■ Wu Zifu calligraphy couplet
■ Wang Jia (Researcher and Professor, Guangdong Museum of Art)
Anyone who studies Guangdong calligraphy knows that Wu Zifu's favorite 7 stele are the "Ceremonial Instrument Stele", "Zhang Qian Stele", "Xi Narrow Ode", "Shimen Ode", "Gao Ge Song", "School Official Stele", and "Good King Stele". Among the disciples and re-transmission disciples of the "Yeyi Lou", some of them took these 7 stele as the focus of their study, and they were particularly diligent in many Han and Wei inscriptions. Some even study exactly in their order, as an order of learning progression. In a dialogue with his son Wu Jin, Wu Zifu once said: "The calligraphy of the Good King of Jin goguryeo is simple in art, the high rhyme is clumsy, the innocence is new, and the art is extremely poor. Its transformation can be called the Wei and Jin inscriptions. It can be seen that "The Monument to the Good King" has a unique and important position in Wu Zifu's mind.
■ Collection Weekly reporter Chen Fuxiang co-ordinated
Wu Zifu was born on March 25, 1899, and died on August 24, 1979. In the history of Guangdong calligraphy, it is close to Hu Hanmin (1879-1936), Hou Guo (1880-1973), Lin Zhimian (1888-1934), Hu Gentian (1892-1985), Rong Geng (1894-1983), Qin Changsheng (1900-1990), Shang Chengzuo (1902-1991), Mai Huasan (1907-1986), Li Quzhai (1916-1996), etc. When Wu Zifu graduated from the Western Painting Department of the Guangzhou Municipal School of Fine Arts in 1926, he was mainly engaged in the creation of Western paintings. When he was hired to return to the Guangzhou Municipal School of Fine Arts from 1932 to 1936, he was still in the Department of Western Painting. During this period, inspired by Lin Zhimian's calligraphy, he began to concentrate on calligraphy and worked Han tablets the most diligently. The 7 monuments in his ranking are 6 Han monuments and 1 Jin monument. Wu Zifu believes that the significance of the first 6 Han tablets is that they are "the ancestors of all calligraphy and dot painting forms, and the calligraphy after the Wei and Jin dynasties are all distributed from this branch and leaf." ”
Among the 7 stele listed by Wu Zifu, the publication time of 6 Han stele is relatively concentrated. The "Ritual Instrument Stele" Yongshou 2nd year (156), the "Zhang Qianbei" Zhongping 3rd year (186), the "Xispan Song" Jianning 4th year (171), the "Shimen Song" Jianhe 2nd year (148), the "Gao Ge Song" Jianning 5 years (172), the "School Official Monument" Guanghe 4 years (181), before and after the interval of less than 40 years, are all famous monuments in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The "Good King Monument" was published in the tenth year of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (414), which is more than 200 years later than the previous six Han tablets. However, it was almost 100 years earlier than the Zheng Wen Gongbei of the fourth year of Northern Wei Yongping (511) and 117 years earlier than the Epitaph of Zhang Heinu in the first year of Northern Wei Putai (531). It also predates the Twenty Pins of the Dragon Gate (circa 477-517) by half a century. However, in this way, the position of the "Good King Monument" in the history of calligraphy is equivalent to the middle ground between the Han Monument and the Wei Monument. As an inscription of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it has a particularly important value in the study of the history of calligraphy and the significance of inheriting the past and the future.
The "Monument to the Good King" entered the field of calligraphy at the latest, and only in 1876, in the early years of Guangxu, it regained the attention of the industry. Before that, the Monument to the Good King had been asleep for a thousand years. If the "Ceremonial Instrument Monument", "Zhang Qianbei" and "School Official Monument" are veritable "steles", "Xi Narrow Ode", "Shimen Ode", "Ode to The Pavilion" are Moya, then the "Good King Monument" is a "standing stone", 6.39 meters high, carved on an irregular square pillar, the glyph is huge, has exceeded the glyph of the ordinary "stele", can be regarded as "Moya".
As far as the study of Lishu is concerned, the newly discovered Lishu has an important significance for the calligraphy community. "Ceremonial Instrument Monument" in Qufu, Shandong, elegant and dignified. "Zhang Qianbei" in Shandong Taishan Dai Temple, Fang Jingu Humble. The "Monument of the School Official" is now in the Nanjing Museum, although the knot is square, but it mostly uses a round pen, and there is a seal book relic. "Ceremonial Stele" has always been a classic in Han Lizhong, "Zhang Qianbei" had a great influence on the Qing Dynasty Lishu, but unfortunately it was destroyed in 1892 by fire, "School Official Monument" has undergone changes, re-erected in the Nanjing Confucius Temple during the Guangxu years, and the three monuments were all hot topics of "Internet celebrity level" during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. "Ode to the West Narrow", "Ode to the Stone Gate" and "Ode to the Pavilion", known as the "Three Odes to the Moya of the Han Dynasty", the "Ode to the Stone Gate" is now in the Hanzhong Museum in Shaanxi, the "Ode to the Pavilion" is now in the Shaanxi Luoyang Lingyan Temple Museum, and the "Ode to the West Narrow" is preserved at the original site in Chengxian County, Gansu, because there is "Qiu Jing" at the end, which opens a precedent for calligraphers to settle the money.
As a newly discovered inscription during the Guangxu period, the "Monument to the Good King" is not only a new topic for scholars, but also a new topic for calligraphers. Wang Yirong, Zheng Wenzhuo, Luo Zhenyu, and Rong Geng all studied the "Monument to the Good King". As a hot topic of the times, Wu Zifu became interested in the "hot spot" of "The Monument of the Good King" and included it in the tail of the 7 stele, which can be imagined.
Wu Zifu is an "important town" of Guangdong calligraphy in the 20th century, especially in the creation of Lishu, with its unique insights and thinking, it has opened a new chapter of "Wuli". Not only does Wu Zifu prefer the "Monument to the Good King", but Hou Kaijia, who is 47 years younger than Wu Zifu, also prefers it. Hou Kaijia once talked about taking it as "simple and childish". In fact, because of geographical reasons, although the "Monument to the Good King" was published, it was already 41 years later than Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Preface" (353). It also means that at this time, the mainstream field of calligraphy has entered a new era of Suo Jing, Lu Ji and Wang Xie, but in terms of calligraphy style, the Qin Li style retained in the "Good King Monument" for reasons such as geographical factors seems to make people feel the earlier calligraphy pursuit than the 6 stele stones such as the "Ceremonial Instrument Stele". In this sense, the "Monument to the Good King" belongs to the "late rise" and "inheritance", reflecting the transition and evolution from the seal book to the lishu.
Lishu is an important stage in the history of Chinese calligraphy, and "Lishu" not only has a literary sense of abandoning the old and welcoming the new, but also a new beginning in the sense of calligraphy. In his later years, Wu Zifu preferred the "Monument to the Good King", which to some extent was not only a new pursuit of the ancient after repeated tempering of the Lishu, but also a stele for in-depth study of the hottest topics in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and strived to open up the style of calligraphy. This is also the embodiment of the pioneering and innovative development of Guangdong calligraphers in the 20th century.