Yu Geliang Interview
On the morning of October 5, 2016, I took my wife and daughter to visit Mr. Wei Zhe in Nanxi Building, Beijing. Mr. Wei’s apartment is about 200 square meters. The two of them live in a very large area. The interior layout is very elegant. There are many ceramic works he wrote and painted by himself on the Bogu cabinet. Almost every piece is fine. Some of them were painted when we were invited to Jingdezhen together a few years ago, which is very intimate. A large calligraphy and painting table is placed against the inside and on the left of the living room. Four screens of ink, water, flowers and bird paintings are hung on the wall, which is very interesting as Wu Changshuo . Five or six newly created works are pasted on the wall on the right, and several of them are to be taken to participate in the personal calligraphy exhibition to be held in Rongbaozhai Calligraphy and Painting Hall. After carefully reading Mr. Wei's works, I sat down to have tea and chat. Both of them reminiscent of some past events when they met with Shaoxing , and also talked about the in-depth art of the two long chats on the phone. Unfortunately, there was no recording or timely recollection of the records, so everything disappeared and I couldn't recall it at all. It was a pity. Then, let's continue chatting casually.
Metaphor Ge Liangji
Wei Zhe : A few years ago, I attended the Lanting event in Shaoxing and went back to a phone chat. I did have a lot of in-depth discussions and the topics were rich. I can't remember them now.
Yu Geliang: It's a pity. In fact, communication requires certain contexts. Sometimes, if you want to talk about it, you may not necessarily get the idea. Once the context arrives, many topics come out.
Wei Zhe: Yes, yes, that's it. Sometimes I want to chat, but I don't know where to say it.
Yu Geliang: I saw you on WeChat a while ago looking for students to open a class in Beijing. How is this happening now? Have you started?
Wei Zhe: This happened to me. Later, it was cancelled because the number of people recruited was not enough. In addition, I was in poor health a while ago. I had cerebral infarction . The calligrapher in " Calligraphy Newspaper " talked about this matter one day.
Metaphor Ge Liang: At this age, you should pay special attention to your health.
Wei Zhe: Recently, there was a cursive html class in Beijing that asked me to talk. It happened that I held a solo exhibition on Rongbaozhai on the 15th. I had time to talk on the 17th. There was no problem with talking once, so I was tiring when I started the class. Now I can’t stay up late, I’ll be sleepy at nine o’clock. I used to be able to stay up late, so that class was pushed out.
Yu Geliang: So what is your creative state now?
Wei Zhe: I am very free now, I don’t have to obey anything, I don’t think anything like in the past. Now I don’t have so many wishes and requirements, so I can write whatever I want. For example, regarding cursive script, I have written Xu Wei in the past, Zhang Ruitu, and Huaisu in the past, and sometimes I have written about brushwork and layout issues. I am more at will now. Sometimes I emphasize more brushwork, and some can break some center tips. You see, I have more center tips, and some are not limited to center tips, and the side tips and sharp tips are used more. Recently, the famous master of Calligraphy News also invited me to publish the new work. I think I want to use sharp tips and exposed tips as the main one, and write a 500-word comment. I don’t want to stick to the center tip. The main reason is that you capture the brushwork and lines very vividly, and feel a rhythm of life. I think you have done these well, and then balanced the characters and can read them, and you should meet the requirements. Calligraphy cannot be said to be the center tip theory.
Yu Geliang: This is true, this view has been broken.
Wei Zhe: Everyone is arguing. I express my views through specific works, without being obsessed with the center.
Yu Geliang: When we look at some works in the history of calligraphy, we are not limited to the center, and we write them very wonderfully. We blindly pursue the center and emphasize the center, but the rich and diverse brushwork cannot be produced and is restricted.
Wei Zhe: That's right, that's it.If you want to develop and enrich your calligraphy, you must expand on the use of the pen and tip. When seal script , large seal script small seal script all pay attention to the center. When chapters and are written, chapters and are not focused on the center. zhangcao is relatively stable. In the future, cursive will be more exciting, and the contrast will be large. The greater the contrast, the more balance adjustment is needed. The difficulty coefficient here is still very large, and it is not easy to do it.
Metaphor Ge Liang: Yes, on the one hand, we must express it vividly, with ups and downs, and on the other hand, we must maintain balance, which is very important. Only when you write to this state can you achieve the "Do whatever you want without breaking the rules" as Confucius said, because decades of cultivation have been derived from the rules. No matter how you let go, your freedom is very high, and it is still within the scope of the rules.
Wei Zhe: The inertia of this rule is still very large. Sometimes if you want to jump out, you may not be able to jump out. He will still restrict you because you have already formed a habit.
Metaphor Ge Liang: If many people are bound by the rules for too long, it will be difficult for them to jump out. They must constantly challenge and explore certain things like you in the process of cultivation, so that their ideas and brushwork will be connected and they will jump out of the rules. Like your works, some of them have a lot of ups and downs, their temperaments are very full, and their pen and ink are elastic, and their details are still there, with strong shock and good control. This is also related to the short stroke of your writing.
