Chinese calligraphy - the most "mysterious" art
(Wang Yanting: Shaanxi Normal University School of Fine Arts )
Calligraphy is really the most "mysterious" art, even the bones are mysterious. It does not directly display objective forms like paintings, but through more abstract points, lines, and strokes, we can experience the bones, flesh and blood in the image from our emotions and imagination.
1. From the origin of characters,
Usually people will naturally mention Cangjie when talking about the creators of Chinese characters. There are many statements about Cangjie creating characters. For example, there are murals of Cangjie in the Wuliang Temple of Han Dynasty; there are stories about Cangjie creating characters in the newly excavated Han portrait tomb in Yinan, Shandong; there are also stories about Cangjie creating characters in " Huainan Zi ": "Cangjie wrote calligraphy in the past"; Xu Shen "Shuowen Jiezi・Xu" also contains Cangjie's "first book creation contract". Some scholars analyzed: The reason why people said that Chinese characters were created by Cangjie and deified them into strange characters "four eyes and spiritual lights". "Born to be able to write, and receive the word "River", he exhausted the changes of heaven and earth, looked up at the circumference of Kui Star, looked down at the fish, birds, and feathers, mountains and rivers, and created characters", which means that the words were completely caused by the divine gift, making the words mysterious. Although Cangjie created characters only a deification, our ancestors believed that characters had the power to connect with the world, touch the gods, and intimidate ghosts and drive away evil spirits. Therefore, when Cangjie created characters, he would "rain in the sky, and millet, and ghosts cried at night." This initial view of writing continues, which is the habit of writing auspicious words to pray for blessings and writing mantras to exorcise evil spirits.
In fact, when Chinese characters were created and used, they were just graphic symbols made by people. The origin of Chinese characters is based on the symbols displayed by oracle bones unearthed at the Jiahu Neolithic Site in Wuyang, Henan in recent years. It was found that it was more than 4,000 years earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions in Yin Ruins in Anyang. It is also many years ahead of the ancient Egyptian papyrus, which is known as the world's earliest writing. According to Carbon-14, the site is more than 8,000 years old. The shapes of these symbols are similar to some characters in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yinxu Anyang period, which shows that the two are in line with each other.
The ancients admire superstition very much. Whenever there are sacrifices, wars, diseases, hunting, weather, entry and exit, year-end, etc., they always rely on divination to predict good and bad luck in advance to decide whether to do these things. After divination, the divination words and related matters are engraved on the oracle bones. This kind of text is mainly carved on tortoise shells, cow scapula, pig bones, sheep bones, deer bones, and animal heads with metal knives. People call this kind of text "oracle bone engraving" or "oracle inscriptions", abbreviated as "oracle bone inscriptions".
The development of the text to the Shang Dynasty has reached its maturity stage, and people still have a sense of fear and fear of words. Words are used to measure good and bad luck. The spirit of religion has long been injected into words, especially in the Han Dynasty, the Confucian Confucians advocated the cultural and educationalism of Confucianism, so words are regarded as symbols of culture and education. Under the influence of these concepts, the Chinese regard words as the most godly and holy "spiritual object" and carve words on metal and stone. The purpose is to be eternal, to stand stones and cast tripods to record their merits and demonstrate their achievements; to write them on paper and silk, and to hang them on them, which is enough to drive away evil and pray for blessings. To this day, the people still believe that if you write the word "年" at the beginning of Zhang's door, you can bring blessings; if you write the word "年" to prolong your life; if you write "年" and "年" to avoid evil.
In ancient times, the characters were used as "totem" and " clan emblem " (the characters in ancient characters were mostly pictographic images of animals, and this was used as the emblem of a clan). The times are moving forward, and old ideas are injected with new aesthetic interests, but the Chinese still have sacred, awe and respect for words. In this aesthetic spirit, there is still a hidden secret of the ancient spirit, and there is no lack of religious emotions in the subconscious.
2. From the perspective of calligraphy form,
"Xuan" originated from the first chapter of "Laozi": "It is mysterious and mysterious, the door to all wonders." Xuan means mysterious and profound; Xuan means black. Chinese calligraphy art chose black and white, which contained the profound spirit of Eastern philosophy. Black and white; virtual and real are opposite and unified, endless changes and extremely mysterious.In terms of color, black and white are originally opposite, but the two are extremely harmonious and return to Wuji. The concept of "no" in Taoism has a significant impact on the form of "blank" in calligraphy art.
