Museum in Taipei, and is now stored in the Taipei Palace Museum. The text of the handscroll copies Du Fu's poem "Tangcheng". Du Shi probably said that "alder" in Shuzhong is loved because of its practicality. The text of the scroll is also followed by twelve lines of 103 characters. Bawen also recorded two verses of Du's poem "Finding Alder Planting", adding some explanations and loose idle writing, but repeating the practical nature of alder. In this work, poetry and calligraphy are fused, Du Shi and Su Wen are fused, and the two living beings are fused. The form of the font is a secondary thing.
After the "Wutai Poetry Case", Su Dongpo lived in Huangzhou, and the art of writing gradually improved with the style of ideograms.
"Begonia Poems", that is, "living in the east of Dinghuiyuan, miscellaneous flowers are full of mountains, there is a begonia plant, and the native people do not know the noble". The ink blot has been lost, and what can be seen today is Takumoto of Waseda University in Japan. This post represents the mature writing style of Dongpo "as lazy as flowing water" (Song Li Zhiyi's "Guxi Jushi Collection", volume 17 "Zhuangju Blocks the Rain, Neighbors Seek Letters with Paper and Writes Therefore Letters" No. 3). Su Shi at this node is adjusting his state, although he is still in shock, and it is not very stable to hold the pen, but he has definitely not stopped, just like the spring water, wandering around, little by little. He needs to detour the pen in calming the heartbeat, adjust the acceleration from walking to walking in holding his breath, and break through the control of the pen and the dilemma of ink in the search and denial.
The Cold Food Post has a prominent place in the history of calligraphy because Su Shi named it after it and designed the rule of "Shangyi" - the lyrical narrative that uses pen and ink instead of language. Reading the Cold Food Post, it is often about the narrative (context) of its content (text) and the emotional nature of its form (paper) (book context), which are highly unified and realized with the resonance of the author and reader. The pursuit of Shangyi (freehand) is not the same as the mainstream of calligraphy in previous generations - its value is significantly imprinted with the blessing of Su Shi's own moral culture. Its vitality is Su Shi in the Middle Ages, facing the silent cry of the firmament and life, heavy and vivid, existing in the surface form (thing) of "Thee", but this post is not only "thing", like a new life form - a composite of Su Shi's individual life and aesthetic understanding, as well as the resonance and consensus of people for thousands of years.
Written in March of the fifth year of Yuanfeng (1082), the book sublimated the tragic aesthetic of Su Shi's life trough to a height of modernity.
The first person to collect the "Cold Food Post" was Zhang Hao, a native of Jiangyuan, Shuzhou (present-day Jiangyuan, Chongzhou, Chengdu, Sichuan), and a doctor in Yong'an, Henan (present-day Gongyi, Henan). Zhang Hao's collection deeds are recorded in the inscription of the poem. The inscribed was a cousin of Zhang Hao, a literati of the Southern Song Dynasty. Zhang Hao consulted Huang Tingjian and asked for the inscription in the third year of Yuan Fu (1100), in Qingshen, Meizhou, Shudi. Huang Tingjian is Su Shi's protégé. At that time, Huang Tingjian had just received an amnesty from the imperial court and traveled from Rong Prefecture (present-day Yibin, Sichuan) to Qingshen in Meizhou to visit his aunt Zhang. When Huang Tingjian saw Su Shi's poetry, Su Shi also happened to be amnestied and was on his way back to the north. Huang Tingjian's cursive writing, clearly visible, has always been recognized as Su Shi's indispensable conjoined soulmate in Su Shi's cold food poetry, caring for each other in adversity, although thousands of miles apart, it also interprets the ancient legend of high mountains and flowing waters.
"Cold Food Post" is the indispensable "only possibility" of Mr. Dongpo during the Yuan Feng period, which challenges his own life, emotions and imagination, and also challenges our acceptance today - we cannot be duplicated because we cannot empathize with Mr. Dongpo, not only can't, but Mr. himself can't, because Mr. can't step into the "same river" of "Cold Food Post" in the next "cold food", and then return to the cold food afternoon of "Cold Food Post".
"Scholar Painting": The superprinting and blessing of personality and paintings
Su Dongpo and half of his fellow villagers Wen Tong (Zi Heke) co-founded the "Huzhou Bamboo School" or "Huzhou School".
In late April of the second year of Yuan Feng (1079), Su Shi had just traveled from Xuzhou to Huzhou (present-day Wuxing, Huzhou, Zhejiang). Before that, he was still immersed in the sadness of Wen Tong's new death. Wen Tong, a "bamboo idiot" who is good at drawing bamboo, is his husband's cousin. The summer in Huzhou is inexplicably irritating. Su Shi turned out the calligraphy and painting to expose it, and at a glance he saw the bamboo painting given by Wen Tong. The windward branches and leaves are twisted and unfolded, and the mildew spots steamed by the plum rain do not affect the cleanliness of the thick rendering. Drying the calligraphy and paintings in the house, I suddenly saw Wen Tong's ink bamboo, saw things and thought about people, and couldn't help but be stunned... So there was "Wen and Paintable Yundang Valley Bamboo Record". The article borrowed the text and bamboo painting, throwing out the literati's freehand view of "becoming bamboo in the chest", and later also read more painting theories: "Therefore, painting bamboo must first become bamboo in the chest..." "Chengbamboo in the chest", generally regarded as its pioneering view of "scholar painting" ("literati painting"), and the same as "Shangyi calligraphy style", emphasizing the integration of calligraphy and painting, the integration of books and people, the integration of human painting and the combination of form and god. Su Dongpo loves bamboo to the point of obsession, and he also paints bamboo himself. Su Shi painted bamboo, and the master wrote and could, but there were many differences. The biggest difference is that his bamboo quietly stuffs the painter's specious private goods - "ideas", and can also read the flow of time from it.
