Founded in the 30th year of the Qing Dynasty (1904), Xiling Printing Society is the oldest surviving literati society in China and the earliest professional academic group for gold stone seal carving at home and abroad. Xiling Printing Society has the reputation of "the world's first society". As early as before the Xiling Printing Society, there was a school of seal engraving centered on Hangzhou, and its Zhiyin Sect Han Law often participated in the subordination, paid attention to the knife method, and made good use of the cutting knife to express the meaning of the pen, which directly enlightened the modern seal carving art, and their seal carving art style is also known as "Zhejiang School Seal Carving". The most representative ones are 8 people, called the "Xiling Eight Families", they are Ding Jing, Jiang Ren, Huang Yi, Xi Gang in the early period, and Later Chen Yuzhong, Chen Hongshou, Zhao Zhichen, and Qian Song. Today we will talk about this controversial seal engraving calligrapher Zhao Zhichen.
Zhao Zhichen (1781-1852), a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang. The word is idle, the number of the father, the sacrifice of the father, the number of the Treasure Moon Mountain, the number of the Jai number to supplement the Luojia room. He did not succeed in his life, engaged in calligraphy and painting seal engraving behind closed doors, and in his later years he was displaced in the war of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and died in his hometown, at the age of 72.
Zhao Zhichen is not only good at calligraphy and painting, landscape and flower painting skills are exquisite, unique rhyme; but also good at seal carving, since ancient times good painters are not necessarily good at seal carving, understand seal carving, its calligraphy is definitely good. Zhao Zhichen is the Book of Works, seals, and affiliations, especially the books of the Works. Landscape painters Fa Ni and Huang, with Xiao Shuyu as the sect; the flowers are dashing, the fu color is elegant, and there is a great interest in Huayan. His name was "Supplementary Luojia Room" because he believed in Buddhism more and often used Buddha's teachings and Buddha statues as calligraphy and paintings. Paintings have been handed down as "Double Hook Bamboo Stone Diagram", "Plum Blossom Camellia Diagram", "Songzhi Diagram" and so on.
▲Zhao Zhichen's "Double Hook Bamboo Stone Diagram"
▲Zhao Zhichen's "Plum Blossom Camellia Diagram"
▲Zhao Zhichen's "Songzhi Tu"
In the art of seal engraving, he studied under Chen Yuzhong, and also learned the strengths of Huang Yi, Xi Gang and Chen Hongshou, which can be described as the great achievement of the Zhejiang school. After Jiaqing and Daoguang, he was famous and highly respected. His seal-making method is stable and contains a posture, and the knife method is heavy and contains lightness, especially the method of cutting knives is called the altar of printing. Those who admired him praised him as "the great achievement of the Zhejiang School", and the proficiency of the sword technique has been perfected, among which many "Deng Sect" master Wu Rangzhi have great respect for him; those who do not like him think that he is a "sinner of the Zhejiang School", saying that he pursues the sword method too much, and ignores the pursuit of the calligraphy and seal law, coupled with a large number of works of entertainment, the work has a stylized trend, and even by posterity called bad habits, rigid and rigid, and eventually became the "sinner" of the Decline of the Zhejiang School. What do you think about that?
▲Zhao Zhichen's "Seal Book Imitation Ancient Scroll"
▲Zhao Zhichen's "Seven Words of Lishu Lian"
Everything has two sides, look at you standing at that angle to speak, art does not have to be said by everyone, it is better to know each other. No matter what, let's take a look at this masterpiece of art in the picture above!