At present, 99% of calligraphers are craftsmen who copy books.
In the past hundred years, calligraphy has evolved from a common life skill of literati to a niche professional art, and most calligraphers have degenerated from literati to craftsmen who copy books.
In the information age, people have more and more knowledge and higher diplomas, but their cultural tastes are getting lower and lower. The poetic expression of "holding hands and looking at teary eyes, but swallowing silently" has become a hysterical vent of "my love is naked". If there are still some emotions entrusted to the calligrapher in the current calligraphy works, it is mostly empty emotion of returning the soul from the corpse.
Most contemporary Chinese people know very little about traditional culture, and many people in the cultural circles are accustomed to this loss of humanistic quality, and blame their ignorance on the erudition of others. Regarding the rich traditional cultural elements in Jin Yong's novels, Ge Hongbing believes that "Jin Yong is a 'noble' who shows off his intellectual status. The half-literal and half-white narrative language has formed a stylistic defamiliarization effect for mainland readers to satisfy the curiosity-seeking psychology of mainland readers."
Strange talks are also popular among calligraphers. Most of the so-called calligraphers lack the most basic humanistic qualities, and know little about literature, history and philosophy. Regarding traditional poetry, music and Fu, I don't learn it myself, and I laugh at others for learning it, and urge others not to learn it. Some people say that it is meaningless for people today to write poems and couplets poorly. They did think that the literary and artistic works displayed to the public must reach a high artistic level. But I don’t know if they have thought about it, don’t show poorly written poems, and why can badly written calligraphy be shown in the market? There is probably only one reason. Calligraphers all think that their calligraphy has almost reached the level comparable to Wang Xizhi, Yan Zhenqing, and Su Dongpo. They are "stricter to others and more lenient than self-discipline". They are demanding on the quality of other people's poetry works, but they are lenient on their own calligraphy works. In many calligraphy exhibitions, it is often seen that the audience is filled with righteous indignation, accusing the calligraphy works of being filled with bad characters, and the calligraphers are speechless. This is the collective shame of calligraphers!
Society is not fair to artists. When a writer writes a work, even if it is a mere 20-character five-character quatrain, each article must be different, and each time it is a new creation. Literary works are judged by the number of words, but calligraphers and painters are judged by the size of Runge. After many calligraphers have a little bit of style and fame, they can keep repeating themselves and write the same content for Zhang, San, Li, Si, Wang and Wu. As a result, everyone is very happy. The result must be to indulge the imbecile who can only copy books . Many calligraphers have a one-sided knowledge structure and weak humanistic accomplishment. A dignified professor of calligraphy, writes white characters without realizing it, doesn't know how to read sentences, and is at a loss; Gungun, an award-winning calligrapher, is from Weixian Elementary School, who is ignorant of literature, copying books all his life, full of mistakes.
Many calligraphers will always only inscribe one poem or one poem by a certain person, and even adding a few words to inscribe a sentence of feeling can't do what they want, but it doesn't affect the order in the slightest, and the money keeps pouring in. People in the calligraphy circle are keen to compete for fame and fortune and sell their works, so they can calm down and read a few books. There are not many people who learn a little bit of traditional culture. The copyists are really spoiled.
When calligraphy is stripped from the soil of traditional Chinese studies and judged according to the Western discipline system and theoretical standards, the "locality" is cut off. On the surface, calligraphers are writing Chinese characters all day long, but they are actually a low-educated group. Their spiritual core has been taken away, which is a terrible "de-Sinicization". Calligraphy has become a walking dead. It's sad.
If this continues, calligraphers will basically collectively be reduced to "Sister Furong" in the cultural world.