Chinese calligraphy mainly uses lines (rather than mainly color like Western paintings) as a means of expression. The line is based on white. Without white, the black line cannot be highlighted. Bai, from the beginning, was an important means of Chinese calligraphy to express its shape and meaning, and it was the life of Chinese calligraphy art. The "white" or "nothing" in Chinese calligraphy art is not negative, absolute, and inanimate; it is a positive, relative, and full of infinite connotation. This "white" or "nothing" meets human physiological and psychological needs, and thus runs through various forms of Chinese art in different forms. For example, the "blank clouds and smoke" in Chinese painting, the "outside sound" in music, and the "outside meaning" in poetry are all the same as Chinese calligraphy, allowing people to see the existence from nothing, the reality from the void, and the infinite connotation from the void, thereby gaining free, fulfilling and diverse aesthetic pleasure.
Chinese calligraphy "planning white as black". It comes from the philosophy of Laozhuang . In the view of Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy, all oppositional poles complement each other. In calligraphy, "black and white depend on each other" and " has or does not have the same origin and is ". Black must exist based on white and nothing; white must exist based on black and have talent. As the ancients said: "Where is writing in the place where there is brush and ink, the beauty of writing lies in the place where there is no brush and ink. There is only signs left, and there is no place where there is a charm. "Modern calligrapher Huang Binhong also emphasized that "knowing white and keeping black, and knowing its mystery, it is not easy to describe it in words." From ancient times to the present, wise calligraphers not only attach importance to blank space in theory, but also insist on "using white to black" in creative practice. With their skillful brush and ink skills, they do not look at the brush when creating, and their attention is all in the blank space, leaving the blank spaces of the entire work interspersed in size and density, so that the whole work is black and white and connected with qi.
3. From the perspective of calligraphy aesthetics, the expression of calligraphy beauty is nothing more than "real" and "virtual". The aspect of "real" is tangible, which includes the use of the brush, structure, composition and other contents; the aspect of "virtual" is invisible, which includes the spirit, aura, artistic conception and other contents. The two aspects are interdependent and use each other, and jointly express the aesthetic value of calligraphy works.
The highest level of "beauty" in calligraphy must be "like nature", which is indescribable, because it is the spiritual embodiment of "Tao". The first chapter of "Laozi" points out that "Tao can be told, but it is extraordinary." The idea of pursuing nature advocated by Taoism has become the spiritual basis for the anti-carving and gorgeous style of calligraphy in later generations. In the West, fonts and handwriting are just symbols and do not contain so many mysterious ideas.
Taoist aesthetics provides an aesthetic realm for Chinese calligraphy art, and its biggest feature is "emptiness and tranquility". The aesthetic idea of quiver and quiet comes from Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy. Lao Tzu said: "To be extremely empty, keep quiet." (Chapter 16 of "Laozi") "Empty" and "quiet" refer to the state of emptiness and tranquility of mind. Lao Tzu believes that only in this way can we understand the origin of all things - Tao. Zhuangzi used it, advocating the saints and abandoning wisdom, believing that only the mind of emptiness and tranquility can achieve "Great Ming".
The aesthetic idea of emptiness and tranquility has influenced the art of Chinese calligraphy, allowing it to actively use emptiness and reality and black and white to build a lively space where there is no relationship. Under the influence of the aesthetics of emptiness and tranquility, calligraphy creation focuses on eliminating distractions in creative thoughts and achieving emptiness, so as to make the spirit highly concentrated and the mind free from dust and noise. It uses emptiness and tranquility as the way of cultivating personality, so as to combine it with artistic conception and summon infinite objects with its ethereality. Once a calligrapher has gained an aesthetic mind of tranquility, he can be freed from the constraints of various secular utilitarianism and is not disturbed or distracted by "forced by things", thus enabling calligraphy creation to achieve a high degree of concentration, concentration and sublimation. In "H Preface to Painting Landscapes ", Zong Bing said: "The sage contains the Tao and responds to things, while the sages clarify the taste and the image." The "taste" here is not the "taste" of taste, but a kind of spiritual pleasure and aesthetic "taste". "Chenhuai" inherits the aesthetics of Laozi and Zhuangzi.Zong Bing believed that "clearing your wits" is the prerequisite for appreciating natural beauty. Only with a quiet and quiet mental state can you get aesthetic feelings from nature itself, that is, only clearing your wits can taste.
4. From the perspective of calligraphy creation,
calligraphy aesthetics have been emphasized throughout the ages, but the large framework was constructed by the people of the Wei and Jin Dynasties. During the Three Kingdoms, Wei and Jin Dynasties, over the past 300 years, the world was full of literature and mystery. By the Wei and Jin Dynasties, calligraphy changed from unconscious pursuit to conscious pursuit. The big framework of technique theory, creation theory, and aesthetic theory is also built in this era. However, the soul of his artistic philosophy is the concept of "following nature".
