Going deep into the tradition, based on the times, and moving forward steadily - the review of the 13th Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition

The re-evaluation and final evaluation of the 13th National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition will be held from February 25 to March 5, 2024, on the shore of Jinhai Lake in Pinggu, nearly 100 kilometers away from Beijing. The evaluation site is very open and has complete facilities, which provides a material guarantee for the evaluation work, and the closed nature of the site is very strong, which provides an environmental guarantee for the evaluation work. More than 200 judges, experts and staff successfully completed the evaluation task after 10 days of intense and orderly work. During the discussion, Sun Xiaoyun, director of the jury, said: "This is not just an exhibition, but a huge project!" Indeed, this is a systematic project of calligraphy, which lasted about a year from the issuance of the call for papers for the 13th National Exhibition last autumn to the final exhibition, publication and follow-up of theoretical research. The active participation and serious creation of tens of thousands of authors at home and abroad, the creation and collection of manuscripts by more than 30 group member units of the China Calligraphy Association, and the hard work and preparation of the three exhibition areas in Shanxi, Zhejiang and Henan, etc. The upper and lower linkages, collective efforts, put into this project. The achievements of more than 40 years of exploration and development of contemporary calligraphy, the guidance and support of the social and cultural background for the exhibition, the extensive participation and close attention of the calligraphy community and all aspects of society to this activity, and the far-reaching influence that this exhibition will have on the contemporary calligraphy world, etc., make the 13th National Exhibition an important cultural and artistic system project.

The organizing committee of this national exhibition was established. The organizing committee has set up an evaluation body, which includes the review committee, the review committee, the review committee, the supervision and review committee and the academic media observation group. The review committee is responsible for reviewing the evaluation results, generating the quota of works for each book to be exhibited in Beijing and in Beijing, as well as observing the whole process of the review work. The review committee is responsible for carrying out the review work in accordance with the review process, the review committee is responsible for reviewing the text and text of the work, the supervision and review committee is responsible for the overall supervision of the political and business directions, ensuring that the participants in the review are reviewed in accordance with discipline and regulations, and the academic media observation group is responsible for in-depth inspection of the review work, writing academic articles, and conducting objective reports. The rigorous organizational structure is the organizational guarantee for the successful completion of the evaluation work, and the five committees with different functions under the leadership of the organizing committee support and complement each other to form a criss-cross organizational framework. The review committee is composed of the leaders of the association, members of the presidium and relevant experts. The jury is divided into 7 review groups according to the style of the book, the official script, the regular script, the line script, the cursive script, the seal carving, the lettering, the main body of the review group is the professional committee members of the calligraphy, the judges are in the creation of various awards, have a professional influence of the outstanding calligraphers, the judges should not only be excellent in personal creation, but also familiar with the development process of contemporary calligraphy, the characteristics of creative techniques and forms and aesthetic trends, and understand the situation of calligraphy creation across the country and the potential of representative calligraphers, with creative experience, Have professional information, review experience and other aspects of quality and ability to ensure the professionalism and accuracy of the review.

In order to ensure the seriousness and authority of the 13th National Exhibition, standardize the review work behavior, and strictly enforce the discipline of the review work, a strict review code of conduct has been formulated, and each judge has signed a letter of commitment. More than 100 judges, during the 10-day review work, no violations of rules and disciplines were found, which can be said to be clean and upright. The members of the committee participating in the review conscientiously signed the letter of commitment to use their own personality to make a guarantee, which is a high degree of consciousness and self-discipline, but only "self-discipline" is not enough, but also need to have a strict "other discipline", that is, to use rules to limit the judges. The review work should give each judge the freedom to fully and independently express his or her personal will, but also use the cage of the system to restrain everyone's cross-border violations, and the judges can only show independence in the prescribed space, rather than doing whatever they want, so as to ensure the openness, justice and fairness of the review work. The review site is strictly controlled, and personnel without work certificates are not allowed to enter, and the judges and staff who enter the venue must confiscate their mobile phones, which strengthens confidentiality measures. The review work is divided into book styles, and the review area and judges of each book body are isolated from each other, and the first page of the review work guide manual reads straight to the point: "The 13th National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition is independently reviewed by each calligraphy division. Except as required by the functions of the committee, please do not participate in the on-site review of other book styles. This stipulates that the scope of activities of the judges is in the review area of the book style, and the review of each book style is carried out independently, without interfering with each other, and the judges do not communicate with each other, which greatly reduces the possibility of the judges "derailment", and the review work needs to be voted round by round, and the judges should hold a collegial meeting before each vote, and each judge fully expresses his opinions, analyzes the different styles and forms of the candidate works, and points out the disadvantages of the times in the creation. Predict the problems that may arise in the review work, so as to avoid the deviation in the voting, through collegial exchanges, independent voting on the basis of the relative consensus of the judges, and the judges are not allowed to communicate with each other during voting, and guarantee a certain distance from each other to ensure the independence and autonomy of each judge's voting. It can be said that the evaluation discipline of the 13th National Exhibition is the most rigorous among the previous national exhibitions.