Wei Zhe: I use short tip.
Yu Geliang: Among so many calligraphers in the country who write short-fronts, I pay special attention to you and admire you because it is difficult to write up the ups and downs and various changes in the case of short-fronts. Because the tip is short, the degree of fluctuation is small after all. In the small fluctuations, it is still very difficult to fully utilize the elasticity of the brush and make so many rich details.
Wei Zhe: This pen tip is short, and you should call it rich in this press. The strength of the hand feel needs to have very subtle changes in force to produce rich lines. If you don’t have that kind of subtle changes, you can’t produce those effects, and you are more likely to be monotonous. If you have rich changes in feel and strength, the lines will be rich.
Yu Geliang: If it is possible next time, I really want to do something, which is to choose a few short-edge writers, and then choose a few long-edge writers to do an exhibition together, and exhibit, talk, and discuss together. This is very helpful for everyone's thinking about the brushwork.
Wei Zhe: That's right, that's it. If you really want to do it, you can find many examples to talk about it. For example, Wu Changshuo wrote about short-term trends, Lin Sanzhi wrote about long-term trends, and Zhang Hai he also got long-term trends.
Yu Ge Liang: Shen Peng is also Changfeng, and Shaoxing's Shen Ding'an is also Changfeng.
Wei Zhe: A considerable number of them are neither short nor long.
Metaphor Ge Liang: Wu Changshuo is particularly short, like Sha Menghai is neither short nor long. Although he learned it from Wu Changshuo, it is obvious that the edge has grown.
Wei Zhe: Pan Tianshou is short and long, he is some of the mountain horse pen is relatively long, but he is not writing a mountain horse pen, but a little short.
Yu Geliang: He is also relatively short, and he is the kind that writes very well.
Wei Zhe: Like Qi Baishi also has shortness, neither long nor shortness, but he doesn't need to be particularly long, most of them are relatively short.
Metaphor Ge Liang: Oh, Qi Baishi is also a short-straight.
Wei Zhe: If you summarize it, the majority of calligraphers now use neither long nor short, and the long tip is a minority, which is an example.
Metaphor: There are very few that are shorter.
Wei Zhe: I asked Jiangxi Jinxian to make short-shot pens. You, Huzhou, Zhejiang, are different from them. , Huzhou, , and many long-shot pens. I was not used to that pen. Later, I didn’t use Huzhou pens much.
Metaphor: Writing short and long tips is a matter of habit. After a long time of habit, you will use this tip freely. You said that you have written for decades, and suddenly, it is almost impossible for a short tip to become a long tip.
Wei Zhe: Yes, in fact, I wrote about long tips at the beginning. Liaoning used long tips. "Giraffes" and "crown feet" are all long tips, and they are all Huzhou pens.
Yu Geliang: So who among these old seniors use long-term? Like , Shen Yanyi, , is it a long-term front?
Wei Zhe: Shen Yanyi is a long-term one, using Huzhou pen. He has used "giraffe" and "white crane". When he uses a long tip, he will fold the tips like this at the turning point. I have seen this with my own eyes. Liaoning first used long tips, but it was really influenced by Shen Yanyi. Later, I jumped out there. At that time, there was a lot of debate with Nie Chengwen and others about using pens in Liaoning, but later I felt that I still liked to use short tips.
Yu Geliang: At first you used long tips, why did you use them shorter and shorter later?
Wei Zhe: It’s good if I write Zhang Ruitu and Xu Wei, but I don’t think they are long-term, including Wang Xizhi, , either. At that time, the tip was long in the pen tube, and the tip exposed outside was not long. It was difficult to write about Wang Xizhi’s effect with a long-term tip. Later, I also changed the short tip and the pen tip, which had a great impact on my calligraphy tip and the tools affected the style.
Metaphor Ge Liang: That's sure, the style of calligraphy will be influenced by tools. For example, the longer you write, the shorter you write, the longer I write. At the beginning, I wrote "Big White Clouds" and so on, which were both short and long. Of course, later, he was influenced by Mr. Shen Ding'an wrote about long tips, but it was not entirely because of his reasons. Sometimes, in order to achieve a certain effect, it feels that the tip can be longer, and the pen may be more distorted, especially when writing official script and seal script, which is better to have a longer tip. There are also disadvantages when writing long tips, which is that it is difficult to control the beginning of writing.
Wei Zhe: I feel that using a long tip is a bit like a seven-section whip in martial arts. If you use it well, you can look like a stick, and if you use it well, it can become an arc. This requires a lot of difficulty for martial arts people.
Metaphor Ge Liang: Moreover, long-term heads are easy to write softly. If you can use long-term heads to write a thick and broad atmosphere, it will be difficult.
