In the Qing Dynasty, there was one person whose calligraphy was very interesting, and no one who had seen it was not surprised, that is, Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy.
It can be said that his calligraphy is the least like handwriting. The structure of every stroke and every word is so symmetrical that it almost feels like it is printed. However, such characters have not been criticized like Tian Yingzhang and Tian Yunzhang in today's calligraphy circles (to be honest, I am also unfair to Teacher Tian, who has made many contributions to the popularization of calligraphy and has immeasurable merits), but has been praised by people.
Let's first see who compliments them.
The first to praise Zhang Yuzhao is Kang Youwei, which we will talk about later. Then there was Zeng Guofan, what did he say? He said in the Diary of a Quest for Que Zhai: "Among the disciples, he who hopes for achievement is to push this person." Wu Rulun even more admired that he could "change and then become bigger" and "uniquely derived from the strangeness of the "Records of History", although "the literary style is not as majestic as Zeng, and the meaning is witty, the words are incorruptible, and they can also become a family of their own". Zhang Taiyan, a famous scholar during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, also liked Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy.
The reason why his calligraphy can be valued by others is related to his cultural background and calligraphy style propositions.
Zhang Yuzhao (1823-1894), courtesy name Lianqing, was a native of Wuchang (present-day Wuchang, Hubei), a famous scholar and calligrapher in the late Qing Dynasty. The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty records that Zhang Yuzhao loved calligraphy in his youth, and "the diligence of Linchi did not give up for a day". In the ninth year of Daoguang (1829), Zhang Yuzhao, who was seven years old at the time, entered the academy with his brother Zhang Yukai and studied under the guidance of his father's friend Yang Weinong. Zhang Yuzhao's childhood learning was based on a "printed plate" written by Yang Weinong for beginners. The content of the "printing plate" is mostly ancient classic poetry and good sentences, similar to the red template used by beginners today.
In the long process of depiction, Zhang Yuzhao gradually cultivated an interest in calligraphy. In the twenty-sixth year of Daoguang (1846), Zhang Yuzhao entered the army as a juror, but later despaired of his career because he was dissatisfied with the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government. After his retreat, he focused on preaching and teaching karma to solve problems, and successively lectured at Spoon Court Academy, Fengchi Academy, Lotus Pond Academy, Jianghan Academy, and Lumen Academy, especially during the period when he was directly subordinate to Lianchi Academy.
Zhang Yuzhao was inaugurated as the head of the Lotus Pond Academy in April of the ninth year of Guangxu (1883). At that time, he was facing Lotus Pond Academy, which was pursuing positive changes, hoping to meet the development of the times. Lianchi Academy is a provincial academy founded in 1733 by Li Wei, the governor of Zhili, in the northwest corner of Gulianchi, also known as Zhili Academy, Baoding Academy, or Baoyang Academy. Lotus Pond College is a government-run college, and all expenses are directly allocated by the government treasury. This also determined that the Lotus Pond Academy was a place for the Qing government ruling clique and for the feudal rulers to train loyal filial piety and righteous officials and literati.
During his time at Lotus Pond Academy, Zhang Yuzhao not only taught ancient science, but also taught calligraphy, and he himself reached the highest peak of his life in the art of calligraphy. The author once made an on-the-spot inspection of the academy, and learned that the "Monument to Zhang Yuzhao and Miyajima Daihachi's Eighth Teacher" inscribed by the Japanese on Mount Shinji is located in the West Courtyard of Lianchi Academy in Baoding City, and the style of calligraphy inscription of the stele is inherited from Zhang Yuzhao.
Influenced by the customs of the times, the calligraphers of the late Qing Dynasty mostly sought monuments for the post in calligraphy creation, and most of their personal styles belonged to the category of simplicity and clumsiness. Zhang Yuzhao, on the other hand, did not monotonously take the Fabei stele in his actual writing, but selectively integrated the epigraphy into the theology of theology, and drew on the characteristics of Tang Kai's "thin" and "long" knots and the characteristics of the seal and the "center forward" pen of the book, and finally successfully formed a unique calligraphy style. Zhang Yuzhao fully advocated the revival of ancient law, emphasizing the use of the penmanship of the seal book, borrowing and using the knot body of Wei and Jin calligraphy, creating a calligraphy style with a rigorous knot body and a steep and high ancient body, known as "Zhang Body", also known as "Nangong Body".