The review work has formulated a rigorous and scientific process. In order to make the judging more accurate, multiple rounds of voting were adopted, and the selection was carried out round by round to ensure that the best works were selected. In addition, there are many innovations in technology, the first round of voting workload is very large, in the first round of selection of works in previous national exhibitions, the judges are often grouped in groups, so that the judges can not see all the works, the first round of voting in this national exhibition, the way of displaying high-definition pictures of works on the big screen, can not only enable each judge to see all the works, but also enlarge the picture to observe the details of the work. In the later review of the original work, each work is pasted with a unique QR code, the work does not display the number, and the judges use the voting machine to scan the QR code to decide the trade-off of the work, so that the information of the work is more confidential, and the review work is faster and more accurate. After the judges complete the voting, the voting machine will be handed over to the Supervision Committee, and the votes will be counted by the computer, which can be quickly completed and avoid the error of manual vote counting. The application of computer technology to the review work makes the review work more rapid, accurate and confidential.

On the basis of the work experience of the previous national exhibitions, according to the actual development of the current calligraphy team and creative research, in-depth research, and reference to the work experience of other fraternal associations, there are many new reform measures. One of the most important reforms is that under the guidance of the China Calligraphy Association, the collection and preliminary evaluation of manuscripts will be submitted to the members of various groups. Another point is that the 13th National Exhibition is divided into three exhibition areas, which are organized by group member units under the unified coordination and guidance of the China Calligraphy Association. Among them, the Shanxi exhibition area exhibits travel script and cursive script, the Zhejiang exhibition area exhibits seal script, seal carving and lettering, and the Henan exhibition area exhibits official script and regular script. A total of about 1,000 works were exhibited in the three exhibition areas, and about 300 outstanding works were selected to be exhibited in Beijing.

In the re-evaluation of the works of the 13th National Exhibition organized by Pinggu, the China Calligraphy Association received a total of 8,389 non-member works submitted by various group member units, 8,350 works of members of the China Calligraphy Association who were exempted from the preliminary evaluation, and 181 works submitted by Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese. This kind of reform has greatly mobilized the initiative and enthusiasm of the member units of various organizations. Based on the grassroots, more in-depth and extensive organization and launch the creation of the 13th National Exhibition. It is divided into three exhibition areas, which makes the exhibition more widely disseminated. In the linkage between the upper and lower levels, the group member units have enhanced their macro understanding and grasp of the national calligraphy creation, thereby improving the creative quality of the national exhibition. The division of labor and cooperation, each performing its own duties, also enables the Chinese Calligraphy Association to concentrate on the re-evaluation and final evaluation of the works in the exhibition, and to take the 13th National Exhibition as a typical case to conduct in-depth research on the contemporary calligraphy creation team, creative situation and future development.

