Calligraphic Personality Formation: Voluntary and Involuntary Choices
Wen | Xue Yuanming
Western Jin Dynasty porcelain figurines on books
The word "personality" often hangs on the lips of bookworms. But what is personality, it is very vague to understand, all say it is personality, but there are different personalities. Sometimes it becomes a slogan, sometimes it becomes a pretext, and the litigation is complicated and muddy, adding a lot of chaos. Generally speaking, the main focus is on the perspective of taking the method from the stele, absorbing the essence of a hundred schools and casting personality, which is just the way to form. The essence of calligraphic personality is the personality of the calligrapher, and personality is human nature. People's ability to imitate is very strong, but the real personality cannot be copied, the form can be imitated, and the spirit is absolutely difficult to be similar. Some of the so-called people are a bit like a little imitation, and the personality is questionable. Xu Wei, Wang Duo, and Zhang Ruitu are difficult to fake because their personalities are too strong. Personality can be imitated because people have commonalities with each other, and they cannot be imitated because people have uniqueness. Personality is accumulated, can not be "accelerated", both the inherent role of innate potential, but also the role of various external environmental factors, but also some innate factors due to acquired factors and changes, so the formation of personality is mainly in three aspects: the first is voluntary, the second is involuntary, the third is voluntary and involuntary intertwined, forced to become a habit. A person's living environment is not satisfactory, want to change but can not change, or do not have the ability to change, a long time will have to live and pass, from helpless to habitual - similar to "Stockholm Syndrome". These factors can be seen from the works of the writers, some people will have the brand of "cold frugality" in their lives, and some show everyone's demeanor. Although people have the right to choose, there are many aspects that cannot be chosen, such as social era, family birth, etc., some are inevitable choices, such as the acquisition of legal resources and techniques involving the calligraphy ontology, and some are accidental, such as worshiping teachers, these factors will have an impact on the formation of personality.
Qing Wang Duo Xiao Kai Zhang Fu painted landscape fan surfaces
First, the historical pattern
(1) Social environment
Man is both a cultural subject and a cultural object. Man creates culture, and he is created by culture. Successive generations of calligraphers have shaped the form of calligraphy, and calligraphy has also shaped the calligraphers of all generations.
Culture is not a self-regulatory element independent of politics and economics. In Chinese society, culture is inextricably linked to various parts of the social fabric. The development of calligraphy in a certain period is always inseparable from the social form of a specific period, influenced by specific social trends, and has a certain relationship with specific social people, and this is still the case today. Different living conditions have different habits, and different behaviors occur due to different habits. People's hobbies, tastes and consumption patterns have a great influence on calligraphy creation. Now that we are following the same trend, we need to reflect on it on multiple levels. One of them is the lack of genealogical origins, the absence of a basis for fundamental difference. For the bookmaker, the foundation is important. The emergence of a value orientation of quick success and quick profit has exposed the problems existing in the current social orientation. Normal people have a purpose in doing things, and the so-called "no profit is not early", which is determined by human nature. The pursuit of fame and fortune is utilitarian, and the pursuit of spiritual realm is also utilitarian. The exhibition does forcibly change the personality of many bookmakers, but do not blame the ordinary book people struggling in the "utilitarian exhibition" too much, the tendency of the social balance, the general public simply can not resist.
Contemporary Xu Shengweng Codex
The development of information technology has led to the increasingly impetuous mentality of people. Technology emphasizes a "fast" word, the pursuit of speed efficiency, fierce competition leads to huge pressure, and even speculation at any cost. People communicate with each other less, lack patience, become more and more self-sufficient, empty inside, and many are just a superficial personality. Nowadays, the fame of the Internet is a road, and it is powerful to change the way the personality of the book's personality is shaped, and it is not possible to see so many resources and access to so many ideas. The network has formed a series of new value orientations, which are manifested in three aspects: direct communication, cultural sharing, and individual spirit. The web emphasizes virtual power and amplifies it to the extreme.
