There is a 16-character motto to appreciate calligraphy works: "Look at the spirit, look at the composition, look at the words, and look at the pen and ink." Generally speaking, calligraphy works can be divided into five categories. First, fine products, or magical products. The greatest feature of this kind of calligraphy works is high taste, appealing to both refined and popular tastes, just like the statue of Venus and Beethoven's music. No matter how outstanding an artist is, or an old woman selling vegetables, no matter in the hall or in the kitchen, she is impeccable. For example, Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Lanting Pavilion was enlarged and placed in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, which was praised by international friends. It's still very refreshing in a thatched cottage in the country. Second, good products, or fairy products. Most of these calligraphy works are the deliberate works of great artists. One of the characteristics of this kind of calligraphy works is its elegant taste and outstanding personality, but it appeals to both refined and popular tastes. Fairy is different from God. God is supreme, but the gods have their own ways. Barefoot immortals have the style of barefoot immortals, and long-browed immortals have the specialty of long-browed immortals. This kind of calligraphy works are often praised by experts because of their distinctive features, skillful techniques, elegant styles, profound pen and ink skills and no failure, but laymen sometimes can't understand it, so they generally can't appreciate the taste of appealing to both refined and popular tastes. Third, elegant products. Elegant products are man-made, mainly referring to the calligraphy of those literati with profound cultural background. This kind of calligraphy works are characterized by elegant taste, natural and unrestrained brushwork, clever brushwork and no carving. Sometimes there may be one or two failures, but it doesn't hurt. This kind of calligraphy works are subtle in personality, calm in posture, casual in composition, elegant in dictionary and fluent in pen and ink. This kind of calligraphy works are not as good as the immortal works carefully carved by professional painters and painters in terms of momentum, composition, writing, pen and ink, but they are better than the former in terms of emotional expression. Fourth, vulgar goods can also be called commodities. This kind of calligraphy works are characterized by mediocre taste and gorgeous pen and ink. This kind of calligraphy works are mainly of service nature, but as long as the content is appropriate, the writer can sometimes express his personal feelings. Here, I want to remind you that vulgar products are not bad works, but have different tastes, that is to say, different clients. Fifth, miscellaneous goods. Miscellaneous products refer to some calligraphy works that cannot be classified. Some works incorporate words into paintings, and I don't know whether it is words or paintings. For example, write the word "longevity" as a living monkey; The word "dragon" is written in the shape of a dragon, with horns and whiskers and a long tail; When writing the word "tiger", the tiger's head, Tiger Claw and tiger's tail are all integrated into the word, especially the tiger's tail, which is painted realistically with flying white brushwork. (Sun Hao) Extended reading The beauty of neutralization in calligraphy is the most basic element of the composition of calligraphy images. The beauty and ugliness of lines is the most direct basis for people to judge the beauty and ugliness of calligraphy works Throughout ancient and modern calligraphy, lines generally give people three kinds of aesthetic feelings, namely, masculine beauty, feminine beauty and neutral beauty. These abstract lines are either hidden or exposed, or ill or astringent, or straight or curved, or opposite or harmonious, or virtual or real, and so on. * * * isomorphism forms the aesthetic expression of calligraphy lines. The masculine beauty of lines is reflected in the "bone", "strength" and "potential" of lines. Lines are weak without bones, and isolated without strength. "I only seek its strength, and the situation will be self-generated" (Li Shimin's Biography of Wang Xizhi). The masculine beauty of lines gives people a specific concept, such as "strong", "strong", "dense", "strong", "Rowen tiger vibration", "nervous", "a thousand miles of clouds", "long live the withered vine" and "breaking waves and rushing snow". So how is the masculine beauty of lines created? The implementation of specific actions, such as pen exposure, haste, withering, Gu Zhuo, etc. , can lead to the emergence of linear force. The concrete feeling of this kind of strength is a kind of masculine and magnificent sensory feeling, which is simply the result of "bone", "strength" and "potential" formed by decisiveness and speed. The female body of lines is a dull, scattered and quiet artistic conception in the rhyme, taste and interest of lines. It is often evaluated by such words as "Little Three See Yuan", "Ping Ya Yi", "Mei Qing, Wan Li" and "Miao Yan, Fang Shu". For