As far as calligraphy is concerned, there are brilliant stars in each era, there are Zhongzheng Ping and the great masters of the predecessors, there are also those who have broken new ground, unique people, different styles, different faces, and achieved the hundred flowers of Chinese calligraphy art. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, calligraphy reached its peak in standardization and rigor, but from another point of view, it was also an era when the comprehensive depth of calligraphy suppressed the vitality of calligraphy. In this time period, Shen Du's brilliance was no different for a while.
Shen Du calligraphy
As Shen Du, who stands at the tip of the pavilion, his calligraphy has reached the point where one point is too long and one point is too short in terms of knots and brushwork. Especially in the contemporary era when ugly books are rampant, Shen Du's calligraphy comes into view, making people feel refreshed. In the Ming Dynasty, Dong Qichang admired the calligraphy of the Shen Du brothers, saying that "the wen (zhengming) and zhu (yunming) two families, a temporary standard, but wanted to break through the second Shen, failed to also." Yang Shiqi, a major minister of the Ming Dynasty, once summarized the characteristics of Shen Du's calligraphy style with eight characters of "graceful and ethereal, graceful and graceful". Graceful and luxurious, naturally it is the royal temperament, no wonder Ming Chengzu Zhu Di praised Shen Du's calligraphy very much, "The Hall of the Nishi Ben, the Golden Edition jade book, the imperial court, the Tibetan secret house, the subordinate state, the book of obedience to the fate of the "Book of Obedience", calling him "The King of my Dynasty Xizhi".
As a style of writing favored by the emperors of the dynasty, it was naturally sought after by the disciples of the world in the imperial examination, and gradually, this kind of book style developed into a special examination for the imperial examination, the preparation of the recitation table, and the Taige style. A calligraphy style from unique to rampant is also a process from chic to vulgar. The knots and brushwork that are enshrined as the golden rules of jade have become a shackle that is difficult to break through at the extreme, and the pavilion body has been criticized by later generations, compared to Wen Zhengming, Zhu Zhishan, Dong Qichang, and Shen Du, who have become lonely and nameless because they have carried the shackles of the pavilion body.
In the contemporary era of ugly books, the law has become a scarce paradigm, Shen Du's Xiaokai seems so pearly, although it is not necessary to advocate that today's calligraphy should return to this kind of pavilion style, but can we think about tradition and law, make some efforts, let us frivolous, floating calligraphy become thick and warm.