Dawenkou carved pottery symbols
Historical and cultural inheritance is a continuous process of "smoking". From an individual point of view, it is the words and deeds of one generation to the next generation. On the whole, it is a very complex process, and I personally think it can be divided into three categories: automatic continuation, internal fluctuations, and external shocks. Relative to calligraphy, it can be described as a "big cycle". Automatic continuation includes two types of stages and continuity, some cultures will only play a role at a certain stage, gradually eliminated and fade out of the stage of history, some have been playing a role, such as Chinese character writing, from the ancestors' initial "carved wood as a deed, knotted rope chronicle" to the pottery carving symbols that appeared in the Dawenkou culture, and gradually evolved into oracle bones, gold scripts, large seals, small seals, Lishu and Kaishu, etc., this process is extremely long and complex. The internal fluctuations are the spread of culture due to commerce, war, migration and other methods, the most typical is the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties period, the calligraphy style is extremely complex, showing multi-headed development. External shock is the entry of other cultures, and the blurring and cross-penetration of boundaries between the original culture and foreign cultures appear. The first foreign culture was mainly the introduction of Buddhism, and there was writing calligraphy, which was passed down through the generations and developed into a huge system. The second shock of Western culture is in the contemporary era. There are many so-called modernist creations in the name of calligraphy, which degenerate into "instant garbage" of sensory consumption—performance entertainment, artistic consumption, and writing juggling," and there is no personality at all.
Ming Zhang Ruitu couplet
History of Calligraphy The history of calligraphy is a complex system, with small systems in large systems, constantly overlapping and interlacing, like a labyrinth, to find the nearest way. The development of calligraphy can be called "small cycles", and there are three modes that affect the personality of the writer.
The first is the longitudinal "linear". There are developments and changes in the style of books in different eras, and the forms of some transitional periods are rich and complex. After the end of the evolution of the book genre, there was a continuing relationship between different writers of different eras. In the history of calligraphy, many vertical development lines can be sorted out.
The second is the horizontal "block". The calligraphy of each era always has certain characteristics of the times. No book writer can escape the specific living environment under the background of their respective eras. The style of the times is the premise of personal style, and multiple writers are juxtaposed, similar and different. There will always be "outliers" in each era, which are incompatible with the style of the times, such as the contrast between the Qin Dynasty edict version and the small seal, the contrast between Yang Weizhen and Zhao Mengfu in the Yuan Dynasty, and the comparison between Xu Wei and Dong Qichang in the Ming Dynasty. It is precisely because of the existence of these "outliers" that there is a kind of antagonistic contradiction that promotes the development of calligraphy. Duality is a core feature of Chinese culture.
The third is a mixed "mesh". A certain bookmaker takes a book of a similar era, and at the same time takes the law of the bookmaker in the history of the book, and cross-influences each other, resulting in more personality differences. Mi Fu inherited the Erwang Shufeng, Yan Zhenqing also inherited the wang character, and Mi Fu also learned Yan Zhenqing. Wang Duo learned from Yan Zhenqing and Huang Gu, and Huang Gu also learned from Yan Zhenqing. Zhao Zhiqian took Fa He Shaoji, and also took Fa He Shaoji's Zong Yan Zhenqing, and Tan Yanmin took Fa Weng Tonghe, and also directly took Fa Yan Zhenqing.
(2) Regional changes
The social environment is the entire social atmosphere, and the region belongs to the local scope. For a country like China, which has a long history and culture and an extremely large territory, regionality cannot completely disappear, and the role of regional customs in history has always existed, which will have a subtle impact on the personality of the writer. Nowadays, mobility has increased, and bookworms can change their living environment to a certain extent. From one circle to another, the personality naturally changes. It is necessary to mention here that the school of calligraphy in history appeared in a certain historical period and was consciously or unconsciously composed of a number of calligraphers with ideological tendencies, artistic opinions, creative styles, and aesthetic tastes that were basically the same or similar. There are very few schools of calligraphy, such as the Wumen school and the Huating school, which usually emphasize geographical location. "Haipai" involves a wide range of masters, the creation is colorful, and the combination of "celebrity talent" and "business strategy". Genre and regionality are not the same thing, just like any person who moves to Shanghai, is it "Haipai"? The answer is no. What they have in common is geographical scope. The current regional style of writing is not a genre. In the past, regional restrictions were strong and difficult to break through, but now they no longer exist, and online teaching has powerful functions. When local domain factors dominate, the possibility of choosing a teacher is very small, the creation of different regions is not the same, but the internal region will be close, and now the choice is free, the book style in different regions is similar, and the same region is very different. There is no genre, all kinds of artificial "hills" stand up, and "pseudo-genres" only have "pseudo-personality".
