However, only in the world of pen calligraphy can there be the names of "pen calligraphy" and "brush calligraphy". In the world of brush calligraphy, just call yourself calligraphy, and politely call the other person "pen calligraphy", otherwise you will call it "pen character", which shows that brush calligraphy is still in an exclusive position in the book world. Even though critics admit the existence of pen calligraphy, they think it must be "attached" to brush calligraphy. How can we get rid of this dilemma of pen calligraphy? There are ways to get rid of it-all kinds of reasons in the world have always been growing all over the mountains according to everyone's needs, waiting for people to benefit, depending on your ability to find them.
pen calligraphers first put forward the concepts of "hard pen" and "soft pen", and then made the pen a member of the hard pen family, and put the brush into the category of soft pen, so there were reasons why pen calligraphy was better than brush calligraphy:
First, ancient calligraphy relied on stone to spread, while the model of casting gold was "hard pen" and the chisel of engraving stone was "hard pen". Although the tablet is not pen calligraphy, it belongs to the legacy of the hard pen family. And because this heritage is an indispensable food for calligraphy today, brush calligraphy must go to the hard pen house for dinner-brush calligraphy is attached to pen calligraphy, just as a son can't live without Laozi.
Two or three thousand years ago, Oracle Bone Inscriptions used a "hard pen", and more than six thousand years ago, the remains of the original characters on painted pottery in Banpo, Xi 'an also used a "hard pen". Therefore, it was originally regarded as the ancestor of brush calligraphy, but it changed into the ancestor of pen calligraphy. If we trace back along the "hard" line, we will gain more. Scholars believe that characters germinate from the footprints of animals, and that calligraphy and characters are produced at the same time. Therefore, it can be said that wolves can hunt down the "hard pen calligraphy" provided by deer's hoofs, which shows that hard pen calligraphy germinated long before human beings. In this way, the long-standing advantage of soft brush calligraphy has been further deprived. Although the soft pen can be "strange", it is not as hard as the hard pen in generations.
However, it is easy to find reasons to refute the "soft" brush calligraphy:
First, ancient calligraphers generally only wrote without engraving. It is a technical job to carve each stippling one by one according to the calligrapher's book trace. This, like "double-hook outline filling", is not a calligraphy art creation. Therefore, the inscription has nothing to do with hard pen calligraphy. It seems that the legacy of the inscription is still named "soft" rather than "hard".
second, deer can leave deer's hoof "hard pen calligraphy" for wolves to hunt, but wolves don't have hard hoofs, so they can also leave "soft pen calligraphy" for deer to avoid! Besides, life on the earth is soft first, and then hard-soft life can crawl in a softer environment and leave "soft pen calligraphy". Even if the characters left on painted pottery in Banpo, Xi 'an are hard-pen calligraphy, who can guarantee that our ancestors did not write budding characters on the stone with their fingers dipped in water before! (The ancestors lived a hard life, so it must be that the nails belonging to the hard pen on their fingers have been polished. In this way, it is still soft pen calligraphy that has a long history.
In fact, it is no longer possible for ancient calligraphers to care about which of the "hard" and "soft" schools comes first, and which one the calligraphy heritage belongs to. The purpose of the argument between the two sides is nothing more than the order of the living calligraphers in the book world. However, I think that the descendants of the "hard" and "soft" families only boast about their ancestors and their heritage-only on family background, not on their own performance, which is the least promising. Since both sides are calligraphers, we should compare them from their own "calligraphy".
what is calligraphy? Zhao Meng? Can tell its true meaning. He said: "there are two ways to learn books: one is brushwork, and the other is glyph." The brushwork is refined, although good is evil; The shape is wonderful, although it is still ripe. Learning books can solve this, and then you can speak books. " "brushwork" is the artistic image of pointing painting itself, which has a historical progress process from primary to advanced, that is, from seal cutting and official brushwork to truth, line and cursive script, the "eight methods" must be observed together. After the Eight Methods, until now, I have never heard that anyone can innovate other brushwork, so Zhao Meng? He also said that "it is not easy to use a pen through the ages." "Glyph" is the artistic image of pointillism organization. In addition to glyphs, there are larger stippling organizational artistic images such as "lines" and "chapters", so I think it is better to use the word "knot" than the word "glyph" to explain the overall situation of the problem.
I realized in my writing practice (please refer to the preface to the Lanting Pavilion in which I dipped my pen in water in the first series of this magazine) that there is no difference in the expressive force of the pen and the brush itself in the aspect of "knot", but there is difference in the expressive force of "brushwork"-strokes. The endless stippling artistic image caused by "brushwork" is, in the final analysis, a change in both form and state. The same shape has changes such as upright, inclined and lying flat, which is the change of stippling "state"; The same state has the changes of length, straightness, Fiona Fang, fatness and thinness, which is the change of stippling "shape". There is no difference between the pen and the brush itself in the expressive force of stippling "state", but there is a difference in stippling "shape" There is no difference in the expressive force between pen and brush itself in terms of the length and shape of stippling; In the aspect of stippling Fiona Fang's "shape", if the bearer of the pen can't make it "soft" from time to time, then its expressive force can't compare with the brush in the hands of calligraphers. If brushwork, knot and brushwork are regarded as equally important, then according to the above analysis, even if the writer can't make the pen "soft", the expressive force of the pen is only one-eighth less than that of the brush, so we have no reason to doubt that the pen can produce "calligraphy art". Besides, pens can actually be "soft", especially those dipped in water. Mr. Wang Jienan, a calligrapher, is especially good at this, so there is almost no difference between pen calligraphy and brush calligraphy under his command, even in the aspects of stippling Fiona Fang and being fat and thin.