Kang Youwei spoke highly of Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy in "Guangyi Zhou Shuangyi": In Hubei, there is Zhang Xiaolian Yuzhao Lianqing... Its charm is all Jin, Song triumphant, really able to Zhen Jin Tao Wei, pregnant Song, Liang and Yuqi, Sui, in the past thousand years unparalleled. ”
Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy began with the calligraphy, and later learned the inscription stone carvings of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and traced it back to the Han Dynasty Lishu, integrating into his own understanding, and finally formed the style of a family.
In terms of Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy art language, he mainly uses the pen of the seal to be simple and clumsy; in the knot body, he mainly takes Tang Kai, combined with the posture of the north stele, the characters are independent, regular, thick, flat and stable, the characters are straight and flexible, the axis is correct, and the breath is coherent; the ink method is combined with the ink and the su ink, and the effect of vivid rhyme, strong ink color, thick and introverted.
In the twelfth year of Guangxu (1886), Zhang Yuzhao was famous for writing the Nangong Stele. Zhang Yuzhao's "Nangong Stele" written in italics has a well-proportioned structure, with a pen in the center, a high ancient calligraphy, and a pen outside and an inner circle at the turn. He wrote the letter in the style of a seal calligraphy, so that every word in the stele appeared round and powerful, full and full of charm.
The most obvious feature of Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy is the simultaneous use of square circles at the turning point. The harmonious use of squares and circles can write calligraphy with aesthetics. Throughout Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy, the "horizontal fold" no longer uses a direct lifting press, but uses the pipe brush method to adjust the edge, and the center is straight down, forming a turning effect of the outer square and the inner circle. Although Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy is named "stele body", its knot body is different from the north stele calligraphy flat and square knot body. Zhang Yuzhao learned calligraphy from an early age, and the calligraphy of Ouyang Qing and others worked hard the most. Ouyang Que's calligraphy knot belongs to the slender and long category, and the Nangong Stele is a representative work written by Zhang Yuzhao to absorb Ouyang Que's calligraphy knot. Specifically, when Zhang Yuzhao handled the structure of the left and right characters, under the premise of ensuring the tightening of the middle palace, he adopted the method of left loose and tight right, and he extended the left part of the horizontal painting and the skimming painting, and shortened the right part, avoiding the rigidity of the left and right equal divisions, so that his calligraphy showed a dynamic posture in a stable manner.
As a generation of literati doctors, Zhang Yuzhao's calligraphy and his literature are inseparable, so we should also start from this when we evaluate his calligraphy.
In his early years, Zhang Yuzhao loved the ancient texts of Zeng Gongzhi in the Southern Song Dynasty, which was not good for the times. The "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" is said to have "when he was young, the master of the school taught him to make a career, and he was not happy." The family has the "Nanfeng Collection", which is read from time to time." Therefore, he was deeply appreciated by Zeng Guofan during the examination of the Ministry of Etiquette. Since Xuezeng Gongwen was prone to weakness, Zeng Guofan suggested that he proceed from the theory of Yao Nai of Tongcheng, read more articles by Yang Xiong, Han Yu, and others, and refer to the ancient endowments of the two Han Dynasties in order to increase the masculine temperament of the articles.
The theory of literary style is an important part of the literary theory of the Tongcheng school. The initiation of the Tongcheng School's literary theory began with Liu Daxun's proposal of "divine syllables." After Yao Nai put forward the essence of the article "righteousness, evidence, and words", Zeng Guofan added an article on "economy" in the Xiantong Dynasty, and tongcheng literary theory was almost complete. As a disciple of Zeng Guofan, Zhang Yuzhao inherited the Tongcheng school of literary style under his guidance, and proposed to take "nature" as the ultimate aesthetic pursuit for wen. In the process of forming Zhang Yuzhao's theory of literary style, the influence of Wu Rulun, who was also the "fourth disciple of Zengmen," could not be underestimated. The correspondence between the two during their time in Hebei promoted Zhang Yuzhao's thinking on writing techniques. When teaching apprentices, Zhang Yuzhao influenced the trend of ancient Chinese creation of the Tongcheng School in the later period from the perspective of literary style theory, which directly reflected the role of Zhang Yuzhao in the inheritance of the Later Tongcheng School.
It can be seen that the literary cultivation of calligraphers is also an important reason for reflecting their artistic style, and we must start from this aspect when studying and learning a person's calligraphy. Of course, what is more important is that as a person who learns calligraphy, we should also strive to improve our self-cultivation in order to be our own calligraphy.