The National Exhibition embodies the inclusiveness and diversity of contemporary calligraphy creation, and expresses the main theme of the times on the basis of rooted tradition. While highlighting the artistic techniques and formal expressions of calligraphy, we should grasp the ideological depth and cultural height of the entire exhibition, and earnestly practice the spirit of both art and culture. In order to ensure the correctness of the texts and texts of the works on display, this National Exhibition is based on the review work of the 12th National Exhibition. New initiatives have been introduced. That is, the reviewers and the reviewers of the book jointly review the work, ask questions, distinguish between right and wrong, and finally the review committee of the book body decides the trade-off between the works through independent voting. The combination of the two makes the knowledge structure of the participating readers more diverse, and the judges have both cultural and artistic perspectives, so that the judges can highlight the cultural nature and be closer to the reality of contemporary calligraphy creation. At the same time, it also makes the work in the review process seamless, and avoids the idleness of the review committee members in the review process. Practice has proved that this reform measure is very correct, making the review work more pragmatic and effective, more scientific, and improving work efficiency. For example, in the review work, relatively speaking, when reviewing the three types of calligraphy, the seal, the li, and the regular script, the review committee members found and raised more problems, and played a leading role; while in the review of the line and cursive script, the review committee members raised more questions, and played a relatively leading role. The questions raised in the cursive script are all about the correctness and error of the draft method and the judgment of the rationality of the author's changes in the creation, and the knowledge structure and focus of the reviewers are different from those of the reviewers, and the combination of the two makes the review work more comprehensive and pragmatic.

The review of the text includes the verification of the version used to create the content, striving to use the most authoritative version, discovering and pointing out the author's mistakes and omissions in a timely manner, as well as the study of the text and grammar, without sparing the details, and sometimes several experts gradually clarify the issues and reach a consensus in the middle of the dispute. There is also the question of whether the meaning of the text is beautiful and healthy, and the general principle of reading is not to let go of obvious mistakes, but also to adopt a more tolerant attitude. For example, on the issue of the rhythm of self-composed poems, the author adopts the new rhyme of the four tones of modern Chinese instead of the flat water rhyme, and adopts a position of permission and tolerance. Another example is the grammar of the Ganzhi Chronicle, which also adopts an inclusive attitude in the context of a careful examination of the diversity of the language used by the predecessors, and generally does not refer to it as a mistake.

Carefully review, screen and judge the typos, typos, and inappropriate words in the work. In order to obtain the novelty of the work to make the form moving, some authors seek strange and strange words in the selection of words and words, and choose strange and uncommon words in the many glyphs that have been circulated in the past dynasties, coupled with the exaggerated deformation and change of loss and translocation at will, among which the seal carving, seal script, and official book are particularly performant. Some authors have poor knowledge of paleographies and make the low-level mistake of "fearless because of ignorance".

For the creation of calligraphy, sometimes it is not simple and absolute to determine the right and wrong, the different styles of calligraphy, different contents, and different people will affect the selection of words and the correct standard of judgment. In the creation of calligraphy, there are not only true, grass, subordinate, and seal bodies, but also by the region, era, creator of different styles and variety, coupled with the recent decades of new text materials unearthed or discovered, by calligraphers to take the calligraphy creation of the mother book, so the judgment of the specific text should be cautious. The creation of calligraphy should not only respect the rules of the text, maintain the correctness and recognizability of the text, but also to express the beauty of calligraphy, and the beauty of the glyph is the basic condition and important part of the beauty of calligraphy, and the beauty of the glyph is another important principle of the choice of words, so the controversial issues and non-critical issues are generally tolerant, just like the principle of "no doubt of guilt" in the law. For example, although some characters have a book, but the original is the predecessor on the wrong words, such as the Northern and Southern Dynasties of many so-called "tablet words", in fact, in fact, a typo or vulgar writing, in this review is generally not pointed out as a typo, but it should be understood that this is the author's writing skills are not thick, blindly use reference books caused. For example, some works are written in long paragraphs with simplified characters (simplified characters are also a complex problem), and generally no longer require rework, not forcing the absolute "purity" of the text, but seeking the unity and perfection of the art form. There are also some errors due to the use of texts on the Internet, or the errors caused by the blind use of texts on online fonts or reference books, which are still caused by the author's lack of cultural literacy and philological skills. For text review and text review, the general principle is not only to determine the correctness, decide the trade-offs, but also to operate flexibly, grasp a "degree", neither because of the art but also because of the art, but also because of the text and damage the art, the works of art and literature, complement each other, in the mutual support and compatibility of literature and art, the pursuit of a high degree of perfection in content and form. However, specific issues need to be carefully screened and discussed, not only to maintain the seriousness of the creation of Chinese texts and texts, but also not to hurt the author's passion in selfless creation due to "rigid law enforcement", and not to hurt the "sharpness" of creation due to excessive review of words and texts.