This kind of naturalistic idea has been fully expressed in Eastern Han Cai Yong's "Theory of the Pen" and " Jiushi ". "Bi Lun" does not talk about tools, but about the creator's mental state, while "Nine Forces" discusses the principle of brushwork. The two short essays almost explain the psychology and skills of creation from the perspective of philosophical thoughts. This is a rare material for talking about calligraphy from an artistic perspective. In "Bi Lun", he said that calligraphy means scattering. If you want to write, first disperse your arms, let your emotions and nature be free, and then write it. If it is forced by things, even if Zhongshan is not prosperous (small) cannot be better. When writing, sit silently and think about it, and be at will. If you can't speak, your energy will not be full, and your spirit will be dense. If you are facing the Supreme, you will be good. As the body of a book, it must enter its shape, whether it is sitting or walking, whether it is flying or moving, whether it is coming or coming, whether it is lying or rising, whether it is sad or good, whether it is worms eating leaves, whether it is sharp swords, long swords, strong bows and hard arrows, like water and fire, like clouds and fog, like sun and moon, and there is something to be seen in vertical and horizontal directions, which can be called calligraphy.
Let’s roughly analyze it. From the beginning to “not good”, it is the general principle of the creative mentality. Only by liberating from the worldly things, not contaminated by the mind, and making the spirit free and ethereal, can you start writing. From "the book" to "everything is good", it is about the spiritual preparation when writing, which is quite similar to the "concentration" of "Zhuangzi". From "the body of books" to the end, it means that the creator should have his own image in his heart, so that every word has its own charm, like all things in nature.
In "Nine Forces", there is a passage that says: "Writing originates from nature, nature stands immediately, and yin and yang are born; when yin and yang are born, the situation is revealed. This is almost the use of the spirit of the "Yi" to the theory of calligraphy.
In the Han Dynasty, Confucian scholars studied Yin and Yang, while in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, metaphysics . The reason why calligraphy has become the preference of ordinary scholars is in line with the spiritual needs of this society. At the same time, since the Eastern Han Dynasty, Guixuan Yan thoughts objectively made ideological preparations for establishing its theoretical framework for calligraphy.
The Wei and Jin Dynasties was a turbulent period in my country's history, influenced by diversified social culture. The uniqueness and historical significance of this period cannot be ignored. As the main trend of thought, metaphysics in the Wei and Jin Dynasties drove the social trends at that time, and had a profound impact on artistic creation, and had a huge driving force for the formation of artistic theory.
The rise of metaphysics in the Wei and Jin Dynasties was the result of historical development and integration. In the process of rich ideological roots, the three mysteries of Lao, Zhuang and Yi, the introduction and gradual prosperity of Buddhism in the process of closeness and integration of the three mysteries of Lao, Zhuang and Yi, the introduction and gradual prosperity of Buddhism in the process of the rich ideological roots, the mutual approach and integration of Lao, Zhuang and Yi, the introduction and gradual prosperity of Buddhism in the process of the three mysteries of "Lao, Zhuang and Yi", the mutual approach and integration of the three mysteries of "Yi". It merges with it, thus making the "emptiness" of the Buddhist family, the "nothing" of Taoism, and the "mystery" of metaphysics integrated into one, becoming the ideological basis of the scholars of the Wei and Jin dynasties. It created an excellent atmosphere for the creative artistic conception of calligraphers. Scholars regarded being open-minded and transcendent and uninvolved in the world as noble, and vocal, and ignorant of etiquette and law. They respected personality independence and advocated inaction and truth; they despise etiquette, despise elegance, despise mountains and rivers, and were flirtatious, living a very free and elegant life, showing the ethereal spiritual realm of the Jin people. It is precisely because of this that the Jin people created something that the descendants could not reach. The charm of calligraphy. Chinese calligraphy was only truly self-conscious in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. The popularity of metaphysics led to the freedom of personality and the proximity to nature. The scholars and officials' appreciation of natural beauty is no longer limited to the moral scope of "the benevolent enjoys mountains and the wise enjoys water", but has changed to the pursuit of inner peace, plainness, elegance and nature.
Chinese calligraphy is really too "mysterious". No wonder Shen Kuo listed "calligraphy and painting" in " Dream of the stream " and said, "The wonder of calligraphy and painting should be understood by spirit, and it is difficult to find it in shape.”
References:
[1] Li Xinhua. Chinese Calligraphy and Culture [M]. Beijing: China Heping Publishing House, 2003, (5) .
[2] Chen Si. Book Garden Jinghua [M]. Beijing: Library Press, 2003, (10).
[3] Jiang Chengqing. History of Chinese Calligraphy Thought [M]. Zhengzhou: Henan Fine Arts Publishing House, 1997, (7).
[4] Li Jianzhong Gao Huaping. Metaphysics and Wei and Jin Society [M]. Shijiazhuang: Hebei People's Publishing House, 2003, (1).
[5] Fu Peirong. Fu Peirong interprets Laozi [M]. Beijing: Line-bound Bookstore, 2006, (8).
