Huai Su's "Self-narrative Post"ofAppreciation and writing
Huai Su, (737-799 A.D.) was named Zangzhen, and his common surname was Qian (one day's common surname was Fan). Born in Yongzhou, Hunan, a famous calligrapher in Tang Dynasty. Together with Zhang Xu, a calligrapher of the same generation, they are called the two peaks of cursive calligraphy in the history of Chinese calligraphy, and they are known as "Dian Zhang Kuang Su" in the world. Huai Su's family was poor when he was young, and he became a monk at the age of ten. He is obsessed with calligraphy, especially cursive script, and is extremely diligent. According to legend, because his family was poor and had no money to buy paper, he planted bananas extensively and used banana leaves instead of paper to practice calligraphy. The room named "Lvtian Temple" also painted a tray to practice calligraphy, writing through the bottom of the tray, forming a mound of bald pens, and the water in the pen washing pool was completely black. Xing likes to drink, and doesn't stick to small details. When he comes, he writes about all the temple walls, screens, clothes, and utensils. At the age of 22, he met Li Bai who was pardoned on his way to exile in Yelang. Li also admired Huai Su's talent in cursive script very much, and wrote "Ge Xing in Cursive Script" as a gift to Huai Su. It can be seen that Huai Su's cursive script skills at that time were already famous in Xiaoxiang. Tang Baoying (762), Huai Su walked out of the temple and traveled far away with a stick of tin, visiting sages of the time, paying homage to famous princes, and extensively viewing the ancient scriptures. After passing through Hengyang, he went to Guangzhou and met the great calligrapher Xu Hao. In the year of Lizhi, he lived in Changsha, and the next year he went west to Chang'an. Leisurely clouds and wild cranes, traveling around the world, broaden their horizons, and improve their calligraphy skills to a higher level. He learned calligraphy from Ouyang Xun for the first time, and was appreciated and supported by Wei Zhi and Xu Hao. Later, he sought advice from Zhang Xu's discipline Wu Tong and the great calligrapher Yan Zhenqing. The one who had the greatest influence on it was Zhang Xu. The cursive calligraphy turns, twists, and swings interspersed, like a whirlwind in a shower, whirling and agile, that is, it is learned from Zhang Xu and relieved by itself. world call it "Dian Zhang Kuang Su" and "Yi Kuang Su Dian". In 777 A.D., Huai Su, who was in his forties, wrote the shocking "Self-reporting Tie", which established his lofty status as "the sage of grass" in the history of Chinese calligraphy.
The long volume of "Self-reporting Tie" is 28.3 cm long and 755 cm long, and is composed of 15 white hemp papers connected together. A total of 126 lines and 695 characters. This essay on self-promotion by Huai Su can be divided into three parts:
In the first part, Huai Su describes his life in more than 80 characters;
The second part is an excerpt of Yan Zhenqing's Preface to Songs in Cursive Script of the Master Huai Su, with more than 250 characters. It uses Yan Lugong's mouth to show the words of "Kai Shi Huai Su, the hero among monks" and " outstanding, fast and frightening". "Grass Saint" weather;
In the third part, Huai Su extracted the essence of the poems donated by Zhang Wei, Yu Xiang, Zhu Kui, Li Zhou, Xu Wei, Dai Shulun, Dou Ji, Qian Qi, etc., and divided them into "similarity in description" and "similarity in form" according to the content. The four aspects of "narrative style", "quick language", and "stupid eyes" are listed as praises from various scholars. The so-called "similar in shape", the author used about 70 words, such as "running snakes and scorpions", "showing rain and whirlwind", "a strong man pulls out a mountain and stretches his iron", "it is like a mountain opening a thousand peaks", etc., to vividly describe the appearance of its wild grass. Beautiful form. The so-called "machine grid". It refers to the creative method, using more than a hundred words, such as "to follow the madness", "the ambition is novel and there is no set rule", "after waking up, but the book can't be written". In particular, the sentence "Wu Jun Zhang Dian never met", should be a hymn to Chaomai Zhang Xu, who has never been seen before. The so-called "Xunji" refers to the quickness of his writing, quoting more than 40 characters, among which "the audience lost his voice and couldn't see it", which described "Xunji" very vividly. The so-called "stupid" is a very humble word. The quote "Crazy to despise the world, drunk to be true", "crazy" and "drunk" in Huai Su's terms, how can there be "stupid"?! At the end of the article, Huai Su worried that people would say that he borrowed the same name Gong Zhikou boasted about himself, and wrote a sentence specially: "It's not a vain thing to dare to do, it will only increase your shame and fear." No matter how he explains it, his leisurely and self-proclaimed emotional expression is vivid on the paper. The whole article vividly deduces the charm of Huai Su's Kuangcao calligraphy art, which can be called the eternal swan song of Kuangcao calligraphy commentary.
Next, let's take a look at the artistic features of "Self-narration Tie" in calligraphy.
