1, the combination of practicality and beauty

Chinese characters, as a kind of writing, are tools for recording languages and have many cultural functions in social life. In the history of calligraphy in China, whether it is seal script, official script, regular script, running script or cursive script, whether it is Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, bamboo slips, stone carvings, paper books, whether it is official letters, private letters, classics, manuscripts, etc. Most of them are written for "use" and show a specific purpose.

The practicality of these book traces is very clear, but people pursue to write the word "beauty" in the way of "use". In order to write well, China ancient literati spent a lot of energy and time in their lives to improve their calligraphy level. All kinds of books handed down from ancient China often give people a visual sense of beauty, so the aesthetic value of China's calligraphy exists objectively, which is different from the writing of other national languages in China.

2. Unity of symbolism and concreteness.

Characters are symbols of a recording language. As a kind of writing, Chinese characters are also symbols. The meaning of language symbols is agreed in social life, created for recording language and simplified. There is a fundamental difference between writing symbols and painting: the three elements of writing are form, sound and meaning, and its "form" has definite stippling and structure. The shape of the painting is not as definite as that of Chinese characters, and there is no definite sound when reading it.

As a symbol, the "shape" of Chinese characters does not depict objective things. Chinese characters are arranged according to the rules of language to form words and sentences. The symbolism of Chinese characters determines its fundamental difference from painting. The symbols of Chinese characters are expressed by writing and carving, and certain visual shapes are formed by stippling, structure and composition. Although it is not like anything, it also has a concrete "image", so Chinese characters are concrete.

3. Meaningful forms

Mature Chinese characters are not pictographic, so where is its beauty? Bell, a British aesthete, thinks that art is a "meaningful form". Chinese characters are actually such a "meaningful form". Chinese characters displayed on a certain material with a pen and a knife have a distinct and unique taste.

Especially the movement and rotation of the brush on the paper makes the ink on the paper ever-changing, interesting and meaningful. Therefore, the Chinese characters written by a diligent calligrapher must be exquisite in stippling, structure and composition, and have strong ornamental value. In addition, the written words are often beautiful poems or famous sayings, which makes a calligraphy work show rich and meaningful artistic charm.