Qing Zhao Zhiqian Seal Book Union
Second, personal factors
(1) Inevitable accumulation
Personal accumulation can be roughly divided into three aspects: technique, knowledge, and experience. To understand art, we must first understand life, and without life experience, there is no sense of truth. The accumulation of skills is the basic skill of the bookmaker, and training is the only way, and it is long-term. Calligraphy is an operational type, which must be practiced by hand, and the writing movements can be achieved quickly, accurately and freely through repeated practice. The so-called genius is actually the accumulation of potential. If there is no large number of Linchi, you cannot write good works. We must pay attention to three points: First, we must be systematic, we cannot learn anything well. Many people are greedy for perfection and plant a lot of "vegetable fields", and as a result, a piece of land is not planted well. The second is to work hard, bit by bit, one move at a time, perseverance, and years and months to be effective. The third is experience, art needs to personally feel the experience, use their own soul to feel the calligraphy, need the experience of life. Without observing and experiencing life in detail, it is difficult to understand the classics at a deep level. Calligraphy is one of the ways of expressing emotions, containing rich social ecological meaning. The emotion of life is the ultimate presentation of people's feelings about the objective world and their moods, and is the foundation of art. The creation of emotions is based on the writer's own experience, applied to the understanding of calligraphy, so as to "turn skills into feelings", so that the skills are separated from mechanical pure actions and away from physiological conditioning. Emotion is the detail, detail is the emotion, such as the two poems in "Wandering Son": "The seam is tightly sewn before the trip, and the night is afraid of the delay." "On the other hand, socializing and pen meetings produce boredom, and enthusiasm is difficult to start. A lot of times it doesn't matter what it takes, it's actually emotional indifference. Techniques are integrated into emotions in order to be reasonable, relaxed, and at ease. The accumulation of techniques is a dynamic process, whether it is worship or communication, all emphasize this point, need perseverance, need a certain concentration, concentration comes from personal cultivation. Skills and artistic accomplishment must go hand in hand and be organically combined.
Ming Dong Qichang five words poetry fan surface
(2) Serendipity
Personal by chance. There are many accidents in life, accidentally meeting a famous teacher, accidentally getting a stele, accidentally participating in an elegant collection, and even because I overheard a sentence, read a line, saw a broken brick, a broken monument, just expressed what I wanted to say and could not say, may make a choice between a thought, the road of life may be beautiful or regretful. From another point of view, in fact, the appearance of the "Orchid Pavilion Preface" and the "Sacrifice Nephew Manuscript" is an accident. In the history of calligraphy, a certain calligrapher has become acquainted with a certain kind of inscription and thus laid a personal style, He Shaoji has obtained the orphan copy "Zhang Heinu", Xu Shengweng has seen the quicksand falling Jane, and Qi Baishi has searched for the "Seal of the Second Golden Butterfly Hall", all of which have changed their personality shaping. However, now this kind of exciting and strange goods is difficult to find, because there are countless salesmen in countless stores waiting, most of the posters can be found, and various exhibition training classes are waiting. Opportunities are equal for anyone. There are no accidents, no secrets in this era, so the conditions are the best now, but also the worst. Engels once pointed out: "Historical events seem to be equally governed by chance in general. But where on the surface it is chance at work, this contingency is always governed by the hidden laws within, and the problem is only to discover them. "If there is a chance, I think it is mainly a deep study of a certain problem, and there are accidental discoveries.
