Strictly speaking, ingenuity and clumsiness are creative ideas, or creative styles, not just seal engraving, but since Mr. Deng Sanmu has included it in the chapter of zhangfa, we follow the study:
There are those who win with cleverness, and there are those who win with clumsiness, but "cleverness" does not want its delicacy, and "clumsiness" does not want its stagnation. Xu Sangeng Zhu Bai Wenyin, Zhao Zhiqian's Zhu Wenyin, every reason is bent, lost the delicate charm.
Xu Sangeng is most criticized for being too delicate. But in fact, people who like him think that he is "Wu Belt Dangfeng", feminine and posture;
(Xu Sangeng: Something not to do)
Criticizing him for "letting his head relax" (this is actually Wu Rangzhi's criticism of Zhao Zhiqian), but in fact this is still an aesthetic difference. When we look at the seals of Xu and Zhao, there are indeed such works.
(Zhao Zhiqian: Born in Yao Shunjun, if you can't bear it, you will never know it)
We know that in fact, in the end, Zhao Zhiqian gradually weakened the creation of such prints. In order to criticize Wu Rangzhi's "let his head be comfortable", Zhao Zhiqian once made a big discussion, and in the "Seal of Wu Rangzhi of Yangzhou", the clumsiness and ingenuity of the "Hui" and "Zhejiang" factions were discussed very fully, and we suggested that we should find out the problem of "qiao" and "clumsy" in the seal carving, and it is best to carefully read this article in combination with the works of the Hui school and the Zhejiang school, which is richer and more meticulous than Mr. Deng's judgment on the Xiling families in the following paragraph.
However, we still read this sentence in Mr. Deng's original text:
The Xiling families strive to be clumsy, in order to be bound by the rules, so that they become stagnant, and they are not legitimate.
Mr. Deng believes that the efforts of the Xiling families are clumsy, and finally reach the point of stagnation. In fact, many of the works of Ding Jing and Jiang Ren, in the midst of ancient clumsiness, have another vivid and flexible interest, and cannot be generalized. That is to say: you can't knock over a boat of people with a stick.
(Ding Jing: Ding Jing's body seal)
What is "clumsy" and what is "clever", Mr. Deng Sanmu defined it this way:
The so-called cleverness means that the character book is flat and correct, and the frame is moved between them so that it flows away; the so-called clumsy, means that the character book is rounded, and its strokes are leveled, so that it is in accordance with the rules. There are also those who are skillful in their characters, those who are more moved to benefit their cleverness, those who are clumsy in their writing, those who are more flat in their clumsiness, all of which vary depending on the indian language.
He believes that the flat is clumsy, the circle is skillful, and the flat word, if it is moved and made to flow away, is to work in the direction of "cleverness"; similarly, if the word itself is rounded, it is flattened, so that it is regular, it is to work in the direction of "clumsiness".
Of course, this is the "narrow" theory of cleverness, and we can generalize it: whatever is artificially modified and processed is generally clever; whatever maintains its natural appearance is generally "clumsy".
For example, the characters in the oracle bone and gold texts, even if there are rounded words, it still presents a "clumsy" appearance; the words in Tang Kai, even if they are upright and flat, will still show a "clever" appearance. That is to say, Mr. Deng Sanmu's ingenious theory is not comprehensive enough. However, the example given by mr. Gentleman is very illustrative of the clumsy problem he expressed:
(One of the examples of cleverness)
Example 48, the seal method of the two characters on the printing surface, "kill dream", and "kill" is adjusted, the "乂" on the upper left is sealed as "爻", and the "殳" on the right is held high, which is actually the "cleverness" of changing the glyph; and the lower part of the "dream" word changes the seal law and makes it stick to the border, which is actually a means of "seeking stability", that is, seeking "clumsiness". This square seal, the "kill" character is clumsy, then it is cleverly refined; and the "xi" in the lower part of the dream character is actually still retaining a piece of ingenuity in the humbleness and has done a rounding process.
Example 49, the four characters on the printing surface, "Weeping Society Seal Letter", which is an imitation of the Han Zhu script printing style, should be flat and upright. However, the "mouth" in the upper left of the word "cry" in this seal is bordered with the word "earth" in the lower right corner of the word "she", which is a clumsy and skillful treatment.
(Example 2 of Cleverness)
Example 50, the six characters on the printing surface, "the husband of the sea to chase the stink", the six words of this square seal, only the two words of "stink" and "of" remain outside the original seal law, and the other four characters have all been treated with "cleverness" (the specific means of cleverness are known at a glance).
Example 51, the four characters on the printing surface, "Ren Zu Di Yin", this is a party imitation of the Han Zhu Wen seal, but the last stroke of the "Ren" character is used as an arc to approximate the upper arc of the "seal". The word "zu" changed the seal law of the right "and" part to break the plate stagnation.
We must realize that "Qiao" and "Clumsy" are opposite, and the treatment of Qiaohuo is actually related to the aesthetic choice of a seal engraver, and the deep understanding of "Qiao" and "Clumsiness" should be seriously studied in Zhao Zhiqian's "Seal of Wu Rang of Shu yangzhou".
(Read [Seal Engraving] No. 49, some of the pictures come from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author)