@Speak with a knifeman "History of Mad Calligraphy" series No. 40. Original is not easy, like please click "Follow" at the top right, your attention is my motivation. Welcome to reprint, do not steal, wash the manuscript. Some of the pictures come from the Internet, if there is infringement, it will be deleted after notification.
One
After the Xinhai Revolution, Li Ruiqing, the widow of the late Qing Dynasty, went to Shanghai to sell characters for a living, and he found that his characters were very popular with the city, and the pen money obtained was enough to feed a family. He thought about his old friend Zeng Xi, who was also an old widow, why should he live a hard life in his hometown of Hengyang, Hunan Province, and why not come to Shanghai to sell words like him for a living. So he wrote a very tempting letter to Zeng Xi:
For the sake of living, such as the work of cattle, it is also enough to get rich. An zhi he is not with the European and American rich merchants Jia Li fu hu, hair is hairy, I and the son of the cattle hu?
Zeng Xi called himself a farmer, and the translation of this letter into the vernacular is: selling words for a living, working hard like an ox, is enough to make a fortune. Who knows if he will be as rich as a European and American businessman? Old hair, old hair, have I made cattle with you?
This letter bluntly states that the desire for wealth does not match the image of the late Qing Dynasty widows who pay attention to Huayi arguments and flaunt moral integrity, and is very cynical. Looking at calligraphy with the eyes of wealth, yidi's rich merchants are not without envy, and this inner world is rare among traditional literati doctors.
But on the other hand, it must be made clear that this is a private letter, and that there is often a difference between the honesty of the private sphere and the moral image of the public sphere, which is the complexity of human nature. After the restoration of Nanjing, he rejected the suggestion of Cheng Dequan, the governor of Jiangsu Province, to stay as an "advisory official", cleanly handed over the official affairs of the Liangjiang Normal School, and handed over the relevant financial documents and books and the deposits of the school to the financial office of more than 30,000 yuan.
Portrait of Li Ruiqing
Li Ruiqing, who had just arrived in Shanghai, had a difficult life, and it is reasonable to say that he was also a very high-ranking official in the late Qing Dynasty, with a large income, but he devoted himself to education, not only honest and self-disciplined, but also put a lot of salary into education. At that time, many widows and elders gathered in Shanghai, and a large group of them organized a "one-yuan meeting", which was gathered once a week and paid one yuan. This small amount of money made Li Ruiqing very embarrassed, because he couldn't take it out, and sometimes he couldn't help but eat and drink. This kind of collection can not go, but a large number of children want to eat and drink, which is a real need.
After the Xinhai Ding Revolution, the group of old calligraphers was a unique existence. The meritorious name and power of the former Qing Dynasty still had a certain status and influence in the minds of ordinary people at that time. Before Xinhai, even taking money did not necessarily have the opportunity to get the ink of these elites, because the incumbent officials did not sell words, there was no market, and now, open supply, of course, worth having. After Li Ruiqing arrived in Shanghai, the first example of The Book of Man was published in the Shenzhou Daily, and another later master of calligraphy and painting, Huang Binhong, was in charge of the pen administration of the Shenzhou Daily at the time, and the two were already familiar with Li Ruiqing when he was the supervisor of the Liangjiang Normal School. Then, another famous modern newspaperman, Di Chuqing, also introduced Li Ruiqing in his newspaper.
Li Ruiqing's word selling career began in this way, and his life finally had a foothold. But he still felt lonely and lonely, so he summoned to make a fortune, pulled his friend Zeng Xi, and vigorously recommended it, not caring about peer competition at all. The Zeng Li era of the maritime book world thus began.
Two
Now, even those who study calligraphy may not know much about Li Ruiqing's calligraphy, and some works that introduce the history of modern and contemporary calligraphy also ignore Li Ruiqing. Many people say that Li Ruiqing is an underrated master, is this really the case? After half a day, it is better to take a look at a few pictures.
Li Ruiqing calligraphy
The most impressive thing about Li Ruiqing's calligraphy is that the lines are curved like earthworms, and the edges of the lines are like jagged teeth. This kind of line is called vibrating pen in calligraphy, which has long existed in the history of calligraphy, and the long lines in the calligraphy of Huang Tingjian in the Northern Song Dynasty used vibrating pens in order to increase changes, but not as exaggerated and frequent as Li Ruiqing.
How are these trembling and distorted lines written? It is said that when Li Ruiqing was writing a book, there was a book boy who specially shook the table next to him, and the lines he wrote appeared this effect. Of course, this is a story, if the table is unstable, the pen edge is difficult to control, but Li Ruiqing's line is well-behaved, the twisted part of the pen edge is also controllable, so shaking the table when writing a book is a paragraph tailored for Li Ruiqing.
So, why does Li Ruiqing prefer this kind of curved line? And why is it used so frequently and regularly that it becomes a bad habit?
Li Ruiqing lived in an era when epigraphy was in the ascendant, and on the basis of the Qing Dynasty's epigraphy, he further put forward the proposition of "seeking points from stone and seeking seals from gold", and he believed that the small seal of Qin carved stones could not fully reflect the magic of the seal book, so he went after the Shang Zhou Jinwen and traced the penmanship of the seal book. He absorbed the sense of stroke erosion caused by the casting of Jin Wen, and used the squat sharp brush to make the strokes thick and clumsy, dull and frustrated, and opened up a new style of epigraphic calligraphy. This reproduction of the erosion and fragmentation of the golden stone calligraphy was very novel at the time, and he loved the "Zheng Wen Gong Monument" the most in his life, because of the goodness of this stele, it became a big name, and the people of the world were so novel and competed for praise, because he could be different from others and write the calligraphy lines in such a strange way.
