Introduction: Zhou Boqi, a scribe of the Yuan Dynasty, not only made a difference in politics and literature, but also an important calligrapher in the Yuan Dynasty. His calligraphy creation, both good in all styles, especially the seal and lishu achievements are the most prominent, and he also served as a doctor of calligraphy in Xuanwen Pavilion, which is a typical example of the Qingshi calligraphers of the Yuan Dynasty.
Zhou Boqi, zi Bowen, self-titled Yuxuepo, Yuxuepo Weng, Yuxuepo Zhenyi, Mr. Jianbai, etc., raozhou Poyang people. At the age of 10, he traveled with his father to Yanjing, and at the age of 15, he entered the Chinese Academy as a shangshe student, and was guided by Wu Cheng, Deng Wenyuan, Yu Ji and others. During this period, he wrote "Wild Chrysanthemum Fu", which was appreciated by the Rebbe Shangshu Yuan Mingshan, and his name first appeared.
Although Zhou Boqi was a southerner, he was an official with his father's shadow and was born as a guoxue gongshi, so he was treated better than the average southern secretary. In the first year of the Yuan Shun Emperor's reign, he changed the KuiZhangge pavilion to Xuanwen Pavilion, and after Zhou Boqi served as Xuanwen Pavilion, due to the recommendation of Kang Li and the promotion of Emperor Shun, his calligraphy influence expanded rapidly, reaching a peak when he was a doctor of calligraphy and painting. Later, he successively served as a scholar of Hanlin Zhi, an inspector of imperial history, and a visiting envoy to the government and honesty of western Zhejiang. In the seventeenth year of Zhengzheng, he was instructed to summon Zhang Shicheng of Pingjiang, and was detained by Zhang for more than ten years. Zhang Shicheng was destroyed, and Bo Qi had to return to his hometown and died at home soon after.
Although the Zhou family was born in a turbulent world at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and suffered many times and chaos, he was good at self-preservation and diligent in writing.
"Gong Xue Zhen"
01 Calligraphy is one of the means of serving the imperial court
The Yuan Dynasty was not an era of developed calligraphy, and many calligraphers did not have relevant texts to pass down, and Zhou Boqi was no exception. Although Zhou Boqi has no calligraphic works to pass on, we can find out the general idea of his calligraphy in the historical materials.
In the Yuan Dynasty, calligraphy was often "to kill time, and second, to use this as a means of expressing oneself". Zhou Boqi was a courtier of "To Jun Yao Shunyu", and his loyalty and service to the Yuan court made his attitude towards calligraphy slightly different.
For example, when he was in the Xuanwen Pavilion List, the Ming Temple Seal, and the Xuanwen Pavilion Treasure, he said, "Look down on the statue of the Stars of Cangjie, and look up at the Heavy Hua Frost Lusi."
When he was promoted to The Doctor of Xuanwenge Jianshu, he said that "it is not ashamed to obey the robe of grace, but I am willing to be stupid because of the advice of the pen."
When tasting calligraphy in Xuanwen Pavilion, he felt that "the ancient and modern statues are like Dan Qingmiao, and the sages pass on the heart and ink incense.".
Zhou Boqi's calligraphy is typical of the retro calligraphy style of the Yuan Dynasty. He is not only a member of Zhao Ziang's camp, but also a representative of a calligrapher with his own artistic characteristics. Zhou Boqi was influenced by Zhao Ziang, Yu Ji, Kang Li and others since he was a child, and he also "copied Wang Xizhi's book "Orchid Pavilion Preface" and Zhiyong's book "Thousand Texts", carved in the Stone Pavilion", but he was influenced by his family since he was a child, studied and studied the study of character books, and had a deep study of seal and calligraphy, so he was different from ordinary people who studied Zhao.
Zhou Boqi once said: "Fu seal, 籀, the original of the real word; li, true, grass, its genre also." Although the body is different, where the next party is strong, the wind god is complete, and the work of the knot is not enough. If you accumulate in the pool for a long time, you will have your own gains. ”
This kind of calligraphic thought of writing the present body with the meaning of the seal brush, not drawing on the dot painting, pursuing the aesthetic requirements of Fang Yuan's majesty, in order to achieve the realm of divine perfection, is indeed superior to the people of the times, and there is no lack of enlightenment significance today. Therefore, some people cite his "Pen Sayings" as the book of Learning Zhao, and "Zhu Derun's Epitaph" is a work that chases after Wei Jin and presents the appearance of Cang Shu and ancient clumsiness. The Wang Xizhi in his eyes should be "strong in the gesture, the eight laws are possessed, and if it is not a vulgar book, it is weak and charming, and the strength is blunt."
While paying attention to techniques, Zhou Boqi especially advocates "technique into the Tao", and pays attention to character and learning. This does not seem to be a calligraphic idea, and the traditional scholars originally regarded calligraphy as a residual matter, not to mention the Yuan Dynasty, which did not attach much importance to calligraphy.
Compared with the Tang and Song dynasties, the study of the Yuan Dynasty did not have much breakthrough, nor did it have the prosperity of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but one thing is worth paying attention to, that is, a number of books summarizing techniques appeared. There is a book written by Anonymous Shi, "Calligraphy Samadhi", which is included in Feng Wu's "Calligraphy Biography". Zhou Boqi loved this book, and often brought him with him when he stayed in Wuzhong in his later years.
