If Zhang Xu and Xu Wei's wild grass fight in the ring, turning points into lines and combining points, lines, surfaces, which is better?

Introduction: Zhang Xu and Xu Wei are two of the most famous calligraphers in the art of wild grass. Zhang Xu created a new posture of the wild grass and became a seminal writer of the Great Grass School, known as the Grass Saint. Xu Wei's cursive writing, on the other hand, is crazy and beyond the law, and is praised as a scattered saint by Yuan Hongdao, the leader of the public security faction.

Zhang Xu "Belly Pain Post"

Among the five fonts of calligraphy, cursive script is the most artistically expressive and lyrical, and it is precisely for this reason that cursive calligraphy has been widely valued and favored by many calligraphers throughout history.

However, it is not easy to write about wild grass, because it requires not only that the writer must have talent and spirituality, but also have certain skills, learning, creativity, and expression, so although there are many writers who love and study wild grass throughout the ages, there are very few who have really achieved and have a huge impact.

Grass Saint Zhang Xu and Scattered Saint Xu Wei are among the best.

Xu Wei's "The Works of the Early Dynasty of the Daming Palace with Jia Zhishe"

Zhang Xu turns the dot into a line, and Xu Wei points combine the line and surface

Zhang Xu's cursive writing is full of paper smoke clouds in the winding and interlocking of lines. Xu Wei's wild grass is magnificent, and the rhythm is like a storm.

Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the ancients' theory of basic pointillism on calligraphy has the famous "Eight Strokes of Yongzi", which uses the eight strokes of the character "Yong" as a summary of Chinese calligraphy strokes, namely the eight strokes of "side, le, nu, zhao, ze, plunder, peck, and rock". However, the "Eight Laws of Yongzi" focuses on summarizing the Chinese script, but it may not be suitable for cursive writing.

Because in the wild grass, there are only two strokes, "point" and "line", it is difficult to find a more complete and standard "horizontal", "vertical", "skimming" and "twisting", and the same is true of Zhang Xu and Xu Wei's wild grass.

Part of Zhang Xu's "Heart Sutra"

However, Zhang Xu and Xu Wei have fundamental differences in the combination and use of "point" and "line".

Zhang Xu's pen lines are round and tactful, vigorous and condensed, handsome and restrained. The pen is mainly centered on the center, and the turning point is mainly turned and supplemented by folding, and the pen is restrained when the pen is restrained, tightly wrapped, the contrast between thickness and thickness is not obvious, and the "whole" and the consistency of the line are emphasized.

The boundaries between strokes and the boundaries between words are not obvious, and the integrity of the lines is not affected by the spacing of strokes and strokes, words and words, and sometimes several words are run through by a whole line, from top to bottom.

Part of Zhang Xu's "Four Posts of Ancient Poems"

For example, "Four Ancient Poems", these strokes can be described as a pen walking the dragon, moving clouds and flowing water. Most lines do not emphasize the lifting press, but pay attention to the change of rotation and speed in the line with uniform thickness.

The center winger is used together, and the pen often falls on one side of the end of the line, but immediately turns to the center; At the same time, the flow often gives birth to guijiao, giving people a sense of uncontrollability.

The whole writing is hearty, and it has reached the realm of handy and interesting writing.

Xu Wei is different from Zhang Xu in that Xu Wei uses the line intermittently, while using long lines and emphasizing "whole", from time to time interspersed with short lines and "points", forming a very strong formal contrast, under the background of "points", the elders are longer, and the whole is more complete.

Part of Xu Wei's "Cursive Du Fu Poem Axis"

Xu Wei's lines are wild, rough, heavy, ancient, jerky, ancient and unrestrained, and his writing is based on the center of the use of side forwards, scattered fronts, turns and interchange, the ups and downs of the lines change greatly, the rough head is messy, sometimes tightly wrapped, sometimes repaved, not seeking the perfection of details but paying more attention to the overall effect.

For example, "Cursive Du Fu Poem Axis", the long and short lines are used alternately in the work, and the points, lines, and surfaces are organically organized together in a rapid rhythm, which has greater richness from the perspective of constituent elements.

Xu Wei "Seven Types of Sencha"

Zhang Xu's wild grass was sparse and open, and Xu Wei's middle palace was tight

Zhao Mengfu said: "It is not easy to use a pen for thousands of years, and the knot is easy to write with time. Leaving aside whether it is difficult to use a pen through the ages, it is completely correct to say that the end of the word "changes according to the times".

Zhang Xu and Xu Wei have a lot of commonalities in the knot, and they are ever-changing and randomly generated, but this does not mean that their wild grass knots do not have personality differences.

Zhang Xu attaches importance to the penetration of the gesture, the knot is more open and generous, the glyph is tight outside and loose inside, the space outside the character is compact and the space inside the word is loose and open, which provides a relatively free space for the cyclical movement of the line in the word, making the movement of Zhang Xu's line in the word more smooth, free and unconstrained, and more prominent the sense of trajectory of the line operation.

Zhang Xu's "Broken Thousand Characters"

For example, "Broken Thousand Characters", the brushwork is wanton, the body is open, the ups and downs are not unruly, the font size is staggered, the dot painting is pressed, so that the turn is clear, the lines are interspersed with the number, the pen is open and closed, the dot painting is thoughtful and clear, without losing the law, indulgence in rigor, and there is no sense of rashness.

The exterior space is compact, but the lines are ever-changing inside its glyph. The whole text is full of ribbons, the air runs through the mountains and rivers, the weather is super majestic, bold and unpredictable.

Contrary to Zhang Xu's external tightness and inner looseness, Xu Wei's knot is characterized by inner tightness and external looseness, and the middle palace is tight.

Xu Wei's body sways sideways, the body is vivid, and the movement of the glyph is used to achieve the penetration of the qi, so Xu Wei's strokes do not need to be looped back and forth because of the coherence of the qi.

Xu Wei's Cursive Seven Words Poems

This makes the pen of Xu Wei cursive have a strong independence, which can be freely stretched according to the needs of the chapter or posture, thus having independent external form and aesthetic significance.

For example, "Cursive Seven Words Poem", the pen moves with ups and downs, beats freely, and the lines are strong and longitudinal, that is, long pull and pull, stretch and indulge, big skimming, spear and halberd, big opening and closing.

However, the space inside the word is tight, the inside is tight and the outside is loose, and the center of the central palace is stretched out in a scattered manner, which is unbridled and majestic, full of strangeness, but all of them are vivid and lively.

Part of Zhang Xu's "Four Posts of Ancient Poems"

Epilogue:

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhong Wei's "Return of Tang Poems" once said: "The upside down is not a rough person, and the rough person cannot be turned upside down." It can be seen that the wild grass is not a whim, but a long-planned accumulation.

Even people who do not understand calligraphy can see the rhythm and movement of Zhang Xu's cursive writing, so it is not wrong to say that calligraphy art expression is established at the level of elegant and common appreciation, which is the right way.

And Xu Wei's wild grass is a fusion of innocence and wild temperament. Dots painting is a mess, horizontal painting, its own family, using capital painting to express cursive writing, but unfortunately few people can understand it.

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