Li Ruiqing calligraphy pro Zheng Wen Gong Monument
Every calligrapher wants to create a unique look, and sometimes has to find a different path and take the sword to the side. In the late Qing Dynasty, the calligraphy of the famous stele scholar Zhao Zhiqian was a stele, and the inner quality was a post, and the writing was natural and smooth. At the same time, Wu Changshuo wrote shiguwen, and the pen was also strong in connotation, and Kang Youwei wrote "Shimen Ming" with astringency but did not deliberately tremble. From the perspective of calligraphy with a pen, trembling is easy to lose the pen, and occasionally using it can indeed turn decay into magic for the master, which makes people shine. But Li Ruiqing is blindly vibrating his pen, and the distorted zigzag effect on the paper has become a typical feature of himself.
Chen Zhenlian commented on Li Ruiqing's large-character calligraphy in the History of Modern Chinese Calligraphy: "The vibrato pen is used well, of course, it is enough to convey the interest of stone carving erosion. The problem is that Li Ruiqing's vibrato pen is almost a rigid arrangement of high regularity —his vibrato vocabulary is very simple and lacks variation, except for the peculiar; it has little aesthetic value, let alone intriguing. Although sharp but not without reason, for the art of calligraphy, habit is almost synonymous with tacky, Li Ruiqing's later book title is not prominent, the reason is probably here.
Three
On the other hand, Li Ruiqing wrote this unique appearance of the stele, which must be praised for him, which is a remarkable artistic transformation and breakthrough in calligraphy.
To be fair, if Li Ruiqing's best book style is introduced, it should be his small characters, stable small letters or free-flowing grass, which are quite wonderfully written, but in his era when readers can write small characters, it is not so dazzling, and it is not obvious in the pile of people. Although his North Monument and the Book of Subordination are suspected of habits, they are the most eye-catching. Who said that only in this era people pursue traffic, in fact, as long as they enter the market, everyone needs traffic, but the form of expression is different. Differentiation can bring traffic, there is a market for traffic, and works can be smoothly realized, which is an unbreakable market logic. The flaws in the habits of the work are not fatal, and the lack of characteristics is fatal.
Li Ruiqing Letter Za
Then another question must be asked, why does Li Ruiqing's calligraphy have such a habit? This question should start from the calligraphy of the pavilion that Li Ruiqing has practiced since he was a child in order to gain fame, and may be able to give a reasonable explanation.
Li Ruiqing was immediately elected as a Shu Ji Shi (庶吉士), who was subordinate to the Hanlin Academy and was appointed by those who were academically excellent and good at calligraphy. In the late Qing Dynasty, Nengzhong Jinshi was honorably elected to the Hanlin Academy, and it was completely useless to have a neat and round pavilion body xiaokai without a clean hand. Li Ruiqing was able to enter the Hanlin Academy, proving that he wrote a stereotypical guan ge body level first-class.
From the small letters of the pavilion to the rugged Beibei Dashu, Li Ruiqing's transformation was revolutionary for himself, so his artistic breakthrough is very remarkable. But on the other hand, it is easy to change the appearance, and once the concept is preconceived, it is more difficult to change. Li Ruiqing was a bully of his time, his personality was not wild and uninhibited, after the small edification of the pavilion body, the flat rules have penetrated deep into the bone marrow, becoming the background of his creation, and the creative consciousness of free swing and imagination has been worn out. The erosion and weathering of the golden stone is the result of nature, natural nature, an unconscious random existence. However, after being reproduced by the hand of Li Ruiqing Hanlin Yuan Shu Jishi, it became the result of artificial, and the deep-rooted flat stereotypes of the pavilion were unconsciously translated by him to his stele calligraphy, trembling and twisting the original intention was to break the plate stiffness, but it formed a new law and became a new plate stiffness. Simply put, the calligraphy consciousness of the Pavilion style was brought by Li Ruiqing to the monumental calligraphy that he had been proud of all his life.
This is Li Ruiqing's regret in life and art.
It is not that no one advised him to change this defect, and when he was living in Shanghai, another master, Shen Zengzhi, wanted him to "accept the stele into the post", which meant to persuade him to incorporate the trembling "stele" pen that imitated the erosion of the golden stone into the natural and smooth "post" pen to correct the deviation. But Li Ruiqing obviously did not listen, he and Shen Zengzhi did not have much common language in the concept of calligraphy, and their subsequent interactions were also indifferent.
Zeng Nongshi once wrote down one thing: Tan Yanmin said to Li Ruiqing, your nephew Li Jian's words are forced to resemble you, and even I can't make out, so why don't you ask him to ghostwrite it? Li replied, "I have exchanged my heart for money, and I cannot be deceived!" This kind of person is not something that Wu Changshuo's generation can look up to at the same time.
In today's exquisite egoist-oriented, Li Ruiqing's extreme integrity makes people feel and think deeply.
The first article of 2021, it took three days, sincere work, like to throw your hands and like it! If you want to read more of the "History of Crazy Calligraphy" column, please pay attention to it, which is a calligraphy history that is suitable for the era of self-media and can be easily read.