example, "The trace of Zhong Wang, Little Three See Yuan, is beautiful. The formation of the feminine beauty of lines lies in the ability to "lift" with a pen. " "Lifting" and "pressing" are the most basic movements in calligraphy. There is "pressure" in "lifting", which means "pressure" and "pressure" means "lifting", but the emphasis of "lifting" and "pressure" is different, which can create lines with different aesthetic expressions. The masculine beauty and feminine beauty of lines are not diametrically opposed, but dialectical unity, which is reflected in the contradictory unity of brushwork, because perfect works all contain the dialectical unity of contradictory elements such as Song and Straight, Tibetan and Exposed, Square and Round, Discontinuity and Connectivity, Slow and Fast, Dry and Moist, Line and Stay, Illness and Stop, Flat and Edge. Only in this way can we achieve the unity of reason and emotion, and thus achieve a spiritual realm of "peace of mind, no excitement and no persistence, and harmony between God and God". This dialectical unity of lines coincides with the aesthetic ideal of advocating neutrality in Chinese calligraphy aesthetics. Only this kind of calligraphy works composed of neutral lines can be called immortal classics. The model of achieving the ideal realm of the beauty of neutralization is the calligraphy of Jin people, especially Wang Xizhi's calligraphy, which is peaceful and natural, subtle and euphemistic, both rigid and flexible, and perfect, and has always been a model for future generations to learn. The beauty of neutralization has become the most direct terminal feeling standard for judging calligraphy works. The beauty of neutralization lies in the harmony of brushwork, structure and composition. "I don't want to use pen is too fat, fat turbidity; I don't want to be too thin, thin is dry; If you don't want to show your sharpness, you won't care; You can't hide if you don't want to hide in Kwai Kok. I don't want to be big or small, I don't want to be left high and right low, and I don't want to have more before and less after. "This passage in Jiang Baishi's continued book score comprehensively summarizes the neutralization of brushwork, emphasizing the coordination and balance between the opposing sides, fat, revealing, up and down, left and right, how much, so that both sides of the contradiction have restraint, transcend opposition and conflict, and achieve formal unity. When using a pen, you should also pay attention to roundness and smoothness, and you can't show edges and corners. In order to achieve the realm of "wide leisure and round beauty", it is advocated that the pen should converge without indulgence, and that qu and straight, hidden and exposed, square and round, broken and connected, dry and moist, line and stay, illness and astringency, and flat and edge should be unified by opposites. Don't use the pen too fast, too slow, too flat and too horizontal. The beauty of neutralization is manifested in the structure, paying attention to the dialectical unity of density, back-to-back and strangeness. Sun condensed the research results of structural beauty into one sentence, "don't violate it, be harmonious but different", that is, seek unity in opposition and change in unity. If the font is small, the strokes should be elongated, smaller and larger; If the font is large, the strokes are tightened, becoming bigger and smaller; Sparse words, scattered, can turn complex into secret; Dense words should be sparse and sparse, and can be turned sparse. After this treatment, the problems caused by the font itself, such as disparity in size and uneven density, will be eliminated and the overall aesthetic feeling will be harmonious and unified. Composition, that is, the layout method of the whole word, was also called "leaving white space" or "leaving white space" by the ancients. The connotation of the beauty of composition is extremely rich. The neutralization of the beauty of composition is manifested in the coherence of qi and pulse, continuity and disconnection, uniformity and chaos, calling and response, beginning and inheritance, harmony and harmony, beginning and end, text and topic, word spacing and line spacing, and the most important thing is "subject and object" and "reality". In Jie Jin's Miscellaneous Notes on Spring Rain in the Ming Dynasty, he said: "Although all people want goodness in an article, there must be one or two words that reach the peak, such as fish and birds, which make people play and cannot become famous. "What I mean here is that writing a calligraphy always wants to write every word well, which is perfect. But if every word is really "good" and can be seen at a glance, it will lose its artistic charm. Therefore, it is necessary to "have one or two sentences to reach the peak" in composition, such as the dragon in the fish and the phoenix in the bird, which plays a leading role and plays a refreshing role, so that such works can be memorable. In calligraphy, the leading character is called "main character", and the subject and object should be distinct, take care of each other, go with the flow and avoid each other. (Huang Bingzhuang)