Qing He Shaoji Lin"Zhang Black Girl"
Customs are accidental. Calligraphy is a part of social life, and changes in social customs can affect the personality of the calligrapher. When paper appears, it is possible to have a ruler, and only then can there be this kind of book style. The most typical influence on calligraphy is the appearance of the chair, which changes the writing habits, involving details such as pen holding and sitting posture. The traditional sitting position requires that the middle of the house be as wide as possible. When the chair appeared, there was no need to reserve much space for sitting on the floor, so the number of furniture increased. The interior style of the house has changed, the most significant change is the window sill lift. The house is high, the high hall axis appears, and the writing carrier changes accordingly. These are all accidents. Wang Duosheng was born at the right time, and his talent was fully exerted in a large number of huge works. In 2007/12, there was an article in The Reader entitled "Chairs Change Chinese Culture", arguing that the appearance of chairs triggered a series of chain reactions. In the earliest days, there was no chair, and when the guests met, they usually sat on their knees on the mat, called "sitting". At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the "Hu Bed" was introduced to the Central Plains from the northern nomadic areas, and for the first time changed the sitting posture of the Han people. By the middle of the Tang Dynasty, it gradually evolved into a chair that is now accustomed to it, and became widely popular in the Song Dynasty. Chair directly led to a lot of changes in social etiquette, the most profound impact is the Psychology of the Chinese people, the initial people must sit on formal occasions, need to undergo hard training to adapt, the first etiquette lesson learned by children is "sitting", in addition to being able to hone the will, more importantly, self-cultivation, with a straight and capable temperament and rigorous and stoic character. There is a post on the Internet called "Qiu Chu Ji did not pass through Niujia Village will change the entire history of China", although it is a joke, but it shows that the existence of the "butterfly effect" will occasionally change the world. In the electronic information society, the chain reaction is more intense and more common. Couplets, epitaphs, and cliffs involve customary issues, and the disappearance is irreversible, while some can be guided. In the old days, there were some ceremonies during the New Year's Festival, but now there is only eating and drinking and shopping in the mall. Calligraphy must rely on the power of the state, and Tang Dynasty calligraphy is a model. Even if there is no examination and no practicality, the popularization of calligraphy education will be intensified, and a new "custom" will be formed. "Exhibition hall culture" is a kind of "new folklore" at present, which has an impact on personality.
Merchant sits naked maid
3. Calligraphy ontology
(1) Selection of teachers
There are direct teachers and indirect teachers. Teachers have a huge impact on students, and some even last for life. There are two main modes of calligraphy: college education and teacher-apprentice teaching, and there is an intersection between the two. The advantage of college training lies in institutionalization and systematization, and the teacher-apprentice teaching has randomness, freedom, and contingency, and there are many wild paths and black horses, and there are many surprises, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. There is a choice of teachers, the possibility of being in a college education is small, mass production, and there are more similarities in book style. Training and refresher training are two forms of time compression, and under the current conditions some practical problems can be solved, but it cannot be a panacea. Calligraphy is against "quick finish". It takes time for personality to form, and people need to know a certain age to know the sophistication of people. Too early and too late is not good, life and art need to be synchronized. There is also a form between teachers and friends, because everyone has their own circle, celebrities also have ordinary friends, from the perspective of communication, each other is equal, the influence is mutual, there are also celebrities in turn learn from ordinary people, the latter is annihilated and unknown, this personality is very hidden.
Ming Xu Wei calligraphy
No teacher is also an option. The scribe has a teacher's inheritance, and from the perspective of inheritance, the direct teacher's inscription is different from the teacher's guidance. From the perspective of technique, there is a source, a source, and more importantly, there is spiritual inheritance and reverence. Many people think that they are the first in the world, "creating a genre at will", which has a certain relationship with ignoring teachers. History itself has natural weathering and man-made damage, and some truths have even disappeared forever. Many of the great figures in cultural history, such as Zhuangzi, have not left a single word, not a single record. Some scholars deliberately cover up the trajectory of learning books, and do not let people know the secrets of their own teachers, Mi Fu learned the Second King to scold the Second King, Wang Duo learned Mi Fu but said "how is the book not ZongZong Jin", Xu Wei calligraphy is also the same, covering up extremely cleverly. Many painters never paint when they paint, or in public. Ge Xianzhou was Weng Fanggang's son-in-law and a student of Liu Yong. Weng once said, "Go and ask your teacher, which of his strokes is an ancient?" The student told the teacher truthfully, and Liu Yong said: "I have become my own book ear, ask your father-in-law, which one is your own?" Bao Shichen's "Yizhou Shuangyi" records: "Zhucheng uses the dragon eye method to write books for guests, and when writing books behind closed doors, "no matter how big or small, it makes the pen like a dancing dragon, left and right coiled, the pipe follows the fingers, and the turn is even worse, the pipe or falls to the ground.". Yi Bingshouyun: "My master taught the Fa that 'if the finger does not die, the painting is not alive', and the pipe is placed on the tip of the big finger, the index finger, and the middle finger, and the claw is slightly outside the pipe, so that the big finger and the index finger are circled, that is, the ancient eye of the Law." "Wu Changshuo and Lai Chusheng's seal carving personalities are outstanding, and there are many unique techniques that the average person cannot guess. In addition to guessing or guessing, so it is important for theorists to have practical experience, and sometimes "mistakenly hit and bump" after guessing, forming another personality.