Cursive script sprouted from the sloppy official script. "Shu Pin" said: "The grass power started in the Han Dynasty, and the official method was disbanded. It was used for emergency." The "Weapons Book of the Five Years of Yongyuan" handed down from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the emperor's time is the quick writing of the official script-Zhangcao style. The official script has become much faster to write by omitting strokes and hooks and lingers. After artistic processing, it has gradually developed into a calligraphy style that often ends with an upturned tail like a wild goose. The name is "Zhangcao". Since the appearance of regular script in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, cursive script has developed into "Jincao" on the basis of Zhangcao and combined with the new regular script. In this grass. The independent characters are called small grasses or single grasses, such as Zhiyong's "Cursive Script Thousand Characters". In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xu made cursive, with simple and concise strokes, and the words were hooked and twisted, and even one stroke was straightforward. Huai Suji's brushwork is more rapid and unrestrained, and the upper and lower characters run through in one go, continuously. Later generations called this kind of calligraphy "big grass" or "crazy grass". Huai Su's "Self-reporting Tie" is a masterpiece of cursive calligraphy recognized by the world. The artistic characteristics of "Self-reporting Posts" have actually been laid out incisively and vividly in the original text of "Self-reporting", with the help of the sages and famous officials of the time. Its artistic power of classical romanticism is intoxicating, which has been introduced in the previous article. Next, I will make some analysis on its brushwork, structure, composition and style. Look at his pen first. Zhang Xu took Yu Li with his pen. Therefore, it is folded in many ways; Huai Su changed to inheriting the seal script from his master. Because of the multi-circle style, he is especially good at the winding and winding brushwork, vertical and horizontal twists and turns, changing in many ways, suitable for both elastic and tight, and round and vigorous. For example, the 118th line of "excitement" and the 120th line of "solid but not empty" are round, straight and bent like steel wires. Although thin but solid, they have created a new look of cursive brushwork. Liu Xizai, a calligrapher in the late Qing Dynasty, once said:
"Those who are good at calligraphy are fast but prepared." Huai Su's flipping and jumping with the pen, fluctuating with the situation, has indeed reached the state of perfection. Let's talk about structure. Compared with Erwang and Zhiyong, the structure of Huaisu's cursive script has a lot of inheritance. There are many similar characters in the text, and the concluding characters are similar with minor differences. Due to the excessive speed of writing, the few numbers do not fully follow the conventional principle of simplicity.
"Caoguai stippling" cannot be avoided, if there is no interpretation. Some characters are really not easy to recognize, such as "predicate" in line 31, "ju" in line 47, "ang" and "teaching" in line 48, "baby" in line 50, "sin (anger)" in line 51, 79 lines The "fear" of the line, the "awake" and other words of the 91 line. is an example. Looking at Tongfa again, the novelty of the whole work is unprecedented. In the first two-thirds of the text, the author is calm and calm, and the pen is fast and fast, with lines but no columns. Unrestrained and unrestrained, it fully shows the simple, transparent, fast and agile temperament of wild cursive calligraphy. On the 12th sheet of white linen paper, on the 105th line of the word "Dai Gong", the character "Dai" suddenly became too large, occupying the width of the previous three and a half lines horizontally, and the length of four to five characters vertically.
The character "Gong" is written smaller and flatter than ordinary characters, forming a strong visual impact. It may be that Huaisu's alcoholic attack has entered the peak of emotional excitement. Up to the last 10 lines, there are no rows and no columns, the streets are paved with stones, and the goddess scatter flowers, swaying them as they please. The image of the drunken monk who "comes mad to lighten the world" comes alive on the paper. It brings readers into the state of intoxication and madness. Using the "three-meter grid" to analyze the plane of each line, it is found that there are 52 vertical lines in the whole line, 63 lines with the top straight and the bottom slanting to the right, and only 4 lines with the top straight and the bottom sloping to the left. Of the 126 lines, 119 lines are numbers written in one stroke, or even a line of characters, while the full line is a single cursive character, only 7 lines. From this, we can draw a standard for dividing wild cursive and modern cursive, that is, the difference between characters and cursive characters. The characters and strokes are connected, and then it is proposed that the study of Kuangcao calligraphy should be based on "lines", breaking the past practice of studying calligraphy and using single characters as units regardless of real cursive. According to this theory, Sanmi Gexing is designed to position itself as a patented product for cursive classic appreciation and temporary writing. This self-reported post by Huai Su, overprinted in Sanmige, provides readers, especially friends who learn cursive script, a tool to interpret classics in a new way. Kuangcao calligraphy is the calligraphy style that can best show the charm of Chinese calligraphy art, and it is also the art form that is most likely to blend with modern art. It can not only meet the aesthetic needs of traditional culture, but also coincide with the mainstream elements of fashion culture, allowing calligraphy lovers to gain nutrition from the appreciation and impromptu writing of cursive calligraphy classics. Finding creative inspiration should be the only way to learn calligraphy.