Of course, he did not stop here, but extensively involved all the families, especially the "Stone Drum Text", "Yishan Stele", "Qin and Han Steles", and Chung Ding Zhi Zhi and other seals, and used the Six Books to correct the body, thinking that people were righteous, so as to achieve the purpose of good art and entering the Fu Dao. Although he can do all four, we can rarely see Zhou Boqi's cursive works or grass-cursive works, and most of them are rigorous and gentle works, which is also the expression of his way of calligraphy.
"Tong Xi Drinking Poetry Thesis"
02 There are representatives of the Yuan generation learning "Stone Drum Text"
Zhou Boqi's rubbing of ancient brush strokes and Han seal knots in the small seal is obviously a distance from the early Yuan Dynasty seal book represented by Zhao Ziang and Wu Yan, which can highlight the value of his seal book in constructing the style of the Yuan Dynasty seal book era and the individual value that stands out above the style of the era.
The overall appearance of the Seal Book of the Yuan Dynasty is the same as that of the previous generation, which is based on the orthodox "Er li" jade seal style of the seal book, plus under the influence of Er Xu, Zhang You, Dang Huaiying and others, which is far less simple than the Qin and Han Dynasties, and there is not much innovation, but the emphasis of each method is different.
Although Zhou Boqi's seal book also studied Er Li, Xu Xuan, Zhang You, and others, the depth and breadth of his methods were still quite different from those of others. Since he was a child, he has had "the victory of the forest tomb of the mountains and rivers ... The inscription of the stele, the "habits" that are not thoroughly studied, and the "proposed" money is circulated, and there are few Yiding. Good old gentleman, si yi investigate.". On the one hand, this comes from the tradition of Poyang Zhou's calligraphy, and on the other hand, it is also due to instinct. It is this kind of Jin #Shiguwen #text vision that makes his way to take the method in the seal book relatively broad. In addition to learning the common small seal inscriptions, it is more widely absorbed in the pre-Qin Zhong Ding style. These make his seal book more ancient.
He also studied the Qin and Han tablets, and made his seal book have a subordinate meaning. This is rare in the Yuan Dynasty seal book and later seal book. However, the most important source of his seal book is the "Stone Drum Text" that he pushed as "the first in ancient stone carvings". Zhou Boqi has been very fascinated by the "Stone Drum Text" since he was a child, and after entering the Taixue School, he was even more fascinated by the stone drums of the Guozijian. If you count from the time he read the "Song of the Three Gentlemen of Wei, Han and Su" as a teenager to the existing "Linshi Drum Album" in 1362, he loved the "Stone Drum Text" for forty or fifty years, and it can be said that the "Stone Drum Text" accompanied him throughout his life. In his "Stone Drum Fu and Song", he even shouted "Carved Stone Drum Xi Zhou Xian King, Ren Zhi Xue Xi Self Emperor". As a representative figure of the Yuan Dynasty's study of the Stone Drum Text, Zhou Boqi's seal book was far more influenced by the Stone Drum Text than by predecessors and contemporaries.
Zhou Boqi's seal book, whether it is knotted or used in the pen, takes the "Stone Drum Text" as the pursuit, the pen is both square and round, the flesh and bones are evenly adjusted, so that the rotation changes a lot, and the overall style is seen in the regular and round and mature posture, which is very different from Zhao Ziang and others who seek a safe and even symmetry.
If the "West Lake Caotang Map" quotes the "West Lake Caotang" with four big characters with a pen and a knot, then several seal book works in the later years are very different. For example, if Zhu Derun's "Xiuye Xuantu" quotes the three characters of "Xiuye Xuan", it is magnificent, the pen is strong, and the structure is extremely stable. Only these three words can also show the power of the pen to carry the top.
"Zhu Derun's Epitaph Seal Forehead", the structure is also extremely stable, but it is not deliberate, but it is natural to see Xiao Scattered. Calligraphy, especially the seal, if carefully arranged, intentional, although it can be said to be exquisite, but it is easy to lose the carving, from the "gentle and clear" Qin seal is some distance away.
As a calligrapher with profound philological skills, Zhou Boqi is also a scholar of science, and "elegance" is naturally an important criterion for his calligraphy aesthetics. Whether it is ming "character origin" or "positive falsification", he is seeking a "quaint elegance" that is original and clear. It is precisely because of his concern for epigraphy that he has gradually formed his "quaint" aesthetic orientation and artistic pursuit characterized by "Fang Yuanxiong".
In addition to zhou Boqi's study of the "Stone Drum Text", he also paid close attention to the knowledge of the zhong ding of the past dynasties, and even had a deeper study of the "Biluo Stele". When he studied the Biluo Stele, "those who suspect that it is mixed with various bodies, the magic is that the pen is not in the body." This is a very wise way to take it. After understanding these, if you look at Zhou Boqi's seal book, you can better understand the square and slightly flattened body of his seal book, the round and majestic pen, taken from the plaque, and the overall characteristics of "quaint" atmosphere. Of course, these also have the nutrition derived from the Han Dynasty stele seal book, square folding, round turning and using at the same time, the font is thick, and there is a sense of heaviness. Therefore, Tao Zongyi said that he was quite discerning when he said that he "wrote in a pen and knotted words, and had a special body".
epilogue:
If Zhao Wenmin is the "retro school" of the Yuan Dynasty Small Seal, then Zhou Boqi is the "innovative school", representing the new direction of the development of the Yuan Dynasty seal book. It not only affected the development of the small seal of the Ming Dynasty, but also the bud of the revival of the small seal of the Qing Dynasty.
The Yuan Dynasty scribe Kang Li Chuan Youyun: Zhou Boqi Seal Book, the one who has no fault in this world.
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