Qing Liu Yong couplet
(2) Resources for the law
The Qing Dynasty's "literal prison" led to the development of exegesis and examination, a large number of oracle bones, bronze, and Han Jian were unearthed, and the art of calligraphy underwent qualitative changes. The most typical is that Zhao Zhiqian entered the painting with the golden stone brushwork, and before opening up the atmosphere, Wu Changshuo wrote the "Stone Drum Text" for life, and the calligraphy and painting were integrated. The entry of the Oracle into printing is a keen grasp of the opportunity. Technological advances can turn back the clock, and the sooner you go, the earlier and more inscriptions you can see. For the data taken, it can be summarized into one sentence - "pay attention to new data, revisit the old classics", based on their own needs.
Modern Wu Changshuo stone drum text couplet
The social environment in which a person lives cannot be chosen, and family origin is accompanied by cultural education, unless there are special changes. At present, the "small environment" around the individual can be changed to a certain extent, such as north drift, sea drift and so on. The autonomy of teachers and the resources of the law is increased, highlighting the contingency and weakening the inevitability. For example, everyone is crowding the exhibition, and eventually many people will be "merged with the same kind of items", and the personality will be annihilated. From the perspective of shaping personality, we must first have spiritual personality, not only formal personality. Artistic creation must first have artistic thoughts, there is an artistic trend, and now there is only an artistic trend, and there is no thought, so it can only pass away with the wind. Personality is a Western vocabulary in the final analysis, and there is a gulf between public perception and self. According to traditional semantics, calligraphy is an individual's human nature. In the nineties of last century, there was still some collectivist consciousness in the whole society, which had disappeared under today's consumerist ideas, and the pursuit of individuality was broken, blindly obedient, and chaotic, in fact, there should be a cultural order first, and then individuality could be discussed. It is now a completely personal proposition and it is inevitable that it will not become an excuse. Born in China, if you know Chinese characters, you know calligraphy, and you know these two words without grasping the brush. The social environment is stable, the economy is prosperous, and then there should be the prosperity of culture and art, and now we see a lot of bad tendencies, the reasons of which are difficult to describe. Tradition has always been criticized, and it is actually ourselves. And why shout about inheritance? From a cultural point of view, tradition is not only not an object of annihilation, but an object of inheritance and protection. The existence of calligraphy today still depends on the benign shaping of tradition.
In modern times, Jian Jinglun was the first person to enter the Indian alphabet
The return of history is far more natural than the expression of real life, especially in art forms such as calligraphy, which are rooted in the soil of traditional culture. No matter how long it takes, in the process of changing the times, it will gradually spontaneously form an order. When the old system began to change course under external pressure, and the new atmosphere was not yet fully revealed, the expectation of the future increased with hesitation and hecticism. In such a rapidly changing era environment, it is necessary to face up to an era that can be active and enterprising, but also easy to be depressed. The current changes are dizzying and difficult to control. At the turning point of each era, history often plays a role of contrast, coldly observing different angles of flow that do not live in reality, and actually becoming feedback from different psychological backgrounds of individuals, thus weighing different value orientations. In any case, a rapidly developing material society requires art, especially in Chinese society, without religion to achieve spiritual salvation. Calligraphy has at least two functions: one is the continuation of the spirit of traditional culture, and the other is to alleviate mental pressure and express one's personality - it must be said that there is calligraphy in China.