In the "exhibition era" calligraphy creation, it is inevitable to attach importance to the form of the work, but it is not advisable to harm the text, the meaning of the text, and the correctness of the text in order to pursue the change of form. In the review of this national exhibition, it was found that the deliberate formal design and ignored the text, the meaning of the text, and the correctness of the text were more obvious, and some authors had no connection with the text after the text, the meaning of the text was incomprehensible, the writing was low, and the text errors mostly occurred in the deliberately designed inscriptions. This kind of inscription for the sake of inscription, deliberately pursuing the change of form while ignoring the cultural nature of calligraphy, has formed a "popular atmosphere" in the creation, which is not recognized in the review. On the other hand, it is necessary to express the inner rhythm and external formal beauty of calligraphy in natural writing, and the highest realm of Chinese calligraphy art is authenticity and nature, which is the positioning of calligraphy art by the spirit of Chinese aesthetics. Therefore, design and craftsmanship cannot replace the natural handwriting of calligraphy. The grasp of these two shows the depth of thought in the creation and the ability to control the skills. On the whole, the works in this exhibition are not overly decorated with the so-called "exhibition body", and they have changed the style of the times. In the call for papers for this year's National Exhibition, it was written: "Advocate paying attention to the ontology of art, strengthening natural writing, and improving the quality of creation. Oppose excessive collage, packaging, design, distressing and other forms of production. In the course of review, measures should be taken to avoid the phenomenon of similar writing styles. "This has a clear guiding effect on the creators. The creation of calligraphy has been promoted in years of exploration, abandonment and accumulation, and the author has a rational understanding of the problem of excessive formality, and the formal design is hidden behind the work, rather than performing in the foreground, and generally attaches importance to the expression of formal beauty in natural writing. If natural writing is regarded as an important feature of calligraphy in the literati's study, then formal expression is a necessity for the current exhibition of calligraphy, and the compatibility of the two can be said to be the compatibility between the ancient and the modern, and the result of the exploration and development of calligraphy creation under the conditions of the new era.

In the review, it was found that some works with roughly the same shape and imitation of ancient classic tablets have traces of design and production. A cursory look at these works is acceptable, but a closer reading reveals that the pen is stiff, the form is stagnant, there is no personal independent artistic language, and there are common sense errors in the inscriptions, and it can be seen from the works that the author is very superficial. It is likely that some pre-exhibition rapid training courses held for the National Exhibition or some calligraphy education institutions, designed and demonstrated by instructors, are works completed by young authors. We should have a clear understanding of this phenomenon and a strong sense of discernment. In order to complete a work that can win votes, the use of design and production means or computer technology to imitate the style and form of the ancients completely ignores the seriousness of calligraphy creation, empties the traditional culture contained in calligraphy, omits the cultivation of spirit, cultural edification and personality cultivation in the long process of learning calligraphy, and lacks a deep understanding of traditional calligraphy in the long-term process of Linchi. Turning calligraphy creation into a design and production technique is a short-term behavior that misleads people's children, and it should be carefully identified and resisted by the judges.

The judging was a success. After rounds of voting and selection by the judges, among the nearly 1,000 works selected in various calligraphy styles, although there is no guarantee that each work is satisfactory and has no regrets, it seems that the best works have indeed been selected on the whole, and the works show the overall creative level, formal and technical characteristics and aesthetic tendencies of contemporary calligraphy. Although the selected works cannot be said to be completely free of errors in words and texts, they ensure that there are no serious and unforgivable problems in the works. The nearly 1,000 works selected reflect the characteristics of contemporary calligraphy creation, which is deeply rooted in tradition, based on the contemporary era, and moving forward steadily. Compared with the works of the 12th National Exhibition four years ago, there are no major ups and downs, but we can see that a group of calligraphy rookies are growing rapidly, the calligraphy team is growing, and the old authors are still maintaining their creative passion and constantly exploring new ones. In the creation, the further in-depth study and deep understanding of the traditional classics are shown, the techniques and forms are more mature and perfect, the phenomenon of style and homogenization in the creation is significantly weakened, the natural calligraphy of the selected works is strengthened, and the atmosphere of deliberate decoration and production is gradually reduced. Contemporary calligraphy is steadily improving.