Wei Zhe: This is indeed very difficult. You are right, long tips will have many unexpected effects, and short tips are basically within your control. You will have any effect when you want them to produce. Long tips will often have unexpected and unexpected situations. Sometimes when they are handled well, the unexpected situation is very good. If they are not handled well, the unexpected situation may be a sick pen.
Yu Geliang: There is a calligrapher in Beijing. He wrote Changfeng because he wrote too softly and not solidly.
Wei Zhe: Yes, long front lines are not easy to write solidly, and you can't feel the state of being in a slight state of unity.
Metaphor Ge Liang: If you can write with one stroke and it is very solid, it is really difficult for ordinary people to achieve it. Like Mr. Shen Ding'an, he uses long tips in official script, while other small running scripts are short tips and wolf hairs, so there are still few people who are engaged in calligraphy theory in the study of writing tools. In fact, you can study it carefully and talk about it. Last time, Mr. De of Chinese had an article about Changfeng. He himself wrote about Changfeng, and he felt that there were too few articles in this regard. He hoped that those who wrote about Changfeng could talk about their experiences and write some research articles. I feel that whether it is a long or a short or a pure sheep hair? Or is it better to and plus nylon silk? I personally expressed concern about the excessive amount of contemporary brushes added to nylon silk. Because pure sheep hairs are easy to write soft and elastically changing effects, while artificial wool pens will be very monotonous.
Wei Zhe: Nylon hair does not absorb ink, its hair cannot contain ink, and it cannot collect ink. This is the disadvantage of nylon hair.
Yu Geliang: So I feel that the popular use of this kind of pen is very harmful.
Wei Zhe: By the way, that's right! So, when I write a pen, I must tell them that basically you should use sheep hair. Adding a little nylon hair is OK, not too much. You can add wolf hair and rabbit hair to increase a little elasticity. The pens they made for me in the past were all of this kind of nylon hair, which did not contain ink. They drip them as soon as they were about to write them, and they couldn't store ink.
Metaphor Ge Liang: Because for beginners or people with poor skills, they will feel that this kind of pen with nylon hair is very elastic and has a very strong friction with the paper. In fact, this kind of pen is superficial, and it is not as rich and moist as the lines written by pure sheep hair. Therefore, it is really a big misunderstanding to make a brush like this. Now, it’s not that there are no pure sheep’s brushes, but they are really rare.
(I had a great chat with Mr. Wei Zhe here, and my wife and Mrs. Wei Zhe were also having a chat, and my daughter was involved)
Wei Zhe: Your daughter is so beautiful, not just beautiful, you can choose from a thousand!
Yu Geliang: Welcome to Shaoxing when you have time and come to Lanting to have a separate exhibition.
Character introduction
Introduction to Wei Zhe
Wei Zhe, whose pen name is Lao Tie, has a different name Tiema Yanzhai and He Yanzhai. Born in Harbin in 1950. Director, member of the review committee, member of the cursive script professional committee of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, and member of the National First-Class Artist . His calligraphy works have been selected for dozens of large-scale national exhibitions. He won the National Award at the 6th National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition and the first prize at the first National Fan Calligraphy Exhibition.
was named an outstanding expert by the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government in 1996. In 2000, he was named a calligrapher with both virtue and art by Chinese Calligraphy Association . Calligraphy works have been collected by many art museums and provincial museums including Palace Museum , China Art Museum , Great Hall of the People , Zhongnanhai , Chinese People's Revolutionary Military Museum , Chinese Character Museum , Guangdong Art Museum , Ningbo Art Museum and other art museums.
Introduction to Yu Geliang
Yu Geliang , born in 1963, from Shaoxing, Zhejiang. The rooms are Choushizhai and Lanting Yiwanrizhai. He loved calligraphy and painting since childhood. When he was young, he was enlightened by teachers Shen Ding'an and Zhu Kunming. He joined the Chinese Calligraphers Association in 1989 and introduced Lanting as a professional talent in the same year. He has served as deputy director of the Lanting Cultural Security Institute, deputy director of the Lanting Scenic Area Management Office, deputy director of the Lanting Calligraphy Museum, and vice president of the Lanting Book Club. His calligraphy works participated in the 2nd National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition for Middle-aged and Young People, the 4th National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition, the 6th National Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition, the Sino-Japanese Calligraphy Joint Exhibition, the Sino-Korean Calligraphy Art Exhibition, the Eighth China-Japan Friendship Self-Song Poetry and Calligraphy Exhibition and other exhibitions at home and abroad.
has published works such as "Ten Thousand Days of Lanting", "Love of Love in Lanting", "Yu Geliang's Calligraphy Works", "The Holy Land's Best·Divine Travels in Lanting", "The Holy Land's Best·Divine Calligraphy Saint", "The Preface to Wang Xizhi and Lanting". "Preface to Wang Xizhi and Lanting" was rated as the most beautiful book in China in 2008.
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