In addition to painting bamboo, Su Shi also painted dead wood and strange stones. Su Shi's two most famous paintings are painted with bamboo and strange stones, one "Dead Wood Strange Stone Diagram" and one "Xiaoxiang Bamboo Stone Diagram". During the Republican period, "Dead Wood Strange Stone Diagram" was exiled to Japan. In 2018, he appeared at Christie's Hong Kong Autumn Auction "Extraordinary - A Thousand Years of Aesthetics of the Song Dynasty", which sold for about HK$460 million, setting an auction record for Su Shi's works. The famous British art critic Alastair Sooke believes that this painting has made the artist's inner world an important artistic theme, and it is Su Shi's "contribution to art history". "Xiaoxiang Bamboo Stone Map", obtained by Deng Tuo, was donated to the collection of the National Art Museum of China, and is known as one of the treasures of the National Art Museum of China.
"Dead Wood Strange Stone Diagram", in addition to bamboo and strange stones, there is an additional subject: dead wood. "Xiaoxiang Bamboo Stone Diagram", enlarged bamboo, hidden dead wood. What kind of deep meaning it has in this is unknown. I was very impressed with them. Stone is not like stone, like a "black hole". Wood is not like wood, like a "tornado". Bamboo has also been severely weakened, even if "bamboo" is highlighted in "Xiaoxiang Bamboo Stone Diagram", bamboo is soft and slender and curved in the painter's pen, like indomitable dead grass, more like creating some kind of dilemma. With difficulties, there is a breakthrough, and curves and ink colors provide the possibility to get out of difficulties - curves and ink spirals forward - daily attitudes and processes.
Su Shi showed his personalized understanding of "bamboo" to the extreme, and even changed the color of the green bamboo and painted it red. Breaking through the rules of ink painting bamboo, applying heavy colors that are not very harmonious with the sky of the Northern Song Dynasty, depicting the modernist "red bamboo" that still looks like we are not outdated a thousand years later. Appreciating "red bamboo" requires time to slow down, time to go back, the power of introspection and refraction. These are all related to the quality of the body and mind to withstand the pain of "internal pressure".
Writing bamboo in cinnabar is a metaphysical invention of Dongpo. And "deadwood" is more like some kind of "emotion" that does not fit well with the system of public discourse. Su Shi began to pay attention to the image of "dead wood", either at the earliest time when he went to Xuzhou, rather than dormant in Huangzhou after the Wutai poetry case. Su Shi passed through Jinan, and with his friend Li Gongze and others visited the Jiquan Spring (Baotu Spring), admired the plum and planted plums, and left an ink-washed dead wood on the wall of the Jiquanquan Pavilion. "In the tenth year of Xining (1077), Mr. Dongpo passed through Jinan and wrote a branch of dead wood on the wall of the Fountain Pavilion" (Qing Feng Yunlu, Jinan Jinshi Zhi, vol. 4). The pavilion owner, Liu Zhao, collected the painting and carved the stone during the Yuan Dynasty. The stone carvings later "wandered in the annex". In the 29th year of Jin Dading (1189), the Baoyu stone of the Yucheng Kingdom was carved into the Yuanchen An, and Changshan Li Yanwen recorded it, and later transplanted the left wall of the Confucian Dacheng Hall. In the early Ming Dynasty, the handwriting was lost, and the Yucheng stone carvings still exist. The world admired many people, and the county officials were troubled, throwing stones into wells, broken into several sections. A year later, Yucheng again fished the gravel out of the well and spliced it in place. During the reign of Ming Jiajing, the Fujian king's surname discarded the stone carvings. Since then, Su Shi's dead wood ink has annihilated the world. The "Dead Wood Strange Stone Diagram" I see now is said to be that work. It is a pity that there is no famous model of the painter and a definitive year of painting. I prefer the nameless dead wood made in Huangzhou, because the trinity of dead wood, strange stones and bamboo is more in line with Mr. Huangzhou's Nirvana: "The dead wood made has no clue to the branches." Shi Wan is also strange, as is the chest in the chest. (Song Deng Chun, "Painting Ji Xuan Mian Caixian")
Bamboo, dead wood and strange stones were given special symbolic sustenance by Su Dongpo, and the superimprint and blessing of personality and paintings - the trinity of bamboo, dead wood and strange stones. They are not only bamboo, dead wood and strange stones, but also extremely abstract ideas and personality examples, the aesthetic intention and attitude of traditional Chinese scholars. From Su Shi's discussion of Wen Tong's bamboo paintings, to "On painting and likeness, see Neighbor with children... Poetry and painting books are uniform, heavenly and fresh" (Su Shi's "Two Folded Branches Painted in the Main Book of King Yanling"), and the values of Chinese painting have undergone a fundamental change. The pioneer, Su Shi, has since created a precedent called "scholar painting" or "literati painting" also called "southern painting". (End)
Author/Shen Rongjun