During the discussion, some judges believed that this year's national exhibition reflected a further deepening of tradition, and the expressiveness and sense of the times of the works needed to be strengthened. This perception is objective. However, this phenomenon is not accidental, as the professional positioning of the National Exhibition, the group of participating authors and the evaluation method of the National Exhibition determine the aesthetic characteristics of its creation. The National Exhibition has a wide range of regional inclusiveness and commonality of the times, and advocates the diversity of styles and forms on the premise of being rooted in tradition and expressing the spirit of Chinese aesthetics. Unlike individual exhibitions, various thematic exhibitions and individual exhibitions, the strict democratic voting method of the national exhibition ensures the embodiment of the collective will, and the individual will of the judges will eventually melt into the collective consciousness. The works in the national exhibition highlight the commonality between the inheritance of classics and the spirit of the times, which is jointly constituted by the individuality of each work. On the basis of going deep into the tradition, the creation of contemporary calligraphy should resonate with the times. But there is no need to deliberately chase the so-called "sense of the times", the calligraphy of the "exhibition era" and the calligraphy of the "study era" will naturally undergo profound new changes, everyone consciously or unconsciously is in the mold of this era, and the resonance with the frequency of this era is not only a subjective pursuit, but also in the prescriptiveness of objective laws. The influence of the times on the creation of calligraphy is the force of "diving into the night with the wind, moisturizing things silently", and the sense of the times in calligraphy is the natural expression of the calligrapher's pen, which is the result of water. Deliberately chasing the so-called "sense of the times" loses the authenticity and naturalness of calligraphy creation.

In the 11th National Exhibition, the Chinese Calligraphy Association put forward the 16-character creative concept of "rooted in tradition, encouraging innovation, both art and culture, diversity and inclusiveness", which is full of dialectical relationship, each four words have independent connotations, and the 16 characters are mutually supportive, mutually causal and inseparable. Rooted in tradition is not simply the imitation and return of the inheritance style, but to be rooted in the deep and long-standing tradition, and give birth to the tree that belongs to this era, and bloom the flower that belongs to this era. The four words rooted in tradition are also words to encourage innovation, and on the basis of rooted tradition, new changes in a timely manner, homeopathic changes, and natural changes, rather than cutting off history without prerequisites and making oneself hasty and imaginative. If we do not take root in tradition as the foundation and blindly shout innovative slogans, we will be far from the spirit of Chinese aesthetics.

In many professional activities held by the Chinese Calligraphy Association in recent years, we can see that the emphasis on deepening the intrinsic culture of calligraphy has been attached, and the Chinese Calligraphy Association has launched many specific measures and done a lot of work in improving the cultural literacy and moral cultivation of the creative team, attaching importance to the cultural connotation of the works, such as increasing the review of the text and text of the works in the exhibition review, so as to drive the current calligraphy creation to pay attention to the correctness of the text and words. Another example is the cultural training of outstanding young and middle-aged calligraphers in many sessions of Chinese culture classes, the orderly promotion of the Hanmo salary project for the training of calligraphy teachers, and a series of thematic exhibitions, all of which have achieved remarkable results. In the era of exhibitions that focus on formal expression, the most important and fundamental thing is to improve the traditional cultural quality, moral cultivation and even life values of people, the main body of calligraphy creation. Contemporary calligraphy attaches great importance to technology, but it also needs the depth of knowledge and the depth of thought. Technology, ideology, and realm are all indispensable. Calligraphy has entered the era of exhibitions, not because of the reduction of cultural burden and the promotion of form, but from the cultural connotation of works and the expressiveness of art.

The judging process is over. The 13th National Exhibition will be divided into three exhibition areas in Shanxi, Zhejiang and Henan, and the selected 300 pieces of fine products will be exhibited in Beijing. There is still a lot of work to be done, such as publicity and reporting, academic research, etc., and the work level needs to be summarized and studied, and the research on contemporary calligraphy creation with the 13th National Exhibition as a case should also be followed up. The 13th National Exhibition is the news of the calligraphy world at the moment, but it will eventually become history, and contemporary calligraphy needs the joint efforts of our generation to be recognized by the society and withstand the verification of history.

(Author: Li Gangtian, Source: Chinese Calligraphers Association)

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