There are many reasons for stippling Fiona Fang's image, and the pen movement of square folding and round turning is one of them. Because the brush can be folded and rotated in a square way, and at the same time, it can be lifted and pressed by a large margin, so the turning point can be hidden in the stippling and become the stippling image of Fiona Fang. When I use a pen to turn a corner, if I press it hard, I can't have the ideal Fiona Fang effect, so the image caused by square folding and round turning will be exposed at both ends of pointillism-the image of Fiona Fang in pointillism will be transformed into a straight image. Song Huizong's thin gold book is actually this kind of thing, and its brushwork is also quite strong. Or think that this small twist formed by the turning point in stippling is unnecessary, but I think it is indispensable, because the ancients said that stippling should be "everywhere." Or think that it takes too much time to express these small twists and turns, but I don't think so, because art is not for the purpose of being quick. On a small stage, the actors have to walk for a long time, and the speed is really very slow, because it is too tortuous. However, only when the actors walk tortuous can there be a play to do, and only when the calligraphers can be tortuous can there be considerable brushwork. In calligraphy, if you want to write quickly, the way is not to abandon these twists and turns, but to write some cursive scripts with simplified drawings and turns.
The reason why stippling is fat and thin is the pen movement of lifting and pressing up and down. Because the pen is hard, the change range of stippling is not as good as that of writing brush. The remedies are as follows: First, put more sheets of paper-the pen can't be "soft", so the paper is "soft". Second, press hard-how can a mere pen tip "hard" get past our hands? So the hard pen is also "soft". Pen calligraphy really needs "pen power". On one occasion, Mr. Sha Menghai asked me to make a copy of the speech he was going to give at the Lanting Book Fair for him. Then he said: "I write in brush, even if it takes a long time, my hands will not hurt, but writing in pen will hurt." So I thought: the hand that writes calligraphy will not hurt, so it can be seen that Wang Xizhi's pen power is not "writing hard" as Cai Zhong Lang said; It hurts to write with a pen, because Mr. Wang is used to lifting and pressing the brush, so he uses too much force. If you press with a hard pen, you must write hard, write hard, and write hard. Therefore, if you let Wang Xizhi handle this pen, your hand will also hurt-the pen really needs the author to use some "pen power". Or I think that pen calligraphy should give full play to the advantages of pen, and there is no need to pursue the lifting of brush. I think this is an argument that pen calligraphy is willing to lag behind brush calligraphy. Mr. Wang Jienan has developed a pen that can make a large amount of pressing, so that he can write a calligraphy effect like a brush. I think his efforts are the only way to really give full play to the advantages of the pen.
The expressive force of the pen itself is very close to that of the brush. The question is whether the writer is willing or not to give full play to it. Some people worry that if pen calligraphy is on a par with brush calligraphy, it will inevitably be suspected of "attachment" and lose its meaning of existence. However, I think this good fashion of seeing Si Qi will only make pen calligraphy more meaningful. Brush calligraphy is brilliant and worthy of "attachment". However, what is attached is the calligraphy written by the brush, not all the brush holders. Brush calligraphy without calligraphy is not only unworthy of pen calligraphy, but also has reasons to persuade it to quit the calligraphy stage. Because the hard pen is "hard", it must be easier to master than the soft pen, because the more subtle the "force" is, the higher the sensitivity of the hand is required-holding the hard pen is like a doctor directly feeling the pulse; Playing with a soft pen is like a doctor taking a pulse for a princess through a thread. On the premise of the same writing effect, it is easy for people to avoid difficulties, so pen calligraphy must have more people than brush calligraphy; If pen calligraphy abandons the true meaning of calligraphy and stands still, then under the premise of different writing effects, real calligraphers will certainly advance despite difficulties and leave the so-called pen calligraphy to work hard on brush calligraphy.
The expressive force of the brush is extremely rich. However, if the bearer of the brush doesn't understand the true meaning of calligraphy and is unwilling or unable to give full play to its expressive force, then the stippling of the brush calligraphy becomes the stippling of the ordinary pen calligraphy. This kind of situation is actually quite a lot. The works of Badashanren and Master Hongyi, who are considered to be of high style, are actually like this!
Pen calligraphy and brush calligraphy are almost the same thing, so I hope more brush calligraphers can confidently admit that they are also pen calligraphers. As for calligraphers who regard "the meaning of seal strokes" as the supreme, I hope more such calligraphers can admit that they are actually ordinary pen calligraphers today.