How to appreciate calligraphy?

1. Basic knowledge reserve of calligraphy?

1. Calligraphy style. Calligraphy styles continue to evolve over time. It is generally believed that there are five calligraphy styles in Japan, namely: seal script, official script, regular script, running script and cursive script. This is only a rough classification, and each calligraphy style has a more detailed classification. For example, seal script can be divided into large seal script and small seal script. In a broad sense, large seal script refers to the writing before small seal script, including oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou dynasties; small seal script It specifically refers to the statutory text promulgated after Qin unified China. Another example is Kai style, which can be subdivided into Yan style, Liu style, European style and Zhao style.

2. Strokes. A stroke refers to a line written continuously without interruption when writing Chinese characters. It is the most basic element that constitutes Chinese characters. Strokes can be divided into horizontal (one), vertical (丨), left (丿), dot (丶), Na (?), fold (亅) and other categories, with more than 30 specific subdivisions. Is there a word that contains all strokes? Of course there is, it’s the word “forever”. The character "Yong" has eight strokes: dot, horizontal, vertical, hook, upward horizontal, left, oblique, and nip. According to the respective strokes, the eight characters can be summarized as side, le, nu, tiao, ce, plunder, peck, and 町. It is summarized as the Eight Methods of Yongzi. These eight strokes are the basic strokes of regular script. Each stroke has its own characteristics, but they echo each other and are completed in one go. If the character "Yong" can express the spirit of each stroke, regular script can be considered to have reached a considerable level.

3. Conclusion. The knotting method of calligraphy, also known as the structure and the frame structure, refers to the arrangement of dots and dashes and the formal arrangement of the characters. The length, thickness, pitch, expansion and contraction of the strokes of Chinese characters and the width, height, side and so on of the radicals constitute a single character. Different forms of words. Some people summarize the standards of knot characters as: smooth and stable, clear direction, orderly order, stable center of gravity, short and appropriate, evenly spaced, appropriate give-and-take, mirroring, well-organized, and complementing each other. The rules of tying characters are an important part of the study of calligraphy by calligraphers of all dynasties. Relevant discussions include Ouyang Xun's "Ouyang's Thirty-Six Methods of Tying Characters", Li Chun's "Eighty-four Methods of Large Character Structure", and Huang Ziyuan's "Ninety-two Methods of Frame Structure" 》etc., those who are interested can refer to it.

4. Posts by famous artists. After thousands of years of accumulation, Chinese calligraphy art has produced many masters of calligraphy and famous calligraphy. Carefully reading and copying these inscriptions is not only a way to appreciate the ingenious ideas and excellent techniques of the predecessors, but also a shortcut to improve your own calligraphy aesthetics and cultivation. Here I would like to recommend some well-respected famous posts by famous people in the past. Due to space limitations, pictures will not be posted here. If you are interested, you can find them by yourself. ? Regular script stele inscriptions: Ouyang Xun's "Jiucheng Palace Liquan Inscription", Yan Zhenqing's "Yan Qinli Stele" and "Duobao Pagoda Stele", Liu Gongquan's "Mysterious Pagoda Stele" and "Shence Army Stele", Zhong Shaojing's "Lingfei Sutra" (small regular script), etc. . Title calligraphy in cursive script: Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Lanting Collection" and "Preface to the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty" (this was not created by Wang Xizhi, but was engraved by the monk Huairen from Wang Xizhi's calligraphy, also known as "The Holy Collection of Tang Huairen" "Teaching Preface"), Su Shi's "Huangzhou Hanshi Tie", Mi Fu's "Shu Su Tie", etc. Famous cursive calligraphy posts: Wang Xianzhi's "Mid-Autumn Calligraphy", Huaisu's "Self-narrative Calligraphy", Zhao Ji's "Cursive Script of Thousand Characters", etc. After thousands of years of development, the art of calligraphy has produced many masterpieces by famous artists, and the ones listed above are only some of the masterpieces. ?

2 ? Ideas for appreciating calligraphy works

The first level is to look at the strokes. Strokes refer to the most basic elements of horizontal and vertical strokes that make up a single character. Different calligraphy styles have different characteristics of strokes. For example, the strokes of seal script and regular script are regular and even, while the strokes of cursive script are full of changes. How to understand The key to the lines, shapes, and postures of strokes, and even to writing magical strokes, is to see more, think more, and practice more. ?

The second level is to look at the frame structure. The term is called "knotting", which refers to the arrangement of dots and dashes and the formal arrangement of the characters. Different from other characters, Chinese characters are a kind of pictograms, which characters have left-right structure, up-down structure, left-center-right, up-center-down, full surround, half surround, etc. Characters with different structures should be tied in almost the same way, but to achieve a reasonable structure, they should meet the ten criteria for tying characters mentioned earlier, namely: smooth and stable, clear front and back, orderly order of priority, stable center of gravity, and shortening. Appropriateness, density and evenness, appropriate give and take, reflection and correspondence, unevenness, and complementarity of reality and reality. The third level is to look at the rules and regulations. The composition includes the layout and the changes between characters (if two adjacent characters have the same strokes, such as the word "Lin Bian", the last stroke of the character "Lin" should be written as one point, and the last stroke of the character "Fang" should be written as one point. Similarity), line spacing, blank space, signature and seal, etc. If the strokes and frame structure were viewed as a single word as a whole, then the composition should be viewed at the level of the entire work. Only in this way can we see clearly how the author arranges the number of lines according to the number of words, how to arrange different forms of words to make the work rich in variety, how to use seals to add focus, how to control the blank space through signatures, and a series of other issues.

All in all, when appreciating any calligraphy work, you can first look at the strokes of a single character, then look at the frame structure of a single character, and then look at the layout of the entire work.